Septemberfest

Septemberfest...a much smaller L.A. version of Oktoberfest without the lederhosen, sausages, and glass steins. The festivity held at the parking lot of the Santa Monica pier is an outdoor beer frenzy with a few food trucks for nomsters and live music to keep the intoxicated entertained. This event, produced by Drink Eat Play, is smaller than their earlier event in April, the L.A. Beerfest.  Even though you'd think it would be bigger due to the larger size of space available at the Santa Monica pier parking lot than at a more enclosed and limited backlot of Paramount Studios.

Cute little cups for tastings (Photo by Gurl in LA)

Parking by the Santa Monica pier is fairly simple with plenty of parking structures nearby at a reasonable price, unless you're lucky enough to find street parking (metered, of course) and don't mind the short walk to the pier. When we arrived at the event, we were surprised how many people approached us asking if we had extra tickets. Apparently, the event drew a huge crowd and was sold out.  Since we showed up about an hour after the event started, there was already drunken obnoxiousness and a lot of douch-ass-ness but that comes with the territory. I was a little disappointed that there weren't as many food trucks at this event but luckily, I didn't bring my guiltful indulgent appetite with me. 

The crowd at Septemberfest (Photo by Gurl in LA)

All the beer vendors were the typical ones in attendance and I was able to taste all the ones I enjoyed before as well some new ones.  The newest one I tried was the Kawaba Beer with Kigen Sake. It was the first time I've had sake bombs at a beer festival. Overall, I really enjoyed the festival but I think I would have enjoyed the L.A. Beerfest more.

No one's ever happy with an empty cup (Photo by Gurl in LA)