Beer Bloggers Conference 2014 in San Diego

This years Beer Bloggers Conference was in San Diego at the Marriott Hotel. I was nervous at first since I would be attending this conference with known beer bloggers and this was my first. But the attendees were very friendly and with the beers flowing it was easy to mingle.

I believe that the conference is worth the cost of attending even with the separate cost of the room and flight. There is two days of beers, food, panels, seminars, and more beer.  I was treated to breweries located in South California and to beers not distributed outside of the state. 

Lagunitas Brewing Co and Stone Brewing Co, are both known throughout the states but they poured beer for the conference that you could only get at the brewery.  The guys at Lagunitas Brewing provided a party for the conference with beer, dessert, live music, video op on a couch, and announce the release of Born Yesterday Pale Ale first at the conference.

Ken Grossman

The big names in brewing were there for panel sessions. I met Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada, I sat at his table during our lunch excursion at the Yard House. he spoke later that day about the history of his brewery. There was a panel of Tomme Arthur, founder of Lost Abbey brewing; Chuck Silva, brewer of Green Flash; and Peter Zien, founder of Alesmith Brewing. They spoke about the history of the San Diego brewing scene.  David Walker co-founder of Firestone Walker Brewing was at the Beer Social. 

Panel with Tomme Arthur, Chuck Silva,
and Peter Zien.

I attended two seminars or break sessions, one was about photography in blogging and the other was videography in blogs with Alan Kropf who is the Director of Education at Anchor Distilling Co and founder of Mutineer Magazine. It was very interesting and educational, it made me realize that I need to step up my game in photography.

There was food and beer pairings at Karl Strauss Brewpub, The Yard House, and Stone Brewing Bistro & Garden in San Diego.  The transportation to all outside excursions was provided by Zephyr Adventures.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend that I will definitely do again next year.