Cali Folk - I Need Your Help/Advice

I'm really up for whatever will be easiest. Additionally, is there any spot in the Coliseum that we should try to get tickets for? Or more importantly, spots we should avoid?

 

Awesome, thanks!

 

Any RS members going to go to the new tasting room Sneak Preview on Tuesday night? I'm thinking about trying to work that into the schedule now...

 

Do you think it will fill up? I ask because I'd hate to grab tickets and then not use them.

EDIT: Nevermind. That didn't last long. Oh well, maybe I'll try to stop by on Wednesday afternoon.

 

I think the new plan is to go to Toronado after the baseball game on Sunday (probably depending on how far along the bottle share is - if the baseball game gets over early-ish and you guys are still going strong, we'll probably swing over). Some other folks from the Bay Area Tasting are planning on swinging by afterwards as well. You're obviously more than welcome to join!

 

So I just wanted to thank everyone Ben and I met along our trip, as well as all who chimed in with your thoughts and advice. The trip could not have been better! Honestly, it somehow turned out even better than I expected!

Special thanks go out to:

• leschkie for not only letting us crash at his place while we were in the Bay Area but also hosting an awesome bottle share,
• Beerdy for hosting an impromptu tasting specifically to open a DDG for me because I'd never had it, and
• BdubleEdubleRUN (and wife, who put out an amazing spread) for hosting an incredible San Diego bottle share and allowing me to bring way too many friends along with me (who all had a GREAT time, btw!)

Later this week I plan on going back through all of my facebook and untappd check-ins and compiling some stats about the trip (which I will post here), so keep an eye out for that, if you're interested. Will probably also post some pictures (maybe in the "Post a pic of your latest tasting" thread) of some of the bottle sharing and brewery visits.

One little nugget to whet your appetite: we tracked the mileage on our rental car from the moment we picked it up in SFO to the time we dropped it off in SD, with the final total coming out to 1207 miles! Not bad for a week's work

 

Alright, as promised, I compiled some stats and things from the trip. First, the ticker stats:

• 74 new beers tried
• 12 breweries visited
• 3 brewery tours
• Had never had Gratitude before (live less than an hour and a half from the brewery) and got to try two different vintages on this trip (thanks again Kurtis and Brett!)
• 6 other beer-centric establishments visited (they weren't all bars necessarily, so I didn't want to call them that)
• 17 new BAs met, all of whom were truly awesome to hang with!
• 4 separate bottle shares attended
• 117 different beers tried between tastings and brewery/pub visits

Baseball stats:

• Home teams were 4-1 (damn Padres!)
• In the first game, Jay Bruce dropped what looked like an easy fly ball to give the Giants a walk off win in the 9th inning
• We were late to the Red Sox/A's game due to an awesome bottle share at BeerRev (arrive in the top of the 2nd inning) and only saw Dice-K throw four pitches before being yanked
• The Dodgers/Reds game lasted only 2 hours, 24 minutes
• 27 of the 46 runs scored in the games we went to were scored in the final two games
• Arroldis Chapman threw the final pitch of the week 102 mph
• This is what it looked like in slow-motion:

Random facts:

• We didn't make it to the beach until midnight the night before we left, and the only reason we went was because we felt bad we never made it to the beach and it was a mile away from Pizza Port
• We only used public transportation one day of the entire trip (aside from flying, I suppose)
• I purchased 9 new hats on the trip (one at each stadium, four from assorted breweries)
• This was my favorite one:

And pictures of the final lineups for both bottle shares:




I think the best part of the trip is the knowledge that I could do the same baseball trip next year and not go to a single repeat brewery/pub and still have a fantastic time! Not gonna lie, I'm a little jelly of you all out there on the west coast! Thanks again to everyone who contributed to our trip!

 

Unfortunately no, we were thrown a bit of a curveball (see what I did there? ) on Tuesday when Ben's uncle told us he was throwing us a welcoming party with some of his friends from the neighborhood, so we dead-headed to LA straight from Firestone Walker.