Ah, Spring! The earth begins to awaken from its cold, wintery slumber. If you take the time to look around you, the signs are evident: the ichiness in your eyes and runny nose, the landscaping that has run amok with weeds and knee-high grass, and the growing wave of “OHHHHHHH!” as someone drops their commemorative tasting glass. Yes folks, spring is here and as the warmer weather begets the packing away of down comforters and bulky winter wear, so does it to herald the arrival of Beer Festival Season.
With SF Beer Week and the Fairfax Brewfest already under our belts, we don’t wait for spring to show up to go and grab a beer. It will be nearly impossible to keep track of all the beer festivals that happen. There’s just too many and I’m not really in the business of listing them all, just the ones I plan (or have a good chance of) attending. That being said, here are the upcoming festivals for March & April (that I know of):
Battle of the Brews
March 27, 2009 (Friday) @ 5:30pm – 10pm
Grace Pavilion (Sonoma County Fairgrounds), 220 Temelec CircleTemelec Hall, Sonoma Santa Rosa, CA 95476 (approximate location) map
$45 for entire event/$25 music only (8pm)
This is a beer festival with a distinct local flavor: lots of local breweries and local food. This festival has around 30 participating breweries so there should be plenty of beer to go around.
6th Annual Firkin Gravity Festival
April 4, 2009 (Saturday) @ 11am
Triple Rock Brewing Company, 1920 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94704 map
$20 admission: you get 6 oz taster glass, 6 one oz pours, 1 full pour/$1 per additional ticket or 6 for $5.
All cask-conditioned beers. If you don’t know that that is, read more here and here. I recommend you get there early as they tend to limit the amount of people in the brewpub at any given time. Last year, we ended up waiting in line for about 30 minutes.
Hop Rhizome Festival
April 11, 2009 (Saturday) @ open to close, I think.
The Bistro, 1001 B Street, Hayward, CA 94541 map
FREE (you gotta pay for your own beers and rhizomes though)
Well known as a hop lovers bar, the Bistro continues is love affair with hops by encouraging people to grow their own. In addition to having a fantastic line up of hop forward ales, they’ll also have hop rhizomes (basically hop roots) for sale for those aspiring hop afficionados. These are vine-like plants and once the hops cones come in, they’re actually very beautiful. I’ll already have one hop plant in the ground but will be looking to add to my private “hop yard”. Check this link out for what rhizomes look like and for what fresh hops look like.
San Francisco International Beer Festival
April 25, 2009 (Saturday) @ 7-10pm.
San Francisco International Beer Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA map
$60 admission (SOLD OUT)
Over 300 beers from all around the world and some of San Francisco’s finest cuisine will be on display at this festival. Proceeds from this event will benefit teaching and learning programs at the Telegraph Hill Cooperative Nursery School. I’ve heard mixed things about this festival. The 3 hour festival time seems awfully short and another blogger I respect who attended last year basically said the festival was one, giant, drunk fest. Still, this thing sells out every year so there must be something to it.
If there’s a festival that I forgot about please let me know and I’ll be happy to update this post. Similarly, if you’re a festival organizer and would like to send me your festival info to post, either leave me a comment or email me at betterbeerblogATgmailDOTcom.
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Battle of the Brews is in Santa Rosa, not Sonoma.