This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to visit a brewery for the first time and also to attend an event for the first time! For the past five years, Left Coast Brewing Company has hosted the San Clemente Micro-Brew Festival. This event supports a fantastic cause, Welcome Home Military Events which are put on by the San Clemente Chamber of Commerce. The event was held in the parking lot of Left Cost Brewing Company and had a great variety of beers to sample. There were two tickets available for festival attendees, VIP allowed guests to enter the festival one hour early, which is a great idea. Being able to enter the event an hour early made it easy to sample both new beers as well as old favorites. Admission to the Micro-Brew Festival included 12 four ounce pours, which was more than enough. The festival was five hours for VIP ticket holders and four hours for general admission ticket holders. This was an ample amount of time to sample beers as well as to have time to chat with friends. I like events where I don't feel rushed to try super popular beers which may result in a huge line.
Breweries that attended this year included:
Along with delicious beers, three food trucks also brought yummy food for attendees to sample throughout the event. Food trucks that attended included:
The San Clemente Micro-Brew Festival was very well organized, the check in process was very smooth and I loved how they included a list of the breweries along with their beers they would be pouring as you entered. Although the weather was overcast, and actually started to rain a short while after general admission ticket holders were admitted, I'd rather have a cloudy day for a beer fest than a super hot day!
I had a fantastic time at the San Clemente Micro-Brew Festival. I loved that there were breweries that I had sampled before as well as ones that I hadn't tried yet. Everyone was very happy and eager to talk about their beers. I also enjoyed that the crowd was super mellow.