Beering with Buddies!

As I'm sure you've noticed from reading the blog by now, Chris and I enjoy ourselves some beer.  We brew it, we look for cool spots to drink it on vacation, and we attend beer festivals, where tons of types can be sampled from a wide variety of breweries in a short period of time.  When we lived in Arizona, we were regular attendees to the AZ Strong Beer Festival each February, and over the past ten years or so, we've hit up a wide range of other beer festivals, including one that we'll be attending later today (in a cemetery!  Look for that on a future blog, if I remember to take pictures).

In the world of beer fests, there are some that are considered the creme de la creme.  We were able to attend one of these, the Extreme Beer Fest created by Beer Advocate magazine, last December when it ran for the first time in LA, and it was outstanding.  Another perpetual "wish list" event is the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest (FWIBF), which runs each year around Memorial Day in Paso Robles.  As you've also noticed from reading this blog, Chris and I enjoy visiting Paso, so we decided we really should attend this thing if we could.


The "if we could" is the important point here - everyone else really, really wants to attend this festival too, so tickets go super fast.  Like, within single-digit minutes on the website fast.  The first year we tried getting tickets, 2017, tickets sold out in less than 5 minutes, and we didn't end up with any.  This year, however, we were both ready to go and on our computer/phone at the exact moment the tickets went on sale, and we scored!  Two pairs!  We were happy to invite our fellow beer nerds and good friends, Jake and Keeli, to take over our second set of tickets and join us in Paso for a great time.

Chris and I both took the day before the fest off from work (actually, Chris may have already had it off due to his summer schedule, but whatever), and had a leisurely morning, going for a short run and eating breakfast before getting cleaned up and packing up the car.  We'd recently closed on our sale of the Casa Grande house, so we had a bit of escrow money burning holes in our pockets, and we were headed straight to the Camarillo Outlet Mall, just north of the LA basin.  We each found all sorts of awesome things, including this shirt (for me, although I'm sure Chris would look smashing in it):


Llamas!


We totally outfitted ourselves -
we'd been needing to go shopping for some time - 
so we had plenty to unpack when we made it home.

After grabbing lunch at the mall's Smashburger (and having a particularly disappointing trip to their Panera Bread - Chris went in for cookies while I stayed in the car, and he came back out with the saddest face - Panera only had one cookie left - a random, old sugar cookie - and this was around 1 in the afternoon - what gives?!?!?), we got back on the road, heading north along Highway 1.  Our next stop was completely awesome - remember when I mentioned in the Big Sur blog that we had wanted to see Megan and Kristen, but they were busy having a baby at the time?  Well, guess who we got to meet:


It's Louis!

It was great to spend some time with Megan, Kristen, Louis, and Kristen's lovely parents, who were also visiting at the time to give the new Moms some help with this little dude.  We enjoyed catching up with them, and I hope that since we don't live that far away, we can keep an eye on this little guy as he moves along in life.  We also used this opportunity to add items to our "things the Olsens didn't know babies could do list" (the origin of this list lies with our goddaughter Juliet Linda-Blair-style vomiting formula across a table in a restaurant several years ago - that was terrifyingly impressive 0 or perhaps impressively terrifying); while we there, Louis got that distinct "ahhh, yes" look babies have once they've taken care of their business.  As Kristen was holding him, we all started to notice this business coming out of his onesie and down his leg, getting all the way to his sock in rapid progression.  Apparently, before we arrived, everyone was racing to see how fast they could change Louis, and Megan may have sacrificed some quality for speed in an effort to crush the competition (sounds like Megan to me!).


Look at these two!
Showered and everything!
Louis is clean now, too!

We gave big hugs to everyone and headed back on the road, this time for the short push to Paso and our residence for the next two nights, the Courtyard in Paso.  We made it there an hour or so before Jake and Keeli, so we settled in and relaxed after the drive.  Once they arrived, we strolled about a mile to proper downtown and had an awesome dinner at Fish Gaucho, a modern Mexican place.  We didn't take pictures, but here's one from the web:


Those look remarkably like the chilaquiles
both Jake and Chris ordered,
which were outstanding.
That also looks like the margaritas
we were drinking, which were also outstanding.

