Beer Bloggers Conference, Thank You!

We think the Craft Beer industry is the best in the world! We know of no other industry with as much collaborative spirit, shared purpose, generosity and an appreciation for its customers and supporters. Kendall & I were thrilled to attend the recent Beer Bloggers Conference in San Diego and discover that the spirit of Craft Beer was alive and well on the West Coast. We’ll shared the details later, but for now we just want to show our appreciation.

Beer Bloggers Conference sponsors, thank you.

Big thanks to conference organizers Zephyr Adventures who arranged a fun and informative agenda with top notch speakers and a lot of great beer. Also, thanks to the National Beer Wholesalers Association and CraftBeer.com for your support of the conference each year and the hard work you do behind the scenes to support the industry and consumers.

One of the best things about the conference every year is the great food served by the major sponsors for lunch and dinner. We kicked off the 2014 Beer Bloggers conference with a amazing luncheon of local Mexican food and local beer from Mike Hess, Belching Beaver and Green Flash, provided by the local distributor Reyes Beverage Group. For the rest of our meals, we loaded up buses, toured San Diego and visited our hosts’ locations, where they treated us graciously. The tacos Friday evening were outstanding, Karl Strauss! Saturday lunch was delicious, with good food, beer and swag from the downtown Yard House. At Saturday dinner, the food was good at Stone’s Liberty Station location, but the beers were extra special. We loved the Woot Stout 2.0!

We started Friday afternoon trade show and beer social with cool info and swag from the folks at WordPress.com, West Coaster SoCal, Uber, Spirited Shipper, Sucuri, SipSnapp, Experience Grand Rapids, .beer and Craft Beer Hound. While browsing the products and service, we enjoyed beer from Warsteiner-USA, Goose Island, Lagunitas Brewing, Stone, and Firestone Walker.

Lagunitas threw a killer party Friday night after dinner. The Sour Farmhouse Saison was perfect. We had a blast going couch trippin’ with them, and the hop vapin’ station was too cool. What a great way to learn about hop aromas!

Saturday afternoon was Live Beer Blogging, think speed dating with breweries. Actually, 11 breweries, the other participant was a beer-bread company. The bit of food was nice, thanks Boardwalk Food Company, your breads were delicious. The beer was poured by The Lost Abbey, Rough Draft, Warsteiner, Green Flash, Goose Island, Lagunitas Brewing, Firestone Walker, Stone, Samuel Adams, Rogue and 3 Floyds. We’ll follow with a later post on the details.

Saturday evening  after dinner we were hosted to a beer socia with great beer from Dogfish Head, Sierra Nevada, Karl Strauss, Warsteiner, Rogue, Lagunitas, Stone and Goose Island. After the fast paced events of the weekend, it was nice to just hang out, relax and talk to other beer lovers.

The 2014 Beer Bloggers Conference was fantastic and it just keeps getting better each year. We can’t wait until BBC 2015 in Asheville, NC!

Once more, to all the great sponsors and people who worked so hard to make the 2014 Beer Bloggers Conference a success, Thank You!