Beer, Motorcycles and Cigars — Beer, Bikes and Butts

Another great beer festival at Irvine Lake.  The second annual (hopefully) Orange County Beer Festival was held on May 15 instead of August like the previous year, and that resulted in much cooler weather.

I went with a friend and two designated drivers (always good to have a backup at an event like this in case one succumbs), and we arrived almost an hour early.  Very good plan, since we avoided the traffic and the lines, and had a chance to eat before they opened the booths.  In the pictures below you’ll see the place was really packed, but there was never a significant wait of more than, say, thirty seconds at any of the booths.  On the food front, the organizers did a much better job this year, offering three food vendors serving really outstanding choices.

In a perfect world I would probably take some notes on the beers as I sample them, but there is just too many booths to hit in the three hours.  I settled for picking up literature on the standouts so I could remember them later.  Some of my favorites were from the Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery (Long Beach), the Cismontane Brewing Company (Rancho Santa Margarita), Bierbitzch’s always refreshing Golden Pilsner (they always have great merchandise too), Tibet Brewing and their Lhasa Beer, and my favorite of them all, the new Duvel Green.

One major criticism of the beer fest is the traffic leaving the event.  We sat in the traffic leaving the parking lot for 45 minutes and never moved.  I finally had to see what could possibly be going on, and walked to the exit.  The traffic on the road was so crowded, that none of the cars could get an opening to pull out.  I helped stop traffic on the main road to get the traffic flowing out of the parking lot, and then other “civilians” from the festival joined in and we put together an impromptu traffic system, blocking traffic for a minute at a time to let the cars exit.  Had we not done this, everyone would still be sitting in the parking lot.  A special commendation goes to a woman from Bierbitzch (or who may simply have been wearing a Bierbitzch t-shirt) for stepping up and getting really aggressive with the slow-moving drivers.

The point of the story is, the organizers must hire traffic cops for the event.  And get more porta-potties.  Lots of people drinking lots of  beer.  Do the math, then multiply by ten.

I took a complete lap of the festival with my flip camera running. It’s noisy and jerky, but you’ll certainly get a sense of the party atmosphere.

     

 

Posted on May 15th, 2010 by Aaron Morris
Filed under: Beer, Beer Facts, Micro-Breweries, News, Reviews