It's Beer o'Clock: Guild Fest & San Diego Beer Week
San Diego’s always a fantastic place for a beer lover: Heck, we aren’t called the “Craft Beer Capital of America” for nothing! Some of the finest breweries in the country call our fair city and its surrounds home.
So, yes: Every day’s its own sort of beer festival around here. But an all-out explosion of suds appreciation is just around the corner: San Diego Beer Week. And this beloved brew bash kicks off with one heck of a party: the San Diego Brewers Guild Festival on November 4 and 5!
This year’s Guild Fest, the 14th annual, takes place at Broadway Pier’s Port Pavilion—a pleasant amble from the Sofia Hotel, which makes fabulous headquarters for a weekend of San Diego beer-tasting!
The Guild Fest
The Guild Fest lets you sample beers from better than 60 breweries hailing from right here in San Diego County, among them Stone Brewing, Coronado Brewing, Monkey Paw Brewing Co., and San Diego Brewing Co.
The event begins on Friday the 4th, when the VIP Brewer Takeover (6 to 9 PM) lets ticketholders interface with leading San Diego beermakers while enjoying unlimited beer and food samples. A pass to the next day’s Guild Fest, meanwhile, which runs from 2 to 5 PM, earns you unlimited beer samples plus access to some outstanding food trucks (Currywurst Frankfurt, Pacific Pizza, Small Bar, and Tacos Perle among them)—all to the soundtrack of live, local music!
The Guild Fest will also hold half-hour “Beer College” lessons: Learn how to detect skunky flavors in beer, or delve into the science (and art) of barrel-aging brews.
General admission to Saturday’s Guild Fest costs $40 in advance or $50 day of. VIP tickets for the Brewer Takeover on Friday cost $75 in advance or $100 day of. Or you can buy a two-day pass for $100, giving you discounted admission to both the Takeover and the Guild Festival proper. (Guild Fest proceeds go to the San Diego Brewers Guild and various San Diego charities.)
San Diego Beer Week
The hop-heavy happiness doesn’t end with the Guild Fest. The rest of San Diego Beer Week (through November 13) features events such as the “Battle of the Guilds” tap takeover, daily Beer Train Trolley Tours (with tastings and behind-the-scenes brewery tours), and, on the closing day, a Beer Garden at the Lodge at Torrey Pines.
Come be our guest at the Sofia Hotel for the San Diego Brewers Festival—and maybe the rest of the proceedings at San Diego Beer Week! For a survey of San Diego’s world-famous brewing scene, it’s hard to do better.