Anaheim’s OC Fest of Ales

Well organized. Nice vendors. Great selection of beers, wine, food. Hope to make it out next year too.

Great fun
Good friends
Awesome Beer and food
Can’t wait for next years Fest of ales!!!
The only thing that would make it better is more bands

First of all: thanks #YelpOC I love you guys!
these tickets were a sign from heaven: I needed to start celebrating my birthday
The event was awesome, well organized but it could have been more practical with the exit/​re-​enter process (no biggie, just a suggestion)
The music was great! loved The Rayford Brothers! people were happily dancing and driking beer.
The breweries were great!
I discovered my new 2^nd favorite beer from Noble Ale Works:
Naughty Sauce!
It was a heavenly Sweet stout.
The food was great as well, the watermelon gazpacho from Gypsy Den was fabulous! Also the beer infused dessert.
To my surprise it was a Wine stand from Colony, a wine bar nearby (mental note: I have to go!!)
Also It was great to see some fellow helpers and beer-​lovers: Sandya, Joe and Roy.
This event is a must for all beer-​lovers, it’s a great way to try all the new beers from local breweries.
The weather was hot as hell but the sacrifice was worth it: with all the cool people, great beers, awesome music, what else can a girl ask for?
I’ll be there next year. Highly recommended!

I had so much fun at the Fest of Ales!!! My friends and I want to go every year now we loved it so much! Everyone was so cool and the food and drinks were absolutely delicious! Can’t wait to go again!!!

POV VOLUNTEER
Highlights
+ Variety
+ Generous Pours
+ Good People
+ Fun Environment
— Need More Food
I volunteered for the event so it was free for me, but otherwise I think it was something like $ 70 per person. There must have been over 50 booths each with 2 kinds of beer (more if you count the keg switches). All the brewers are very enthusiastic about their jobs and happily explain their business. I expected a packed and crowded environment with drunk hooligans and shenanigans, but the event was well attended and tame. Volunteering wasn’t that fun. It was a good experience, but probably wouldn’t attend again.

I went to this event a few years ago when they had a 5K complete with bubbles at the end! They had a pancake breakfast before the beer event. Also within the beer event, they had vendors selling T-​shirts and other items which were fun to look at. I miss all of this and wish they would go back to this set up!
With that being said, this is still a really fun event. There are a lot of different beer vendors giving decent size samples of beer in your little souvenir glass. All of the vendors were friendly and generous and knowledgeable about the beer they were serving. The food was also fantastic… many different local restaurants came to show off their stuff. The bands were also really good. A great local event to come to!

While attending this event, satan called to inform me that the only place hotter than hell that day was Anaheim, Ca! And even with all the shade provided, it was seriously uncomfortable, however, other than the horrible heat, this event was SENSATIONAL!
40 breweries, most of which local, all serving up tasty microbrews with a smile. No lines to speak off and no port-​o-​potties. Most of the breweries were sampling their Oktoberfest ales and I felt very VIP getting to try the good stuff early. Barley Forge and Bottle Logic were the standouts for me and I love beer, almost ALL beer, so maybe I’m not the best critic after all.
Pour Vida was handing out the world’s fanciest tacos consisting of Scottish salmon (raw) with watercress served on a black bean tortilla, super classy and delish. They also provided some MUY picante habanero salsa that sent me directly to the closest beer booth for another pour. My fave was the Mediterranean flat bread pita, I usually find these things bland, but the warm freshly grilled pita and seasoned chicken was workin’ for me that day, hats off to Fado at Meditterean Cruise, yes that’s ‘cruise’, I’m looking right at the business card as I type this.
Overall, a fantastic event, just need an indoor venue and maybe an oom-​pah band too. Thanks for the tickets Unilocal

Was working for Crêpe Coop here but was able to experience the festivities as well!
I love craft beer and have always wanted to go to a beerfest. Selection of craft beer here was off the charts!!! So many breweries were in attendance with a lot of them being local. You are given 4 ounce tasting glasses where you would then go up to any booth and pick from the selection of beer they had (usually 2).
Free, unlimited beer/​food tastings! What more can you ask for. Everyone working was friendly and knowledgable of their brews.
There was also a music stage and games (giant Jenga, cornhole) for you to check out for a little break between tastes.
Overall, this was my first beerfest and I have to say it was an amazing experience! Can’t wait until next year!

To start off, a huge thank you to Unilocal for my tickets to the Taste of Ales! My BF and I got there around 12:40 and it wasn’t too crowded which was good! Greeters were friendly and helpful. You got a cute little cup for all the beer tastings and a key chain bottle opener too. We started on the side with the most shade first. Only down side to the event was the temps! It was quite hot out! One of my favs was the Portland cider booth! Loved the crisp flavor and it wasn’t too sweet. One booth I may have missed was Einstock. Didn’t see it but it was on the list. I dig their beers.
All of the food booths were pretty great as well! I think one of our favorites was Umami Burger’s sweet potato fries. So good! Urbana also had a great ceviche to sample. The gypsy den had a deviled egg which was pretty awesome. But their pulled pork wasn’t a win for me. Not enough flavor. One thing I would suggest would be to have the booths spread out more and more shaded umbrellas in between to even out the crowds, but overall it was a great event and I’m grateful to have won tickets!

