The Ten Best Beers at the 2019 South Bay Beer & Wine Festival
May 21, 2019

The sixth annual South Bay Beer and Wine Festival was last weekend, and although we anticipated a rainy and/or dreary day, the beer gods smiled upon us and presented us with some beautiful California summer sun. (Perhaps too much, as we got sunburned.) It was a full afternoon of beer, food, and terrific company down at the Ernie Howlett Park in Rolling Hills Estates, and we were overjoyed to be in attendance. The ticket price may seem daunting on the surface, but at other festivals you have to pay for things like food and parking, whereas here those are covered by the price of admission. Plus, you get your money’s worth in options: over 100 booths serving beer, wine, and food, which also means you rarely had to wait in any lines. It had most everything you’d want in a beer festival— though if we were to make one change, we’d recommend adding more water stations. Between the sun and the booze, we definitely felt a bit dehydrated by the festival’s end. Still, all was immaculately run, and we’ll definitely attend again next year.
The beer lineup largely consisted of SoCal craft brewers between San Luis Obispo and Long Beach, with heavy emphasis on, appropriately, the local South Bay breweries. Between the two of us, we got through over fifty beers over the course of the festival. That doesn’t cover everything available, obviously: when you’re socializing, sampling every bit of food you can find, and enjoying the free sake shots that someone kept bringing around (if you were at this festival and know which sake brewery was responsible for these free shots, please let us know!), at a certain point you have to sacrifice beer consumption for body conservation. Still, we’d like to share our list of the ten best beers we had at South Bay Beer & Wine Festival— and because we had such a good time that we couldn’t narrow our list to ten, we added some bonus awards at the end to spread even more love. So now, in alphabetical order… the Top Ten!
San Pedro’s Brouwerij West is well-known for its pillowy hazy IPAs, juicy treats so soft you can set them atop a cloud. Dig My Earth isn’t quite as fluffy as some of their others, but it’s still soft enough to disguise its 8% ABV underneath waves of fresh orange juice– this beer would be ideal on a Sunday at noon whether at a festival or at a brunch. Those who dig their IPAs extra tropical will dig Dig My Earth.
Burnin Daylight Brewing Company: Rolling Pils
Burnin Daylight only officially opened two months ago, but its founder, Brendan Lake, has been brewing for some of the South Bay’s best for the last decade. Thus, it’s no surprise that Burnin Daylight’s beers have come out of the gate swinging. The Rolling Pils hits you with Mosaic and Citra hops, so although it’s still crushable and crisp the way all good pilsners should be, it has a sharpness of flavor that earns a tip of the cap.
Central Coast Brewing: Monterey Street Pale Ale
It should be no surprise to anyone familiar with this San Luis Obispo beer to see it named one of the best of the festival. This winner of multiple gold medals at Great American Beer Fest seems tailor made for consuming outdoors on a warm California day. It has a bold, bright hoppiness more usually associated with IPAs, while maintaining immaculate balance and a refreshing bite on the finish.
El Segundo Brewing Company: Casa Azul
When I’m holding a slider on a paper plate in one hand, I want to be holding a refreshing lager in the other. A truly good lager is often hard to find, but at an outdoor beer festival, it’s an outright necessity. Luckily, El Segundo’s Casa Azul, one of the best lagers we’ve had all year (also a GABF gold medal winner), was nearby. It’s an amber lager, light and drinkable, but with big malty, caramelly flavor— and, as expected, it paired flawlessly with my sliders.
Firestone Walker: Feral Vinifera
This festival blends beer and wine tasting together, so it only makes sense that Firestone Walker would bust out their beer/wine hybrid wild ale, Feral Vinifera, for the occasion. The taste understandably is steeped in white wine, but then you get waves of sour wheat and lemon, and the entire thing has the acidity cranked up several notches, making the end result a delightfully tart and winey concoction. This was one hell of an appetizer for the Firestone Walker Invitational in a couple of weeks.
HopSaint Brewing Company: Belly Dropper
We’re in a time when many of LA’s noteworthy craft breweries stake their reputation on delivery juicy New England IPAs. We enjoy IPA styles from both coasts, so we aren’t complaining, but it’s strange that good West Coast IPAs feel like the minority IPA in our west coast city. Luckily, HopSaint lives up to their name with the Belly Dropper, delivering an old-school, well-executed West Coast IPA with Simcoe, Amarillo, Citra and Ekuanot, giving us the straight-forward hop flavor that West Coasters deserve.
Indie Brewing: Current Mood: Breaker of Chains
It’s only appropriate that, for a festival held the same day as the Game of Thrones series finale, we so thoroughly enjoyed a beer named after the show. The Styrian Dragon hop is featured here— hence the Khaleesi allusion— giving this pale ale a distinctive dry, floral taste. Whether you’re thirsty chilling poolside in LA or thirsty because you’ve just burned a city down to the ground in a fit of rage, Indie Brewing’s got what you need.
