Long Beach Craft Beer Festival

Unlimited beer tasting from over 40 vendors?!Yes please! I came here with another person for this festival. We went on the Saturday at 1pm to score those VIP tickets to score an hour earlier of first dibs on beer. We were given a lanyard that said VIP on it, wristbands, and a cute little beer cup for our tasting. When I entered, I was surprise of the organization of the event. It took placed at CSULB's Jack Rose Track and Field that is located conveniently right in front of the parking structure. The vendors set up around the track so it was easy to make your way around to all the vendors. In the middle of the track on the field was the DJ spinning some good music and some games to play. There were food trucks off in one of the corners.We went straight to get something to eat first since we hadn't eaten anything. I ended up trying Naple's Rib Company and had some of their Brisketini, Baby Back Ribs, and Louisiana Hot Sausage Bites. I love that the tickets gave you a discount for $5 off $20 of food. Once we ate, we made our round. My favorite was Coedo Brewery which had some 9% Japanese beer. I was very good. There were some non beer vendors that were giving out samples as well. After we were feeling good from our drinks, we went in the field to play with games. There was fuse ball, jenga and some throwing games. I had a lot of fun at this event and cannot wait until next year when they do it again. It's very worth the money if you love beer and you are sure to have fun.

1st annual Long Beach Craft Beer Festival.....Hmm....whenever it's the 1st time of anything, I was a super skeptic. Sure enough, there were a few hiccups along the way. 1)There needs to be more signs-If you park in the structure, you have to walk backwards to will call to get your tickets by the tables only to be told you have to walk a little more to the box office tables. They had scan my ID for age verification, and of course when I had to redeem my tickets at the table for an lanyard, they wanted to scan my ID again. Seriously, there needed to be some kind of order as everyone there needed something to do. 2)The track needed to be open-First of all, the breweries were located on the outside of the track. The oval shaped track that they made you walk around to get to the other side. How was that for VIP? The band playing in the middle of the track and the human fuseball were great ideas, but can we please have it open so people can feel like VIP to get to the other side? 3)2 ounce pours-Well, no really a complaint since there weren't that many people here and even though I think 2 ounce pours were a little ridiculous at first, it wasn't too bad not having to wait. So anyways, if those three items are thought about for the following year, I think a second or 3rd annual would work well. Shout out to 97.1 for playing their tunes, though I would've loved it if you can hear the music throughout. I think the organizers would've done better if we couldn't had the event inside of the track. Big thanks to YelpOC for the tickets, really did enjoy myself and especially Coedo's black lager Shikkoku and the Plum flavored Tsuyu Saison. The Lost Abbey's Track #10 bat out of hell was ridiculously good also the framboise de amorosa wasn't bad. Phamtom Carriage had Broadacres Berliner. Smog city brought my favorite Coffee Porter and of Belching Beaver brought they PB Stout. There were many other smaller breweries, many I haven't heard of, which was one of the selling points for this event. Besides those hiccups above, I enjoyed the event truly and think if they had more publicity and food trucks, it would certainly be a great beer festival. The little Dasani water and having the volunteers rinse your glass was a nice touch.(Oh, parking on the weekends can be done on the other side of Atherton for free if you're willing to walk)

Please please please bring this back next year! This event was so much fun AND surprisingly perfectly relaxing for a fall southern California day. The short:- AWESOME BEERS served by WONDERFUL PEOPLE- Free water at every corner- No lines!- Something for everyone- 50ish vendors x 2 samples x 2 ounce pours = 200 ounces of beerGetting to the event was a breeze since we just took an Uber. However, the address listed does not take you to the pyramid and this should probably be stated somewhere... But once we get there it was easy to get our tickets, check-in and then walk over to the track. I love that the booths were around the track and were so spread out! This definitely helped with the crowding (there was none) and the walking helped the digestion of all the beer being consumed! 2 ounce pours are perfect if you're trying to taste every single beer from every single booth AND if each booth had about two different samples.. that's a lot of beer. The center was open for anyone to go in and play human sized foosball, giant Jenga, and corn hole as well as sit on the grass or tables provided and listen to the entertainment. I think maybe there should be a walkway right through the center so you can get from one side to another easily. There were a few food options and samples such as chips, chocolate, pickles and the Belly Bombz truck, Legends, etc. I was hoping there would be more, but glad that we ate beforehand. Belly Bombz fries would have been the perfect option to soak up any beer though! Also ***FREE WATER*** at every corner! This was awesome. (& some coconut water/juice samples too!)On to the beers: THERE WERE SO MANY OPTIONS that I ended up getting mostly the sours, stouts, porters, ciders, and kombucha the first time around since I knew that I might have gotten too full. My favorites that I can remember.. include: Belching Beaver's Peanut Butter Stout (of course!!), Maui Brewing Co's Coconut Porter, Barley Forge The Patsy, Coedo's Tsuyu Saison (plum!), Julian Cider's Apple Pie, Phantom Carriage's Stranger something Sour, La Quinta's Sour (the person here was so nice!!), The Lost Abbey sour cider, and so many other good beers that I can't remember.My boyfriend and friends are into IPAs and they said that the beers they were trying were amazing. I love that there were both smaller breweries and well known breweries as well. Pretty sure my boyfriend went back to Stone a couple of times after the first walkaround. Stopped serving at 4:55PM, sad because my friends wanted one more sample and weren't able to get it.

Thank you to OC Yelp for the awesome tickets to this festival!! The pick up for my will call tickets were a breeze! Also, there were lots of people to check my ID, and my wristband and my landyard were waiting for me at the table behind! There were so many tents to try... I just started at the closest one to the entrance gate and worked my way around clockwise! Some new breweries and some I've already tried. All super friendly and very informative. My favorite breweries were Belmont brewing and their strawberry blonde, Belching Beaver had a delicious peanut butter stout and Four Sons Brewing Co. had their award winning coconut amber!!! Yum!!! In my opinion the VIP isn't really worth the money. All the tents were easily accessible, the lines weren't a problem and there was plenty of time to hit up all the tents.I loved the venue for this festival! Plenty of room to move about. Also, in case you got bored,(as if)Games were provided for entertainment, like corn hole and life size foozeball! Super fun! There was also a stage with live bands playing throughout the event. They even provided bottle water for everyone! Plenty of locations to stop and grab! Overall, I had a great time here! Drinks were amazing! The lunch trucks had great food and everyone was super friendly! Definitely worth checking out!

What is better than wine tasting you ask? Beer tasting! So great to have the opportunity to taste and compare so many options! Each booth had at least 2 beers too chose from so I had to take a tour of the whole track, stop where the food trucks were and then come back and tried more beers! Some were really good, my favorite was Hops On Pointe - Champagne Pilsner, the least favorite was the alcohol Kombucha. Belching Beaver was good too, plus I can't have a conversation about beer without mentioning this name again! What I didn't like was that the box office both and the wrist band tables were too far from the entrance. The parking was hard to find, there were no signs for the festival on the campus. Also, a lot of booths had volunteers (local students) only, no one from the actual brewery was there so it was herd to get any info sometimes. But you know I'll be back next year, heck yeah!