BBC14 Pre-Conference: Diving Headfirst into the Beer Scene in Los Angeles

We are pleased to announce a fun-filled pre-conference excursion in Los Angeles prior to the 2014 Beer Bloggers Conference, to be held in super sudsy San Diego, CA this August 22-24. Registered attendees can participate in this one-day excursion on Thursday, August 21 that starts in Los Angeles and finishes in San Diego at our host hotel. Festivities on August 21 include:

• 1:45 p.m Pickup at LAX. Transportation for the afternoon/evening, starting in Los Angeles and including drop off at the BBC14 hotel in San Diego at the end of the night, is included.
• 3-5:00 p.m Tour and tasting at Golden Road Brewery
• 5:30-7:30 p.m. Dinner at Angel City Brewing
• 8:15-9:15 p.m. Tour and tasting at The Bruery
• 9:45-11:15 p.m. Evening Pub Crawl to Smog City Brewing and Monkish Brewing
• 1:15 a.m. Arrive at the Marriott Mission Valley Hotel in San Diego

To Register

Jumping at the bit to sign up for the BBC14 pre-con excursion?  We don’t blame you!  The Pre-Conference Excursion is open only to registered attendees of the conference. The cost is $40 for Citizen Beer Bloggers and $80 for both Industry Bloggers and Non-Blogger Participants. Use this link to sign up for the excursion if you are ALREADY registered for the conference.  If you haven’t signed up for the conference yet, please click here to register AND sign up for the pre-conference festivities.

About Our Pre-Conference Partners

  

Golden Road Brewery believes “in great beer, which is an extension of our commitment to family, sustainability, good food, and the arts.”  We have chosen to visit Golden Road, first, on the pre-con because they are self-described facilitators of “fun and self-expression” – two values the Beer Bloggers Conference is a big fan of.  The Burning Bush IPA, a German style Rauchbier with the hops of a west coast IPA, is scheduled to be on tap during the pre-con.  Meg Gill and Tony Yanow founded Golden Road Brewing to bring fresh beer to the local market in the most sustainable way possible and we look forward to visiting with them!

Angel City Brewing, located in the Arts District of Los Angeles, aims to bring “the art of craft brewing to downtown Los Angeles.”  The brewery just hosted their second annual Heritage Music & Arts Festival, which featured a live painting, photo tank, an urban beer picnic featuring their fav food trucks, and, of course, special beer releases. Bringing small-batch, old-world brewing techniques to the beer renaissance of downtown L.A., Angel City will be an awesome pre-con dinner and beer stop with Head Brewer Dieter Foersnter as our fearless beer leader.

Fueled by a passion for creating beers with character and depth using the simplest and purest of means, Bruery owner/brewmaster, Patrick Rue, has created an awesome name for himself in the craft beer world.  The Bruery, located in Placentia, CA, is home to Rue’s experimental, barrel-aged beers, most of which gain carbonation through bottle conditioning, allowing carbonation to naturally occur through a secondary bottle fermentation.  Bloggers will be treated to a rare, evening visit to The Bruery’s oak cellar where nearly 200,000 gallons of beer lay resting within barrels collected from California’s Central Coast, Bourbon County, Kentucky, and beyond.  Our flight, here, will include sour ales and bourbon barrel aged rarities.

Pub-Crawl:  We visit Smog City Brewing and Monkish Brewing, both located in the L.A. hamlet of Torrance, for the evening Pub Crawl.  Smog City Owner, Laurie Porter, and Chris Walowski, second in command of brewery operations, will be on hand to share the awesome Smog City Brewing story of their overnight success.  Just a short walk around the corner from Smog City is Monkish Brewing, where Owner/Brewer, Henry Nguyen, will greet us for a special, private tasting and discourse on his Belgian style beers.  Bonus at Monkish – one of Henry’s fav food trucks will be there for any late night snacks before hopping on the bus back to the hotel.

A big shout out to our friends at West Coaster SoCal for hosting the transportation for this exciting BBC14 pre-conference excursion.  The West Coaster SoCal offers a quarterly, beer-oriented print publication + regularly updated blog posts and digital versions of the magazine to beer lovers in Los Angeles, Orange County, Inland Empire, Temecula, and surrounding areas.  Without West Coaster’s support, we wouldn’t make it very far on our pre-con beer extravaganza!

Logistics

This pre-conference excursion starts in Los Angeles and ends at the BBC14 conference hotel, the Marriott Mission Valley Hotel, which offers the same conference discount the night before and after the conference begins/ends.  We will have a pick-up at LAX at 1:45 pm before the excursion begins.  Haven’t booked your flight, yet?  Consider flying into LAX and out of SAN.  Please make sure your flight arrives in time to board the pre-con bus at 1:45 pm.  Already committed to flying into San Diego?  No problem.  You can take the Amtrak or Grayhound north.

If you will already be in Los Angeles, just meet us at the Golden Road brewery. We have partnered with super-cool transportation service, Uber, for BBC14 – conference goers get $20 off each of their first two Uber rides.  Score!  Uber operates via an app, available for iOs, Android and Blackberry users:  sign up on the BBC14 Uber Link OR download the app and enter the promo code BBC14.  They have Black Cars, SUVs, and their low cost option, uberX is 40% cheaper than a regular taxi service! Looking forward to exploring both Los Angeles and San Diego with you!

Cheers,

Sarah

Beer Bloggers Conference

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