Epic Beer Festival – San Diego

I had so much fun at the Epic Beer Festival! :) It was indoors which was really nice and it wasn’t overcrowded. I tried so many beers and ciders.
Negatives:
Most of the people pouring you the samples weren’t people who actually worked for or owned the breweries so they couldn’t answer any questions.
Some of the beers were already gone before the end. I’m glad I got there early and got to try most of what I wanted to!

The Epic beer festival was just that: Epic.
The crowd size seemed perfect; there was never a time where i had to wait in a long line for a sample. Maybe 2 minutes a the most. Awesome! There was a TON of different breweries to sample from, we started at letter A and sampled all the way through the Letter S by the time 4pm rolled around. And I was feelin’ pretty damn good by then!
I loved the fact that it was indoors at the convention center, drinking all day out in the sun doesn’t always end well. Plus being indoors meant no portapotties or disgusting bathrooms!
The crowd size/​control felt well handled and organized, the booths were efficient at serving and keeping the lines down. My only complaint I think is that some of the servers were just volunteers, so they could not answer some questions i had about the brewery they were representing (if you don’t know where the brewery is actually located there’s a problem here) So I’m sure the more ‘advanced’ beer snobs were not happy about that either. It wasn’t all bad though, some of the servers were absolutely great as well.
I do agree with a couple other reviews that there could have been some live entertainment going on, but it’s no that big of a deal. I had an absolute blast, met some awesome people, have some great pictures/​memories, and would definitely do it again!

We had a great time at the Epic Beer Festival! I’m glad I decided to go the VIP route and get in an hour early. The first hour was not crowded at all, so I got to taste quite a bit of beer before the lines got too crazy. The nice thing was that even when it got really busy, there were always booths without long lines, so getting tastes was super easy. There were a lot of breweries there and a lot of beers. Surprisingly, I didn’t get a drunk as I thought I might!
Where I could see some improvement was it would have been really awesome to have more of the brewery reps there instead of just random volunteers at the booths. I understand that Epic bought the beer to be served, but it was most fun at those booths where the brewers or their reps were there to talk about the beer.
Also, it might have been fun to have entertainment. There was a guy walking around as a one man band that was entertaining, but maybe a stage with some bands playing would have been cool, or even a DJ… just some music overall. I also saw a lot of people who wore pretzel necklaces which was an AWESOME idea… I wish someone was selling them there because I was craving pretzels the WHOLE TIME!
Last, the food at the convention center is okay, but it would have been really awesome to have some other food vendors show up… I know it’s not exactly a place for food trucks, but someone could have set up some munchie booths!
I did appreciate the water available and the bathrooms. Whew.
Overall, it was a lot of fun and I was shocked when the four hours was up and we had to leave… shocked and sad! We’ll probably be back next year!

This was a great event and I definitely plan to go back next year! Some of the things I really appreciated are as follows:
— Lots of different breweries represented (80+)
— Lots of different beers to try (200+), of which I had 36 :-)
— Good crowd control, about 2,000 people per session in a big area
— Efficient serving, little or no waiting time
— Good organization on getting the crowds into the event
— Easy ticketing
— Because its at a convention center there are real bathrooms (no porta pots) that can handle the crowds so no waiting in lines, ladies
— Overall, it was a nice crowd of people who appreciate craft beer. You won’t find a bunch of early 20-​somethings here getting trashed
— If you go to the day session, then taking the Coaster from North County is easy and convenient
— Most beers were good, only two I had were bad enough to go to the dump bucket
— Indoors venue so no horrible sunburn while day drinking
— Booths were largely arranged alphabetically so it was easier to find those brews that you wanted to taste
— It’s close to the fun Gaslamp District so there are plenty options for hotels, restaurants, etc.
For a beer festival, it was a little different to be trying beers out of bottles rather than draught but for me this was ok since it at least gave me exposure to a brewery with which I wasn’t otherwise familiar. Also, I do understand the disappointment that not that many brewers were there, if any. I did recognize some people from the local San Diego breweries but overall it was volunteers pouring.

Last night I went to San Diego’s inaugural Epic Beer Festival at the Convention Center. It being the first year for this event, there was definitely some good, some great, and some bad.
To start with the highlights, there was a huge variety of craft beer vendors, each sampling 2 – 3 selections. Although many of the breweries were headquartered in California, there were some from Colorado, Montana, Massachusetts, and Oregon, among others. Lines were short and moved fast. My boyfriend loved the Rogue ‘Dead Guy’, the ‘Beeruccino’ at Helm Brewing Co., and the the ‘Indian Brown’ at Dogfish Head, to name a few (we estimate he tried 25+ beers).
The crowd was fun and it never felt TOO crowded. The aisles were very wide and nicely accommodated everyone.
Here’s where it went a little downhill for me. There was supposed to be live entertainment, but all I could hear was a guitar in the background that sounded like they were testing. There was no actual stage (that I could see). So mostly the sound ambiance was the chatter of hundreds of people talking at once. Then there was the lack of free water. Scattered throughout the hall were these little bubblers with water jugs on top. Each station only seemed to have an allotted 2 jugs each. These quickly ran out and then our only option was the water fountain by the bathroom, or spending $ 3.25 at the concession stand. The last thing was the slight disorganization at entry. I had purchased a ‘designated driver’ ticket for $ 15.00, but still got the same wristband and drinking privileges as everyone else! Sadly for me, beer is not my cup of tea, but it made me wonder if others could have purchased the cheaper ticket and had the same benefit. As a DD, I was supposed to have gotten two complimentary drink vouchers, but nobody there seemed to know what I was talking about.
All in all, it was a FUN event, my boyfriend and the friends we went with absolutely loved it and enjoyed having the chance to try some new beers, but those little disappointments mentioned above made it a less than 5 star experience for me.