Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest

Four years on and I still want to keep coming back. So they must be doing something right!
Actually, each year has consistently better than the last in small degrees. Which is great to be able to observe small tweaks, like better and more food options, vendors actually having food all day, instead of the first hour only.
The breweries this place brings in… easily some of the best most sought after in the country, year on year. And better yet, each brewery makes an obvious effort to bring rare, one-​off, and experimental beers so it’s always an experience.
The fairgrounds are always clean and they have had sponsored water stations the last two years, and this year it was chilled! Whee!!!
The live music is always way too loud, but the quality of the bands has improved, though I hate tasting beers in the band area as I just feel I am going deaf! Turn it down, please!
Firestone Walker is a brewery I really like and am so proud their in my area, and the fact the go to all this effort for the Pioneer Days folks makes me love them even more.
It’s really hard, and only getting harder, to get tickets, but if you can score some, it’s easily the best beer event of the year anywhere along the greater Central Coast, but more probably in the western half of the U.S.

The best collective gathering of breweries that I’ve ever seen in my life. Last year was great. This year was even better.
Firestone did a great job with getting people in the fairgrounds as fast as possible, so nobody would be wasting time in line while the festival was running. Which is great because every other festival I’ve been to let’s people in on the start time. Firestone let people in so they can check bags, scan tickets, grab glasses and plates then corralled everyone like cattle and dropped the ropes at 1:00.
Just like everyone else my friends and I bum rushed Three Floyds for Barrel Aged Dark Lord. The same goes for Cigar City, Lagunitas, The Bruery, Russian River and Alpine Brewing. As long as the lines looked, they moved pretty fast and I don’t think I was ever in any one line more than 5 minutes.
The food was very good at all the tents we visited. Highlights for my friends were the tacos, pulled pork sliders and the salmon. A few of them were looking for the damn chicken wings but couldn’t find them until towards the end of the day. I didn’t know that they were looking for the wings until they told me after the festival and all I could say is «why didn’t you just ask people where they got it?» Maybe next year they should do the same with the restaurants as they do with the breweries and have a list of who’s serving what, so I can just look at the map and eat what i want when I want instead of aimlessly searching for certain foods. I couldn’t find those damn ice cream cones, but yeah I should of asked someone.
Best beers of the day for me was:
1. Alpine Brewing — Keene Idea
2. Kern River — Citra
3. AleSmith — Barrel Aged Speedway
4. Three Floyds — Barrel Aged Dark Lord
5. Cigar City — Barrel Aged Hunahpu
The most disappointing brewery of the day was Surly Brewing. I can’t believe one of my favorite breweries brought some of their crappiest beers. You guys had a chance to show the West Coast what you’re all about and you failed. Hopefully next year you can bring some big beers if your invited back.
A change I would like to see for next year is those damn plates. I hated holding that plate for the whole day. Also, find better places for the water stations because water sitting in 100 degree weather/​sun sucked.
I’ll see you guys next year.

Amazing beer festival.
Great Food, Great Breweries bringing their best beers, and wonderful people.
I’ve been to beer festivals all over the US, and this is by far the best.
Thank you Firestone for putting on such a fun event.