Craft Beer Fest L.A. + Chaya Happy Hour

Josh's 29h birthday is Sunday, so to celebrate, he wanted to check out Craft Beer Fest L.A. happening in Echo Park this weekend and then maybe go out for some drinks. (I really feel like "Beerfest" should be one word ... anyone with me?)

Jackie and PJ were awesome and arrived to Beerfest (that's it, I'm making it one word) early. All of the tickets were sold out earlier this week, so we decided to take our chances at the door. Josh, Bug, Ajax, and I met up with Jackie and PJ in line.


Thankfully, because of Jackie and PJ, we were at the very front of the line, so it wasn't long before they let us in.


Beerfest was held in the Echoplex, a concert venue. Once inside, we were handed tasting glasses and 15 drink tickets each.


It was crowded and dark inside, so none of my pictures turned out -- everything was fuzzy like this.


(Any tips for taking pics in low lighting? The auto setting always makes everything in the background black.)

The inside had two bars set up for tasting and a bunch of food, including gourmet cheeses, pizza, burritos, and beer-flavored ice cream from Scoops (Guinness chocolate and Hefeweizen infused banana). Yum!

Some of the best beer we tried, in my humble opinion, was the Pizza Port Hefeweizen (tasted like coconut!), the Crafstman Scottish Isle, and some of the beers from Bruery. PJ loved the special release Pale Ale from Stone Brewing, and Josh was pretty much in heaven.

A (blurry) pic of my glass.


Josh and PJ -- who loves Beerfest? :)


Group pics (sans Jackie and me)


Next stop was Chaya downtown for their awesome Happy Hour.

Josh and PJ with chopsticks. I swear, I can never get a nice, not goofy picture of these two!


We ordered some apps and a few more drinks (Jackie and I stuck with water since we were the DDs). Chaya is delicious -- I occasionally will eat lunch here with co-workers -- and their Happy Hour is a terrific value for the quality of food. We ordered hummus, some sushi, the lamb and gorgonzola sliders, and the calamari (which was salty and scrumptious). Luckily, Chaya was a little dead, given that the rest of the kids had that loud, I-just-drank-a-bunch-of-beer-at-Beerfest-and-can't-control-my-volume thing going on. We were having fun, and luckily, we didn't spoil anyone's dinner! :)

After some beer, Josh decided to switch to sake. Speaking of trying to get a nice picture of Josh and PJ, sake and drunkenness sure did not help my cause. The next three pictures crack me up.







Sigh. :)

Josh's 29th Birthday is tomorrow! One more year until the big 3-0! Happy Birthday, sweetheart!