Phantom Carriage: Margarita Broadacres
We’re big fans of Phantom Carriage’s line of Broadacres variants, having had several of them over the years. This margarita rendition delivers the usual kick of sour power and blends it with strong flavors of lime and salt. We’re not sure we anticipated the phrase “sour margarita beer” to end up on our Best of list here, but when it comes to Phantom Carriage, we know to toss our expectations out the window.
Three of the best words in the English language: “coffee imperial stout.” There weren’t many 10% ABV behemoths being poured at this festival, but riip came through with The Riizzo, brewed with vanilla and coffee from Costa Mesa’s Portola Coffee Roasters. The end result is hefty, roasty, and just the right amount of sweet– you might say riip’s Riizzo is riidiculously good.
Transplants Brewing: Mortal Enemies
Emily is what we would call an Amber Aficionado, so when the very nice people at the Transplants Brewing table recommended that we try the amber, you could see Emily’s excitement. Sure enough, the Mortal Enemies hits all the marks of an excellent amber, and while its toasty caramel goodness may fit the fall better than a warm summer day, it was a welcome presence at the festival.
BEST BEERS THAT STARTED AN ARGUMENT: Beachwood Blendery: Careful with that Apricot, Eugene vs. Umeboshi
Beachwood Blendery’s sours are always a pleasure to encounter— we were just there in Long Beach two weeks ago— but when the people at the Beachwood table asked us which we thought was better, Careful with the Apricot, Eugene or Umeboshi, we, the Beer Travel Guide duo, were split. Russell preferred the simplicity of the dried apricot sour, whereas Emily preferred Umeboshi’s slightly oakier, slightly funkier plum taste. We still couldn’t decide which was better when making this list! So it wins a special award. Marriage is all about compromise.
BEST BEER ALSO CURRENTLY IN OUR FRIDGE: Smog City: Coffee Porter
Smog City’s Coffee Porter is a staple in our house. If it’s on tap somewhere, we order it. If it’s available at our local shop, we buy it. Still, it’s always nice to encounter familiar beers at a festival, because sometimes, if you’re like us, you wonder, “Do I keep buying my standards because they’re *that* good or because I’m too lazy to branch out?” Then you try that standard amidst 50 other beers, and you realize, “Oh. Yeah. It’s *that* good.”
BEST BEER TO CONSUME WHILE GETTING FACE TATS: GameCraft Brewing: Arne Palmer Gose
We sadly have yet to get down to Laguna Hills to visit GameCraft Brewing in person, but their team at the festival last weekend made us feel right at home. We pick up plenty of coasters and stickers at these events, but we were stoked to find GameCraft had brought face tattoos, the likes of which we hadn’t worn since going to college basketball games. So we drank their Arne Palmers, their tasty sweet tea gose, as they helped Emily apply a nifty GameCraft tat to her cheek.
BEST LOW ABV BEER: Yorkshire Square Brewery: Early Doors
At a lengthy beer festival— we were there for five hours— it’s important to balance some of the heftier drinks with lighter, lower-ABV fare. We’re big fans of Yorkshire Square— they treated Russell right on his birthday last year— and their Early Doors was exactly what we needed halfway through the fest. It’s a soft, smooth, slightly grassy pub bitter, bringing a bit of British flair to the South Bay proceedings.
BEST BREAD: Long Beach Beer Lab: Garlic Rosemary Sourdough
Look, Long Beach Beer Lab puts out very good beer, and we could’ve easily included the LB Haze 3.0, a very smooth and citrusy NEIPA, in our Top 10 list. However, special mention must be given to their bread. LB Beer Lab is, after all, also a bakery, so they have slices of garlic rosemary sourdough available at the festival, and this bread was SUBLIME. If you’re in Long Beach, by all means, get beer at Long Beach Beer Lab— but if you neglect to also order bread while there, you’re seriously missing out.
BEST CIDER: Common Cider Company: Ginger Pear
We’re not the biggest cider people in the world, but we’ve enjoyed ourselves many a cider over the years. One thing we tend to gravitate toward is the unexpected– a cider’s ability to surprise. When we saw Ginger Pear was being offered, we expected what most ciders would delivered: a very sweet pear cider with a splash of ginger. However, this one was the reverse: a cider that went heavy on the ginger with a splash of pear sweetness. It may not be for everyone, but it’s definitely for ginger fans like us.
What were your favorite beers at South Bay Beer & Wine Festival? Which festival are you looking forward to hitting this summer? (Our next stop: the Firestone Walker Invitational!) Are you as entranced by face tattoos and brewery breads as we are? What beer did you drink during the Game of Thrones finale? Please leave us your thoughts in the comments below, and please sign up for our weekly newsletter so you don’t miss any of our updates! Cheers!