The Bay Area Brew Fest
By: Nate Gartrell
If you’ve ever dreamed about being able to kick back and enjoy unlimited amounts of some of the best beer California has to offer, that’s exactly what the Bay Area Brew Festival is known for. Now in its ninth year, the San Francisco-based festival brings together great beer and food from breweries and restaurants of all sizes, from all over the area.
The Bay Area Brew Fest is one of Northern California’s biggest annual celebrations of beer, a one-day event held on March 23rd. It will feature more than 200 beers and hard ciders from 70 breweries big and small, from all over the West Coast. There will also be a food truck alley featuring some of the best food trucks in the country, a DJ, piano bar, photo booth, and other fun features and activities.
Although it’s an annual event, this year’s March date is barely six months after the last Bay Area Beer Fest, which was held in August. Organizer Drink Eat Play, a Los Angeles-based event production company, is known for putting together exciting events all over the country, like the ’80s and ’90s Prom, and celebration events for everything from bacon to cupcakes to The Great Gatsby. However, Drink Eat Play is best known for its beer festivals, and it came to the Bay Area in 2010 after a successful series of similar events in Los Angeles and Orange County.
Drink Eat Play said their events draw up to 15,000 attendees, a majority of which are returning customers. This year should be no exception as we understand that this event has sold out several years in a row, attracting thousands to this festival at Fisherman’s Wharf.
A lot of brew festivals will give attendees a limit on how many times their mugs can be filled for free as part of the admission fee. But the Bay Area Beer Fest does things a bit differently. The festival is broken up into two sessions: the first is about four hours long, beginning at noon and ending in the early afternoon; a second three-hour session starts after 5 p.m. Anyone who buys a ticket can attend one of the two sessions and can help themselves to as much beer as they like for as long as they attend.
Folks who buy VIP tickets get all this plus an extra hour of admission. VIP attendees will also be allowed to taste exclusive specialty beers poured during the first hour of the session. Food is sold separately at a Food Truck Alley that will feature all sorts of hearty treats like pretzels, pizza, burgers, and vegetarian dishes. Food Truck Alley will be available to everyone who attends, and will heavily emphasize food trucks from San Francisco.
Featured breweries at the festival are not limited to the immediate Bay Area, or even California in general for that matter, but there will be many to choose from. You can find beer from the well-known Hop Valley Brewing Company and the Ninkasi Brewing Company, both based in Eugene, Oregon. Other popular featured breweries include Lagunitas from Petaluma and Drake’s from San Leandro — two Bay Area hotspots that have gained huge followings and feature a range of traditional and artisan IPAs, sours, pilsners, and more. Ace Cider, based in Sebastopol, will also have a booth at the event featuring (among other things) the apple and pear ciders that have given the Ace Cider name recognition all over the state.
But the Bay Area Brew Fest is based on good, quality beer, not just name recognition, and for that reason has also opened its doors to lesser-known, small-scale breweries. Among those is the Concord-based Epidemic Ales, a small brewery and taproom with a crew of less than 10, who began brewing as a hobby before taking part in the craft full time. Epidemic’s beers have apocalyptic names, like “World’s End” and “Red Plague,” and its creators boast that their tastes will jump out at you even among the hundreds of different selections in the area’s densely populated microbreweries. There is also Shadow Puppet from Livermore, a small, locally-owned brewery that features 17 different selections and has gotten the attention of media and “Top 10” lists throughout the region. In the area of hard cider, Richmond, California’s Far West Cider Company is small and family owned with a taproom tucked away near Pt. Richmond that is open for limited hours five days a week — and has become a favorite within the local scene.
In trying to use the event to do good in the local community, the Brew Fest’s organizers have partnered with Copper’s Dream Animal Rescue, a San Francisco-based all-breed dog rescue that works with local animal foster homes to adopt out dogs of all ages. Its name comes from a Cocker Spaniel named Copper, a childhood dog of co-founder Jennifer Wang that lived well past its 15th birthday. Part of the proceeds from the Brew Fest will go toward helping the dog rescue nonprofit, which says its main objective is to drastically reduce animal euthanasia.
The Bay Area Brew Festival will take place on March 23rd, at Pier 35 on Fisherman’s Wharf, 1454 The Embarcadero in San Francisco. The first session begins at noon and goes till 4 p.m., and the second session is from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tickets are NOT sold at the door, except for designated driver tickets that can be purchased for $20, but folks who buy them will be kicked out if they’re seen drinking. Regular and VIP ticket prices range from $45 to $60 and can be purchased at eventbrite.com by searching the site for “Bay Area Brew Festival.” Per regulations from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, or ABC, the event is 21 and up. Pets are not allowed, and the event will be held rain or shine. For additional information, visit bayareabrewfestival.com and like the festival’s Facebook page to follow them for updates at facebook.com/bayareabrewfestival.
Nate Gartrell grew up in Benicia, studied journalism in college, and has written for a handful of media outlets since age 15. He aspires to visit all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums and to hit the trifecta at the horse track.
