14th Anniversary Stone Brewing Company Festival

This is a few weeks in the making and Amanda wanted me to do it. I just started work again, and the beginning of the school year is hectic and weird. But I have a little time now and I don't want to grade essays yet (but if you want to grade them for me, I can pay you in cookies!)

So a few weeks ago Amanda and I went to San Diego with a few friends to attend the 14th Anniversary Stone Brewing Company Festival. This is one of my favorite breweries and is about 5 miles from where I grew up. Every year they hold a little B-Day party where they get breweries from all over the world and sample beers. You basically get 3 hours and 10 pours(I think they are about 3 oz.). The festival was on the campus of Cal State San Marcos, but the brewery is located about 5 miles east of the school in Escondido. So our day of drinking in the sun began at the brewery. We tried to do a tour of the brewery but it was packed, so we just ate at the brewery...and drank. This place has amazing food! And has an really nice patio garden you can sit in.

Amanda started with some Cider. She orders this fairly often. It is pretty good and not too sweet.

We shared some hummus.

On to lunch!

Beer mac n cheese.

BBQ Boar Ribs!

Duck tacos

Ceviche!

We drank a lot too. I had the Stone IPA, which is fantastic. I have no idea what others had. But they were all good.

On to the fest!

Cheers! Taster glasses.

The first beer I went with was the 14th Anniversary Stone Imperial IPA. Damn was it good!

I love IPA's. I love hoppy beer. I don't know too many people that enjoy them as much as I do. This was pretty fantastic.

I really wanted to pull a scene from Sideways and drink from the bucket...but I didn't. This is me and my good friend Brett and his friend Jen. That is a lot of warm, nasty beer.

One of the best parts was the free food. They had this cheese called Mike's Beer Cheese that they gave samples of. We dominated it. Amazing stuff.

And here is Amanda and I with "Mike." I don't know if this is legitmately the guy who makes it, or just a random gentleman, but he was eager to hug.

What you can't see is that I had just has my bandage taken off my arm and my elbow was super sore. I couldn't bend it. The look on my face is pain. I didn't want to look bad in front of "Mike," so I sucked it up.

The rest of the day was basically going tent to tent to get sample of beer. Some were amazing, so were weird. They had this collaboration beer between Victory, Stone, and Dogfish Head. It was horrible. Like drinking sweaty gym socks. You can't win them all. Here are just more pictures. Some favorite breweries and beers we tasted.

Deadliest Catch fans? This is Captain Sig's brew!

I look nuts because I couldn't bend my right arm.

Amanda is cute.

Now to relate a conversation that happen as we were leaving. None of us were drunk. We actually didn't even drink all 10 pours we were allowed. Amanda and Jen sold a few for $5. But some folks drank too much. As we were leaving, a lovely, drunk young lady had the following conversation with me:

Drunky: Hey, do you have a girlfriend?

Me: Umm, I am married.

Drunky: *shoves me away, moves on to someone else*

It is good to know drunk girls will still hit on me.

So, any beer suggestions? I love trying new, interesting beers. If you have never had Stone, try the Stone Pale Ale or Stone IPA. Or Dogfish Head 60 min or 90 min IPA. Stone also makes Arrogant Bastard Ale which is great. What are you drinking?

Note from Amanda: I am way too excited for pumpkin beer!

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