The Stone 12th Anniversary Recap

When we arrived the line to walk into the park was one of the longest things I've ever seen. But it moved pretty fast and once we got in my friend Rene wanted to try something from Avery so the group got White Rascal while I went ahead and tried the Fifteen. It's received so-so reviews but I really liked it. Kinda like a somewhat funky, slightly soured hefe. The rest of the day went like this...

1. BrewDog IPA - floral and perfumy sweet, I didn't like it.
   
2. Lightning Pilsner - good
   
3. San Diego Brewing Company Saison - very good
   
4. Rubicon IPA - good
   
5. Papago Belgian Sour - tasted like apple juice
   
6. Oskar Blues Gordon - very good
   
7. Rubicon Monkey Knife Fight Pale Ale - winner for best name, just an ok beer.
   
8. Coronado Point Loma Porter - good
9. The Bruery Trade Winds Tripel - one of my favorites
10. Green Flash Le Freak - very good.

In the last 30 minutes of the fest, when many breweries had already run out of beer, there were many people trying to get those last couple pours in. We had been standing in the Green Flash line as they were only pouring bottles of Le Freak at this point. When two of my friends and I had gotten to the front of the line the servers yelled out this was their last bottle. We were the next 3 in the pseudo-line and immediately a group of punks tries to shove their way to the front, shoving their glasses over people to the servers. Sadly, one of the guys actually had a glass poured for him but he was the only one. I ended up getting the last pour from the bottle and that dude's buddies didn't get any. As you can see from my picture, my pour on the left was of the unfiltered, bottom of the bottle variety.

Russian River was serving up Damnation and Pliny the Elder. Their line was huge the entire day of course, though now that we can get these things easily around us I didn't even think about going. The Maui line was again huge this year. Coconut porter was gone with about an hour to go I think, even though you can buy it any BevMo in So Cal.

The beers at the event seemed ok, nothing really special that I was looking for, but the big winner in my opinion is Mike's Beer Cheese. This was the first time I've been able to try their stuff and they were serving free samples of their cheese all day. The flavors were Stone Ruination IPA and Mustard, Stone Pale Ale with Sun dried Tomatoes and Basil, Stone Smoked Porter and Garlic, and Napalm Bastard. I loved them all, and the Napalm Bastard was HOT.

Overall, I didn't like the location switch from Stone World Bistro & Gardens to Cal State San Marcos. On the positive side it was much nicer on the feet, with grass and concrete walkways, and some trees for shade (along with the tents they put up). But the area seemed so much smaller than last year it really made it hard to walk around the fest because some lines extended into tents. I think from now on I'll be switching to Session A.
[EDIT: After seeing some of the discussion on BeerAdvocate about the fest, I think overall I do prefer the switch to Cal State San Marcos. Sure it was a lot more crowded this year, but I think Stone has the ability to use the space more wisely which will allow the same amount of attendees to comfortably move around next year. I still think I'll be doing Session A from now on, I don't mind drinking in the morning... ever]

After the fest we made a quick stop over at The Lost Abbey for a beer or two. They had a ton of stuff on tap but we all had a round of the new Witch's Wit. I'm really loving Wits right now so it was really good. There was also a brewer from, *I think*, Downtown Brewing Co. who brought a bottle of their Saison and a bottle of Saison w/ brett. We got samples of both and thoroughly enjoyed them so if he ever comes across this (which is highly doubtful), many thanks for those samples.