We strolled back to the hotel, stopping for an excellent dessert break at Twisted & Glazed, an all-night doughnut shop; it was national doughnut day, after all, so we had to.

The next morning, I woke up earlier than everyone else and headed down to the Courtyard's, well, courtyard (actually, the lobby, I suppose) to do some reading (due to the significant number of folks in town, we shared one room with two queen beds, and having the lobby available for my Early Bird self was a great option - I could get caffeine and chill without annoying everyone else).  Chris joined me and eventually, Jake came down, too.  The boys headed out for a short run, and Keeli and I donned our bathing suits and checked out the hotel's whirlpool option.

Everyone made it back to the room, we cleaned up, and then it was time to head out for lunch before the event.  We set out on foot again, first to Spearhead Coffee to grab some caffeine.  While we waited for our orders, it was time for selfies:


Whee!

Our lunch destination, Thomas Hill Organics, didn't open until 11am proper, so we had some time to wander through the Downtown City Park and the small farmer's market located there.



These two are roughly 1000 times better
at selfies than we are.
It is known.

Lunch at THO was delicious as always, and we were happy to share one of our favorites in the area with our buds.


We sat near this fountain.
It was nice.
Very burbly.

Although it was only a mile from downtown to the beer fest venue, the temperature was already getting toasty, so we decided to Uber it from there.  We went through the entrance and security lines without an issue, and we plunged right in!


Hey, I've been there!
Seriously, the lineup for this fest is like the 
"Who's Who" of breweries.
Jester King, 3 Floyds, the Bruery,
all serving both their greatest hits and cool new stuff.
Also, lots of international breweries were in attendance,
which was neat, since they don't all get over to the US otherwise.


 I think this shot is the result of me asking,
"well, are you a pedestrian or an animal?"





It's Mr. Walker!
We saw him, running hither and yon
around the festival.
The fest was held at the local fairgrounds,
and it was a great venue - 
plenty of space for everyone to wander.

Eventually, all of us decided it was time to throw in the beer-soaked towel, and it was back in an Uber and off to the hotel.  Everyone lounged in the pool for a bit and the ladies cleaned up for dinner while the gentlemen wandered down to a local liquor store to see if it held any amazing surprises (spoiler - it did not.  Sometimes, old dusty stores like this have treasures, and sometimes, they're just old dusty stores).

When we were ready, we headed to dinner at the Hatch, back in downtown.  When our waiter asked for our dinner orders, he offered a suggestion - to just let the chef determine what we would eat, and he would bring out a set of courses for all of us to share.  Since all of us love food and eat almost everything, we figured that sounded great.  Our meal was, once again, awesome (for being such a small place, Paso's food game is no joke), and we strolled out of the Hatch full and happy.

We decided to walk back to see if we could replicate our doughnut success from the night before, but to no avail, as they were open, but out of goodies.  The walk was not a wash, though, as we made a new friend along the way:




This little dude walked alongside us for
probably about a quarter mile or so,
eventually chilling out as you see above
and waiting for some pets.
I named him Zeus, and I think Keeli
settled on Mr. Bojangles.

We made it back to the Courtyard once again (sans cat, thankfully, for Chris' sake), and it was pretty quickly time for bed.  Sunday morning, I was up early once again, but so was Chris, so it was back to the lobby for coffee and magazines.  Jake and Keeli awoke pretty quickly, too, and we got ready to head out to breakfast.  We tried Joe's Place, but the wait was a bit on the long side, so instead, we grabbed our gear, checked out of the hotel, and drove the cars back to THO for brunch (stopping once again at Spearhead Coffee on the way).  THO's brunch wasn't quite as good as their lunch, in my estimation, but it was still worth a visit.

Afterward, we hugged Jake and Keeli goodbye, and we all hopped into our respective vehicles to start the trip home.  We didn't have any surprises on the way south - we stopped for a quick snack at Firehouse Subs right off the 5 freeway for lunch - and we were back home and hanging out with this kiddo by mid-afternoon.


She's happy we're back.

It was a great trip for an awesome event, made even better by the amazing company!  We can't wait to see these folks again soon!

Later!

Amy

Comments

  1. so fun to read your adventures with my kid!!! and see the great photos... thanks for sharing

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was an awesome trip! Thanks for getting us tickets and we cannot wait to do it again!

    ReplyDelete

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