Kona Wipeout and the Craft Beer Festival at Whole Foods is the Best. Deal. Ever

The post is heavy on pictures and light on words because pictures do say a 1,000 words. What do these pictures convey? BEER. Beer, beer, beer, and beer for only $10. There are 10 breweries. 10 dollars for multiple beers from each of them. Today is easily the best way I have ever spent ten bucks except for that one time in Tijuana. For 10 bucks I'm constantly drinking quality craft beer for two hours 10 from noteworthy breweries. 10! 10! 10! Is this the real deal? Fueled by a David Bowie/Hall&Oates super mix, Karl, David and I rolled down to the El Segundo Whole Foods to investigate.

 

I'm beginning with Firestone and sampling the Union Jack (a personal favorite) as well as the never-drunk Special Edition DIPA and the Merlin Oatmeal Stout, both were excellent and the double I'm excited to officially taste it one day soon. Mister Firestone himself was there pouring and he let me know that the DIPA was a year-round beer but it will be available in limited quantities because it is a time intensive brew.

Firestone Brewery

Peak Organic Ale is the most interesting beer there. They make a slew of organic beers that are pretty out of the box, including a Pomegranate Wheat Ale that is really solid. IPA was tasty as well. I learned that the hardest part of their job is convincing the farmers to cordon off part of their land to grow organically (at greater time and expense) in order to make beer that will taste better (due to it being organic). I can see how that would be a tough sell. A farmer would really have to believe in the quality of beer.

Peak Organic

Sam Adams has their winter seasonal to sample as well as LEGIT beer opener key chains. I tried the Fuzziweg, an interesting concoction of 12 spices.

Sam Adams loves key chain beer openers

Aloha beer! Our beer of the day is from Kona. The rep pouring the brew is wearing a lei and is super chill. Maybe he's drunk, I can't tell. Maybe I'm a little sauced. Whatever, I'm surfing right now on a Hawaiian Porter wave of 100% Kona Coffee. As a seasonal, it's simple but pleasurable beer and definitely defined by the coffee. ARMAGEDDON rating

Kona Coffee Porter

Our two favorite local breweries are on hand. The Bruery is tasting the Rugbord and Orchard de Lente. Bootleggers brought a pony keg of their brand new West Coast IPA, which is a DANK beer and hope to buy a growler of next time I'm down there.

The Bruery represents

After devouring spicy cheese balls, we are moving onto the second area. This is where the party is. Everyone's a little drunk too by the time they arrive here, so the beer flows like wine. Speaking of beer and wine, first in the mix is Sierra Nevada's three pack of 30th Anniversary Beer and one of them tastes like a barley wine. I wanted to originally have one of these beers as our halfway through the year beer, but I'm glad we didn't. They aren't bad but they're not as amazing as I dreamed them to be.

Also, the Sierra sales rep was HAMMERED and pouring people as if he had an infinite supply. He is love'n it - being drunk on and pouring Sierra Nevada at the same time. My hero for the day.

Sierra Nevada also have the brand new Hoptometer, their attempt at a 110+IBU uber IPA. It's ego-strokingly hoptaculer. David is buying one to taste, we'll have it soon.

Tried the New Belgim Trippel for the first time, was excellent and would love to drink more.

 

The other beers available are a few from Le Fin de Monde, Weihenstephaner, Affligem and two from Stone. These strong beers really put me over the edge and I feel happy. I suddenly want to buy the entire beer selection in the Whole Foods fridge. I'm definitely over-served. Mission Accomplished!

Overall, this is a sublime experience which probably won't happen again. I think Whole Foods was grossly unprepared for the amount of people turning out. We got away with murder for the amount of beer we drank at the price. We tried a few beers for the first time and enjoyed many for the umpteenth time. Thanks to Karl for driving and for being awesome and to Whole Foods for being naive enough to think 10 dollars for a 2 hour drunkfest wouldn't attract a crowd.