Of all of the things Justin and I have in common, our deep love for alcohol is the most dangerous. This is what led us to the International Beer Festival at the San Diego County Fair. More than 140 breweries and 300 beers? Our hoppy dream come true. After successfully parking on the side on the road due to the clusterfuck parking situation that is the Del Mar fairgrounds, we acquired our tiny cups and dove right in. Now, it probably would've been better to grab the list and mark things with a pen, which is what our neurotically organized selves would ideally do. But we just went full force into it, keeping the tiny cup full and generally having no idea what was going on. Once we got over the initial excitement, we were able to actually use our brains for a moment to learn a little about the beers we were drinking. Our overall favorite brewery was a local one, Lightning (which will hit Bevmo soon!). Other favorites included Horny Devil by Alesmith, all of the Lost Abbey selections, and that's basically all I remember. Also, beer.
After nearly an hour and a half of the beery goodness, we decided to take a break and experience the rest of what the fair had to offer. And holy shit, it was crowded. We played a couple games and I even successfully rode the ferris wheel without having a panic attack. And then. And then we found Chicken Charlie's, home of the most ridiculous and embarrassing food concoctions this side of the Sierra Nevadas. So why wouldn't we get the battered and deep-friend oreos and klondike bars? I'll tell you why. Because a few hours after ingesting these little miracles of obesity, you will find yourself in a very awkward discussion with your new boyfriend about bodily functions. And yes, we talk about that on this blog because I learned from the master. So thanks, Chicken Charlie for forcing me to cross a bridge that I pretend DOESN'T EXIST.
After polishing off some of the best tasting yet worst inventions in human history, we returned to the beer festival. Or so we thought. Because in the hour that we wandered, shit had gone weird. And by weird I mean that all of the bottled beer was completely gone. Which was quite unfortunate because we had at least two more rows to explore. So the entire crowd was centered around the tapped sections in the middle. A crowd full of drunken hipsters, east countyers, and skanks. Also known as, our worst nightmare. We tried to squeak in a few more tastes, but believe it or not it started getting weirder. The obnoxiously drunk crowd started chanting, "U.S.A! U.S.A!" Why? Why not? Which then led into every national chant you can think of: the German (?) "Ziggy Zaggy" and the Spanish (according to wikipedia?) soccer chant "Ole, Ole, Ole." And because we were the most sober people in the crowd, we decided it would be best to leave before I started tossing dirty looks around (dirtier than normal).
We considered the outing a great success because, well BEER. It's hard to be disappointed when you got to taste that much good beer. This also led to my ever so classy declaration to make it our mission to visit every brewery in town. Because of all of the great things about San Diego, the beer is my favorite. No, not the beach or the weather. Beer, obviously.
