This time around the confab centered around local craft beer with Alesmith, Ballast Point, Green Flash, Lightning, Lost Abbey, and Stone Brewing offering up beers to be paired with foods ranging from aged and grilled pork bellies to stout ice cream.

Molly and I went to the event as guests of Jon and Mindy from Brewery Tours of San Diego, but we carpooled with Lost Abbey’s Tomme Arthur and Mike Rodriguez as well as Mike’s wife, Michelle, so we could visit The Neighborhood, a local gastropub, in advance of the event. (A great beer selection from all the local breweries.)

Following our visit to The Neighborhood we strolled back to the Stingaree, met up with Jon and Mindy, and headed to the party on the roof.

The Stingaree, which is just a couple blocks from Petco Park in downtown San Diego, offers a really hipster atmosphere and decor, and the rooftop bar / patio is a spectacular place to watch the sunset. Naturally, the food, beer and people were all exceptional. Here’s a photo gallery of the evening’s events:
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And thanks again to Jon and Mindy for inviting us!

Birthday boy Tony and girlfriend, Carmen

1. Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey | 155 Mata Way, Suite 104, San Marcos, CA 92069
   www.lostabbey.com | Google Maps

   This was our launch point. (10 am on a Sunday — no easy launch). We ambushed Tony here and did a little pre-drinking prior to getting on the bus and heading south.

2. Blind Lady Ale House | 3416 Adams Ave, San Diego, CA 92116
   www.blindladyalehouse.com‎ | Google Maps

   Excellent atmosphere, tap list and food. (I had some sort of fresh olive dish and mussels; both of which were delicious. The pizza is outstanding too.) Former Stone Brewing brewer Lee Chase and wife Jen are the proprietors, so you know they’ve got lots of great local brews on tap. We had such a great time there we were able to convince Lee to grab his skateboard and hop on our bus to the next couple of stops down 30th street.

3. Hamilton’s Tavern | 1521 30th St, San Diego, CA‎ 92102
   www.hamiltonstavern.com | Google Maps

   Hamilton’s is a local legend — a great craft beer tavern with a “dive bar” atmosphere. A huge tap list of local and not-so-local craft brews, and a crowd that’s always ready for another round. We’ve been here a number of times and always enjoyed ourselves.

4. Toronado San Diego | 4026 30th St, San Diego, CA 92104-2602
   www.toronadosd.com | Google Maps

   The southern sister to San Francisco’s Toronado, this was actually a re-scheduled stop. We had intended to go to another bar (less big beer, more English stuff as a nod to the birthday boy and a couple of guests), but that got over-ruled and we ended up backtracking up 30th street to the Toronado. Naturally, it has a great tap list (and less scary restrooms than its SF sibling), so somehow we ended up hitting bottles of Cable Car and Toronado 20th in addition to all the other stuff we were drinking. (Things start getting fuzzy here.) This is also where Lee Chase parted ways with us, grabbing his skateboard and rolling back up 30th to the Blind Lady.

5. Tap Room (Pacific Beach) | 1269 Garnet Ave, San Diego, CA 92109
   www.sdtaproom.com | Google Maps
   Our final stop, the Tap Room is a couple of blocks from the beach in an are of San Diego known as Pacific Beach. Open and airy, they’ve got an outdoor bar where you can sit and watch San Diego’s beach culture ride by. (Many of them stop and have a pint too.) Again, a great tap list full of local craft brews and an atmosphere that pretty much demands you stop and enjoy at least 3 or 4 leisurely pints. (Can’t wait to get back here again.)

By the time we rolled out of the Tap Room (and I do mean some of us were rolled), it was closing on 6pm. Thankfully we were at least half an hour from our original rendezvous point back at Lost Abbey, so many were able to grab a quick nap. And the really hardcore professionals were able to grab another pint on the bus.

After drop off in the brewery parking lot (and a couple of people being shoveled into taxis), I’m happy to say that other than a phone, a backpack, and a few billion braincells, nothing else was lost on our adventure.

All-in-all, not a bad birthday party. Happy birthday, again, Tony. Hope you have 50 more. For anyone visiting from out of town, I highly recommend each one of the stop we made… Just get someone like brewery tours of San Diego to drive you.

And for those of you who’d like a visual accounting of the entire thing, here’s a photo album (I’ll get around to commenting on the photos some other time):

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PS: Thanks to Ivan Derezin of Churchills. Even though he could attend (his loss), he ponied up for a part of the cost of the bus. A very cool gesture indeed.

