Beering for a Good Cause

Each time Chris and I attend a beer fest, we have a blast, but as we slowly wander around the next day, finding it difficult to focus on normal household tasks, we inevitably end up stating something along the lines of how we're getting a bit too old in the tooth for these sorts of things.  That doesn't stop us from buying tickets for a future one, but we try to keep them at least four months apart from one another to minimize the stress on our (rapidly) aging bodies (also, we're normally training for something or traveling or having visitors, etc).  When we bought our tickets to the Firestone Walker event I blogged about last week, we planned on following our normal schedule, but when we heard about the inaugural Festival Obscura, held just four weeks after FW, we couldn't pass it up.

First, the location of the event would be only 3 miles away from our house, so although we'd still take an Uber (Signal Hill is between our house and this spot, so walking/biking would suck big time), it would be super close.  Second, we knew most of the breweries that would be attending, including some of the owners of said breweries, so we were sure the goods would be solid.  Finally, we were sold on the whole reason behind the festival - to raise money for Long Beach's Sunnyside Cemetery.  Sunnyside is a neat place - some of the graves date back to the 1910s, and it's one of the oldest cemeteries in the state.  We first visited the cemetery back in October a few years ago, to attend the Historical Society's Cemetery Tour, where actors dressed up as some of the more notable "residents" of the cemetery and told stories about their lives and the local area.

Sunnyside is a neat place with lots of cool history, but it's suffered a severe lack of funding in recent years.  The cemetery is full (insert obligatory "people are dying to get in!" joke here), so it can't sell any new plots, which is how a place like this normally raises money; this, coupled with budget cuts at all governmental levels have made things pretty dire.  The cemetery is down to asking volunteers to come out and cut the grass, weed around the plots, and so on.  In pondering this, the folks who run Phantom Carriage Brewing over in Carson decided they would do what they do best - get together all of their brewer friends, put on a beer fest, and raise money for Sunnyside by selling tickets.

Since our G/A tickets didn't let us in until 1pm, we started the day in our normal manner - I went for a 7 mile run and Chris rode his bike; we reconvened at home to get cleaned up and grilled burgers and sweet potato fries for lunch.  Yum!

71 and sunny with a light breeze!

Perfect weather!

Time for noms!

Eventually, it was time to head out!  We grabbed an Uber and did the quick ride to Sunnyside, hopping into the looong line to get checked in.  Our wait wasn't too bad, and soon, we were inside!

Tents for breweries and the like were set up all

around the ring road that surrounds the different plots.

Although breweries were the initial draw, the festival organizers did a great job finding something for everyone - there were a good number of cideries and wineries in attendance, plenty of food trucks, and there were also tons of neat vendors, selling everything from custom corsets to creepy baby dolls with chicken feet (yes, really - nightmares galore!).  I had read there would be a bunch of historical coaches (what you folks in the non-funeral sciences call "hearses"), but we never found them; instead, we saw just one from the 1970s.  Technically, I suppose it would be considered "historical," but that wasn't what we had in mind.  As we sipped beer, we browsed through several vendors, and when I made it to Miss Havisham's, I couldn't pass this up:

I mean, right?

We wandered the grounds for a few hours, stopping to taste at all sorts of different booths and checking out the plots around us.

Dude in a kilt alert!

I think I actually took this shot

to show the ridiculously short line 

at the Bruery tent.

Best.fest.ever.

Here lies poor Sparky.

Actually, he was super young - that's sad.

Pink drink!

The attire on the attendees for this festival was really interesting.  Normally at beer fests, everyone wears the shirt or other gear of their favorite brewery or past beer fests (way up there, Chris is in his Yeast of Eden shirt from Alvarado Brewing in Monterey, and I'm in my FWIBF tank top), and that was true for about half of the folks at Festival Obscura.  The other half, however, were in their best Victorian/goth/steampunk gear, and it was really cool to see.

For Christmas this year, we got Jim a pair of socks

with this print, which is Edgar Allen Poe's face - 

it's called a "Poe-ka dot."

When I saw this lady's bag, 

I had to take a snap and send it to him.

About halfway through our stay at the fest, it was time for a bathroom break, so we wandered the perimeter, looking for the port o's.  We eventually found them, but they were vastly outnumbered, and our line stretched on for a while:

If you can believe it, by the time we left, this line was around 3 times as long, going all the way through the middle section of plots and crossing both sides of the ring road.  Overall, the festival was great, but this was the one major issue they need to solve if they do this again next year.

A bathroom line shot of Ten Mile Brewing.

Sunnyside is literally in their front yard.

As is our wont, as we tasted and wandered, we checked in our beers on the Untappd app; as those of you who use the app know, it will pin your location and give you local suggestions for other breweries or food spots or what have you.  Normally, it's at least on topic, but this "Nearby Verified Venue" made us chuckle:

I suppose they do sell beer there.

Also, it's like 20 miles away.

"Nearby" is stretching it a bit.

We tasted a bit more and after three hours or so total, we were ready to head home.  

Hooray for festivals with a good cause!

Well, other than beer, which is a fine cause on its own.

We said hello to the kiddo and spent the rest of the evening making homemade pizza, rehydrating with water, and finishing Killing Eve (ohmygod watch Killing Eve - it is amazing).  The next morning, we were doing well, with one exception - apparently, as I was putting on sunscreen at the house before we headed out to Sunnyside, I missed my right shoulder.  D'oh!

Oops!

They call it Sunnyside for a reason, yo!

Later!

Amy