Check out all of our photos from Hangar 24’s Oktoberfest and BeerFest at our Flickr page: https://flic.kr/s/aHsknmZGY7
October 10, 2015, the date that marks Hangar 24 Craft Brewery’s Oktoberfest celebration and BeerFest in San Bernardino, California. H24 is one of our hometown heroes of craft beer who are known to throw great anniversary parties, so when we were invited to attend their Oktoberfest celebration, our taste buds perked with interest.
The setting for the Hangar 24 Oktoberfest was the 66ers stadium in downtown San Bernardino, in the middle of the baseball team’s outfield. Many southern California breweries were in attendance with a pleasantly surprising lineup of one-off beers and beer-geek favorites. A live band was playing traditional German music that one would typically hear at an Oktoberfest event, while children and adults played games and lounged in the surprisingly spongy outfield grass.
Two of the Four Brewers (Jason and John) arrived right at four o’clock, the start of the event, because that’s how we roll. The sun was out, and boy was it hot. We started off light with some Double Mango IPA (sarcasm, anyone?) from our friends at Hamilton Family Brewery. As the sun started to set an hour or so later, the stadium was seemingly transformed into the perfect venue for a beer event.
Inland Empire breweries are slowly on the rise. Breweries are spread far throughout the IE, going from Claremont to Palm Desert. With this distance, it’s difficult to make it a trip out to all of them, so having them together in the same place at the same time was great. La Quinta Brewing, Brew Rebellion, Escape Brewing, Ritual Brewing, Coachella Valley Brewing, and Hamilton Family Brewery were among the IE breweries serving beer.
While many breweries from the Inland Empire were in attendance, some of our favorites from Orange County were there, too. Barley Forge brought their incredibly delicious rye coconut stout, The Patsy, and their tasty dortmunder-style lager, Grandpa Tractor. Bottle Logic Brewing, Left Coast Brewing, and Belching Beaver Brewing Company didn’t disappoint either…
At this point, you night be asking yourself: “But wait…this is an Oktoberfest celebration, right?”
Yup. Hangar had traditional dimpled mugs and full pours of their Oktoberfest Fall Lager available for purchase. The entire event went from 4pm to 10pm, with the beer fest part happening for the first three hours. It was essentially a traditional Oktoberfest and craft beer festival rolled into one, which was a cool way to mix it up and keep things interesting.
Big thanks to Hangar 24 for having us. All in all, the template for the event was great, with many great breweries on hand. Bringing the event to San Bernardino made for convenient access and parking, and the baseball field provided more than enough space to spread out, relax, and enjoy the evening.
Prost!