I’m so excited i must resort to alliteration to get my point across:
1)Outstanding overwhelming amazing selection of brewers.
Do not miss barley Forges best of show be tank truck.
2) Fantastic fantasy weather.
3) Killer live band crushing classic so cal sounds.
4) did we mention the delightful delectable decadent morsels of tasty snacks?!
5) yes, the pours are generous & porta Jane’s are lovely

Love this, have been for both years. Why cancelled for 2014?

This is such an awesome event,
I will describe it from a volunteer point of view .
First of all this event is organized by the Downtown Anaheim Association. My interaction was only limited mostly to Devon, Helen, and Lonny. A week prior to the event, we had an orientation meeting on what goes where and what you’re supposed to do.
On the day of the event, since I was working the check-​in booth for the 5K, I was there bright and early. Everyone was setting up and like all events that I have volunteered, it was slightly chaotic at first. There was a bit of standing around and wondered where we would be going.
On a side note: I for some unknown reason was being pulled by many of the staff for doing one thing. (Like put this check in sign by the parking garage or put this hose on so we can get water). There are plenty of volunteers, I actually think there were too many but I kept getting picked up by the supervisors.
Well, as time went by, people knew where to go and what to do. I did a few of the heavy work as in moving the tshirt boxes (there were LOTS!, I don’t think Anaheim went through half of it) Me and this other guy Daniel who was also a volunteer also moved cases of bottled water. When it was done, there was more standing around. We couldn’t really go and enjoy the festival until our time was up. But we tried staying busy.
As to the beerfest and everything else this is a wonderful event. The proceeds to this event benefits the fall festival foundation halloween parade. Good to know there is still community involvement in events.
There were tons of beer vendors. Every local beer place like Noble, Bootleggers, Alcatraz, Tustin, Anaheim were here. There were other steller ones like Ballast Point (which served up Bloody Mary), Stones (Sublimely Self Righteous), New Belgium’s Pluto beer which has 10% ABV!
If you go to this event next year, you need to go to the BEER event!
Oh, should you do the VIP which includes the food tastings? That’s subjective because I didn’t go myself but some of my friends did. Some said it was worth it because it was all inclusive and they also have a few beer pairings to go along with the food. Others said it wasn’t worth it because the food, though it was part of the price, wasn’t prepared well quality wise.
As for us volunteers, there were also some confusion for people who wanted to upgrade to VIP status. I would say if you already bought both the beer and the 5K, why not upgrade on the day of if you can. Just make sure you talk to the right person.
There were ATMs, port o potties, and though there were not enough tables IMO, I think it was pretty well planned out. I will try my best to volunteer again maybe for the later shift so that I can enjoy the festivities when it ends.
Pics compliments of OC Weekly

This was a great event to run in!!! There were so many people who attended this year. Hoping they throw this event again next year. The run before was a 5k run, followed by a beer tasting Fest of Ales! There were over 100 different craft beers on tap. It was like the Beer Gods came down and turned Downtown Anaheim into the kingdom of Beer Heaven!!! There was also some awesome food trucks who attended and used «beer» as a key ingredient!!! We had so much fun and would love to attend next year!

A bit pricey but with all the samples of beer to be had, it was a fantastic experience. The trick was getting here early as some of the specialty brews ran out fast, and the heat certainly didn’t help. Thankfully there were several different food trucks to help soak up all that alcohol, and free parking always helps. Will definitely come back next year!
Protip: if you run the 5k, you get a VIP access pass for unlimited food/​beers!

Today was the first of many (I Hope) Anaheim’s OC Fest of Ales and Beer Run 5K.
The Race started at 9am and it didn’t take long for the festivities to begin. Runners began finishing within an hour. And the taps started flowing. What better way to end a race than with a taste!
The day was filled with a great many breweries touting their best ales Ipa’s, lagers, and more. Some really great craft beers. Really cool people. Really good fun!
I had a ton of really great beers and some good food and a great time!
See my Pics.
BEER, FOOD MUSIC = FUN!
The VIP area had many local restaurants serving great food and beer pairings.
Roys
Oggis
Out of the Park
Slaters ⁵⁰⁄₅₀
Ralph Brennans Jazz Kitchen
Eat Street
Threre was a bevy of food TRUCKS too!
Chomp Chomp Nation
Lime Truck
Viking Truck
Rolling Sushi
Scarecrow
Garlicscapes
Sexy Burger
Sea Birds
The BEERS:
Anaheim Brewery
Bootleggers Brewery
The Bruery
Noble Ale Works
ACE Ciders
Haven Brewing
Karl Strauss
Oggis
Shock Top
Firestone
Hangar 24
Old Orange brewing Co.
Sierra Nevada
Bravery brewing co.
Firestone Walker brewing Co.
Craft Brewing Co.
Moylans
Sudwerk
Grand Teton Brewing
Lost Coast Brewery
Haywoods
Golden Road
Bravery
Black Diamond
Eagle Rock
Evans brewing
Guiness
Inland Empire Brewing Co.
High Water
Widmer Bros.
Rubicon
AND MORE
I had a great time and I hope this becomes an annual affair.