Matt Dolman

A resident of Northern San Diego County and a frequent fixture at Stone Brewing Co., we often see Matt as he drops by The Lost Abbey for a quick pint when he’s on a “Home Depot run.” (Check him out at the end of The Lost Abbey’s GABF video to find out what that means.) Omnivorous when it comes to beer styles, you’re as likely to find him drinking a local double IPA as you are a rare Belgian Dubbel.

Matt fills our Foreign Correspondent slot because he likes to travel and drink. You’ll note that he’s very fond of pictures of himself.

You can email Matt at “matt (at) mybeerpix.com.

Damian and Lona Mongomery

Damian and Lona Montgomery, East Coast Bureau Chiefs
Husband and wife team Damian and Lona are our newest contributors to the blog.

Up until a couple of weeks ago they used to live here in San Diego County. Damian worked at The Lost Abbey where he came to fame on the cover of Celebrator magazine as the well-dressed guy in the middle (leading many people to ask “Tomme Arthur is black?”). Lona is a powerful up and comer at Geico Insurance where she works with cavemen and lizards.

Lona recently received a promotion from the Big Lizard himself and the couple has relocated to Fredericksburg, Maryland where they now act as our official East Coast Bureau chiefs covering all the beer from Florida to Nova Scotia.

You’ll find their posts listed under “McNairs”. (If you want to know why, ask them. It’s a good story.)

They can be contacted at: damian-lona (at) mybeerpix.com

Adam Tillotson

Located here in San Diego, by virtue of his job as an HVAC contractor (feel free to ask him about air conditioning) he gets to travel all over the county on jobs. Conveniently nearly all of these jobs are located near breweries/brewpubs/bars, so Adam often pops in to give us a visual update of what’s on tap in the region (and beyond when he travels).

For a guy that’s well over 6 feet tall, many find Adam’s fondness for tiny things (hats, glasses, dogs, etc.) interesting. But beer isn’t one of them. For him, the bigger the better. You’ll find him gravitating to beers like double IPAs and imperial stouts as well as a lot of barrel-aged rarities.

You can email Adam at: adam (at) mybeerpix.com

(Ladies: Adam is single, earns a six figure salary and has a yacht.)

How much is too much?
This year’s crowds were huge. Uncomfortably so in my opinion. The noise alone forced you to shout at the person standing next to you, and on some aisles (particularly the Pizza Port / Lost Abbey / Russian River row), the press of humanity was a little too much to bear.

Record crowds at the 2008 GABF

I happened to be lucky because my brewer’s pass allowed me to skip the lines and go behind the tables to get a taster, but even then the brewfolk in their booths were so busy it was near impossible to have even a short conversation.

Additionally, I noticed a rise in the number of what I’d called “beerfest fratboys” — guys that weren’t there to experience the beer, but to wear goofy hats, get plowed and generally act like jackasses.

I have nothing against these guys when they’re doing that at home, but when they’re at GABF all asses and elbows and demanding “whatever the strongest stuff you got,” I think its insulting the brewers and real beer enthusiasts.

Anybody want more peanut shells in their beer?

Mad scientist nee brewer
Here in San Diego big ales and high ABVs dominate the beer scene. And while our local guys are no slouches when it comes to pushing the boundaries of beer, I was surprised to see the breadth and variety of suds brewers around the country were making.

Like banana in your bock? Someone’s got it. Roasted lime leaf lager? Check. Peanut butter beer? Oh yeah, somebody got jelly? Salt and sour pils? That was there too. Fact is, if you could dream it, it was probably in one of the 2,000 or so beers on the show floor.

Sure, standard American lagers and pale ales still dominated most of the taps, but I thought it was impressive how many folk were willing to brew outside the box (admittedly to varying rates of success).

Beyond convention
The best times we had at GABF weren’t actually at the convention center, but at the enormous number of brew pubs and beer bars within walking distance.

Many of these hosted receptions or special parties where we got to talk to brewers and fellow craft beer lovers in more relaxed settings. Great Divide, Breckenridge, SandLot and Wynkoop all played host to some really fun celebrations (as did Flying Dog and a couple of others we didn’t get a chance to attend), but if you wanted to be where all the cool kids were – including your favorite brewers – Falling Rock was the place to be.

Falling Rock was almost better than the GABF itself

Time and time again we found ourselves back there sampling all kinds of beer and chatting with friends new and old. Better yet, aways from the madness of the GABF show floor people could actually sit back and have a conversation about beer, whiskey, life and whatever else interested them.

Okay, enough babbling, time for pics. Here you go: