SWOOP LIFESTYLE //// LA BEERFEST
LA BEERFEST 2012 written by Hillary McGranahan
keeping us quite entertained. From Billy Joel to Lady Gaga, these guys were the most fun entertainment at the ‘fest, keeping the music coming and picking songs where we could all sing along, tone deaf or not. Singing as we left to get some grub- “Sweet Caroline, Ba, Ba, Ba!!!!!” - we walked back to the front of the lot that housed about 10 gourmet food trucks. After taking a little tour of the options, we decided on The Grilled Cheese Truck and ordered a decadent sounding Spicy Pork Grilled Cheese. While it took about 15 minutes to get the sandwich, the zesty goodness was exactly what we needed to get through the rest of the day. It looked like many of the other trucks were making phenomenal food, which is thrilling to me as they are mobile and being made in a 5x5 space. Impressive to say the least.
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Walking into the Paramount Studios Lot on this unexpectedly hot day, I was craving a nice, cold, refreshing beer. Luckily, that day was the LA Beerfest and there would be 75+ breweries there with cold beers for me to choose from. As the sun beat down on the crowd of beer hungry attendees, we counted down the minutes until the gates would be open and our mini mugs would be full. People who had obviously done this before had the awesome idea of wearing pretzel necklaces to combat the alcoholic impact that was soon upon us. Mental note taken for next time.
The day was full of new beers that I am hoping to see in my local bars; Hanger 24’s Orange Wheat, Deschutes Pale Ale, The Fireman’s Brew hopefully including some of the cute firefighters who served it - and The Strand Brewing Co.’s 24th Street Pale Ale. I will for sure be going again next year to try some new beer and food truck contenders and recommend that you do as well. I will show up with pretzel necklace in tow and having checked the weather so I know to wear less clothing than this year; bits of advice that only seasoned Beerfest-ers would know, and now you can show up next year like a veteran too!
The ropes dropped and the crowd herded toward the hundreds of IPAs, hefeweizens, lagers and ales. Our group headed to the back of the lot where we got our first beer amongst the neighborhood sets of Manhattan and Brooklyn, an exciting part of the experience for me, as New York has a big place in my heart. After having a familiar and tasty Hoegaarden, I spotted the Black Market Brewery booth, who also makes one of the favorite hefeweizens. The Black Market Hef has a bright citrusy taste that was perfectly refreshing. We followed that up with some great German beer from Wertshaus German Restaurant even more fun because it was served with free pretzels and by girls and guys dressed in lederhosen. After a brief tour around the NYC set and several mini beers later, we spotted an inside booth that could give us relief from the sun for a few minutes. 30 minutes later we were still inside, as the combination of Blue Moon beer and Howl at The Moon dueling piano players were
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