summer beer camp 2017

For my first beer post I'd like to take you on a retrospective of this last summer's Beer Camp, sponsored by Sierra Nevada, in beautiful Long Beach, by the Queen Mary.

The craft beer festivals are vital, to understand what is happening locally, and across your state (they dont focus too much on out of state beers, but a few do represent). I live near Torrance in the South Bay, and so I was glad to see all 10 of them represented. HopSaint is one of the places I do go to a lot; they are always willing to let you sample as many beers as you want, and they have great food too (I tend not to frequent the breweries that dont serve food but instead invite food trucks outside. Somehow that's just too much trouble.)

2 highlights of the Beer Camp that day for me were the discovery of Beachwood in Long Beach, with their plethora of sour beers (and they sell them all in the larger bottle like the one pictured),

and............one of the best beers Ive ever tasted, Smog City's Bourbon OE. The clear favourite of the day.

The Bourbon OE was part of the "special/limited/one time only/get it now before its gone" rotating tap section. Not really taps though - most of these were bottle pours. And there was a LONG line. A big sacrifice, since all the other booths have virtually no line. But all day of drinking...sorry, TASTING, requires some pacing. There were over 100 breweries represented at the event, and 10 food trucks. Pretzel necklaces were common (note to self, build pretzel necklace). Here is the board showing the "special tasting menu".

All in all, a festival like this would easily be worth $100 for admission (unlimited tastings are free, the food trucks are not). But the tickets go for $40-80. I'll be there again next year.