Hi BA Friends, I wanted to let you know (a bit late) that the first OC Beer Week starts on June 10th and runs until June 17th. This is organized by the OC Brewers Guild. We currently have 50 events scheduled, with more to follow. It's shaping up to be a fun week-- hope to see you at some events! More info at http://www.beeradvocate.com/events/info/80146/ and http://www.ocbeerweek.org/ Cheers, Patrick OC Brewers Guild & The Bruery
Good stuff, excited for Nobles first can: Noble x Cellarmaker “Dank You for Being a Friend” Double IPA Can Release
At long last, the OC Beer Week the county deserves. The LA Times had a nice little article on it: http://www.latimes.com/socal/weekend/news/tn-wknd-et-sarah-bennett-20160604-story.html
Sorry, I don't believe we'll have a comprehensive list before the festival. Here's a list I have from a few breweries (not a complete list from those breweries, but some teasers, copied and pasted from a press release): — Anaheim-based Noble Ale Works, recently crowned World Beer Cup 2016 Champion Brewery and Brewmaster, will be pouring all three of their World Beer Cup winners: “I Love It” IPA, “Gosebusters”, and “Nobility”. — Anaheim-based Bottle Logic Brewing will be pouring their “Fundamental Observation”, a barrel aged imperial stout with vanilla beans, which is currently ranked the 24th best beer in the world by BeerAdvocate.com. — Fullerton-based Bootleggers Brewery will be pouring "Fuzzy Ninja", a Black IPA, a 2016 silver medal winner at the Los Angeles International Beer Competition and bronze medal winner at the San Diego International Beer Competition. — Costa Mesa-based Barley Forge will be bringing a brand new offering, “Le Gard Pas”, a biere de mars, as well as “One Louder”, a Double IPA featuring Nelson Sauvin hops. — Santa Ana-based The Good Beer Co. is pouring “Orieta”, a dry hopped gose-style beer with lemon and lime zest, as well as special pours from three liter bottles. — Placentia-based The Bruery will be pouring “Black Tuesday”, a 19.9% ABV bourbon barrel aged imperial stout. I think Bottle Logic announced some other beers as well on their Facebook page. It'll be a fun time, I promise! Cheers, Patrick
Thanks Patrick! I already bought tickets for me and a buddy, I was just curious what we could look forward too. We'll see ya there.
Looks like I'll be doing OC back to back nights for the BL tap takeover followed by the Noble/Cellarmaker IPA release
How was today's festival? Sounded like a solid inaugural event and I really wanted to make it out but spent 13 hours in line for cans of IPA.
It was a damn fine festival, probably one of the better ones I've been to. The arboretum was a great venue, not too crowded and I didn't really have to wait that long to get a pour. Surprisingly Bottle Logic was still pouring FO and FF up until the end of the event, after the initial rush of people the line for the was that long. I kept coming back for "Dark Forces," a blend of Fundamental Forces and Darkstar November. I also dug the offerings from Chapman and Unsung. As for the food there was a great selection of small bites to choose from. Pizza, sliders, ceviche, they were all tasty. It was definitely worth the price of admission. My only gripe is with the organization/preparation. I wish we knew the list of beers being poured beforehand, the map given out was pretty pointless and how the line was set up was a bit chaotic. About ten minutes before they let people in to the venue itself they had people check in first and it just devolved into a mass of people crowding around one another waiting to be let in. The main line itself could've used some controlling. I was up near the front but it looked like it spilled into the parking lot. Someone should've been there to help kept it on the sidewalk but now I'm getting into nitpicking territory. It's the first ever fest and it went off great.
Double spot on. Except for what was mentioned, everything else ran smoothly, despite the event being sold out. Besides FO and its variations, thot the beer of the night was Fuzzy BBLS by Bruery Terreux (was nice to see a separate booth). The grub was very good. My vote went to Working Class Kitchen of Long Beach. One humungoid line for WCK but that sausage sandy with a blend of three different sausages was killer. Being at the Fullerton Arboretum, it seemed like everyone I knew from North OC showed up. Damn enjoyable evening.
Awesome fest. I thought it was well organized and the venue was fun to explore. My favorites were four sons saccher punch (amazing blueberry sour), riip supercali ipa, fundamemtal forces, black tuesday, fuzzy bbls. The different homebrew booths were great too. Also the free food was a huge plus. Cant wait for the next one.
Agree with everyone above although I didn't experience the same gripes with organization/prep. The GF and I both agreed that it was fun going into the festival not knowing what to expect from the tap-list so no gripes there Beers: We were both pretty surprised by Valiant. I loved the marshmallow/coffee bomb and the GF loved the silly straw sour. FO and the variants were great, no major line there which was a surprise. Good Beer brought some excellent sours. Fuzzy BBL's was delicious and overall we found nice surprises at almost every booth with passionate brewers/volunteers. Food/Atmosphere: The venue was perfect and the weather couldn't have been better. Seriously top notch for a beer festival and it wasn't overly crowded, I think the max wait time for any beer was <7 minutes. Everything for the most part was 1 minute or less. The food was BOMB and we thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of the festival as it was delicious and also gave us time to sober up Overall one of the best beer festivals I've been to in a while. Cheers to the OC Brewers Guild, volunteers, brewers, and everyone involved. Looking forward to next years festival!
Awesome event, I definitely hit a max of FO/FF/DF. Awesome stuff, Good Beer had some great offerings especially that 3L of Nectarine Oro. Chapman came out strong, but that one tent called 3 Chiefs surprised me the most. Really killer stuff there. Great event, great music, cool chats with brewers, weather was perfect. I just hope it's stays the same size and caliber next year.
