Bacon & Beer Festival

Well i guess it depends on which side of the street you stand, one side is do I look for the good side of things or the bad. Its obvious some peeps posting here are the latter.
If your like me tho and tend to look for the good, its a Bacon N Beer festival how bad could it really be right?
So the good bad n ugly in that order.
The good: plenty of awesome beers this year to fit anyones fancy. For me im a dark larger porter stout guy which was refreshing to see alot of vendors packing something just for me instead of the more popular yuppy IPAs everyone has done to death. Dont get me wrong beer is beer after all and even for me a dark guy there were a suprising number of new lighter styles to choose from. Like there was this something light an sour beer that was good and especially unique for the light styles that is. My fave Darky was between Independants Dark Oak larger and Speakeasys Imperial stout. Although something super popular you could tell by the line was Magnolias «Warmer» an english ale.
Next theres the bacon, this years fave in my opinion goes to iplanks backbacon mac n cheese hands down. But i would have to mention honorably the pork sloppy joe from a vendors name im ashamed to have forgotten as well as the 420 special, candied bacon chocolate chip cookie from the Fists of flour pizza guys! Of course their zza is always great.
Another big plus for this year was they actually had seating and some tables for folks to use, a big shout out plus for that one yay! Can you just imagine my fat ass standing for 2 hours of bacon n beer gorging. NOT!
So props to the guys for that addition from last years event.
The bad: well i like to always be positive and fair, so to be fair there was way more beer than bacon which as it turns out wasnt so bad. That is of course after a few more beers and a few more beers and a few more beers, it just didnt seem to be an issue. As vendors eventually ran out of food I found myself being more upset about them running out of my new found favorite beer, go figure right.
The ugly: This year the anti pork eating activists were there in full force as they somehow got a member to pay for a ticket to get in and then some how let the group of about 20 peeps in a side door where they managed to find their way to a vacant upstairs area to hold signs and yell anti pig eating chants from up above down onto the gorging n drinking crowds below. All in all it was more like entertainment for the obviously unaffected crowd below, who actually would, in large groups almost like sports fans chant in unison back at them things like «bacon taste good» and «you need a beer»
It was in my opinion the most fun I have had at this event yet.
I would give this years festival 5 stars if they were to add more just bacon vendors or at least more bacon inspired food dishes. But I cannot remember where I put my voters card.

I don’t get all the bad reviews. We’ve been to this twice and had a great time both times. It’s probably our favorite beer festival in the Bay Area. What I love about this festival is that while it’s about the same price as other beer festivals, this one includes both beer and food. (At other ones, it’s common for the $ 40-​$ 50 fee to only include beer, with having to pay separately for food.)
In 2014, we were near the end of the entrance line but still got in in about 30 – 45 minutes. There were still plenty of samples of everything. In 2015, we learned from this and arrived earlier so we were near the front.
Yes, some of the lines inside are long… but not all of them all the time. I can’t think of any that had a long line during the entire festival, and there were some that never had a long line. if you don’t like long lines, don’t choose to wait in them… we didn’t, and we still got plenty of great beer and bacon. A few booths run out by the end (moreso the food than beer), but most of them have plenty of stock for the entire afternoon.
I like the creativity of the food booths. Some of my favorites were the bacon-​duck meatloaf & the chicken-​fried bacon wrapped scotch egg.
The beer is also great. It’s not so much a place to go to get the current «hot» offering (i.e. no Pliny the Younger here) but to try offerings from many local breweries that you don’t normally see all in one place, or that may have flown under the radar. Some of these are hit or miss, but that’s part of trying new things… and the hits can be BIG hits. I would not have discovered my new favorite brewery, Iron Springs, if I didn’t find them here.
The festival closes *just* before people start to get sloppy. Keeping it in the afternoon is probably a good idea. The only thing I didn’t love is that they give you a cheapo small recyclable plastic cup for beer sampling. I realize they probably don’t want to deal with glass because of possible breakage, but beer just tastes better in glass, and they could make some killer glassware with one of their awesome logos.

Some of these recent reviews were pretty harsh. IF you were near the front of the line like I was, then you obviously had a different experience. My group was able to get in and sample 75% of the food before the lines got ridiculously long. There were enough beer vendors that if you wanted beer with out standing in line, there were vendors with no lines. Here’s why I think people had such a poor experience:
–Ticket prices were a little steep for what you were actually getting.
–HUGE line that wrapped around the building just to get in.
–Venue was a little small for the amount of people that attended.
–Food lines for sliders, pizza, and others got a little crazy to a point that you were wasting time standing in line than getting to sample other foods and beers.
–Long lines for bathrooms (feel real sorry for the girls)
–None of the beer vendors had extra sample cups. I threw mine away a couple of times and had to trek to the entrance to get another cup.
Highlights:
–More beer vendors than there were food vendors
–Bacon infused Vanilla Ice cream with the chocolate stout from (i forget which brewery) was simply AMAZE-​BALLS!
–Bacon wrapped brisket had no lines and were very efficient about putting food on the plate to serve. I had about 8 servings: D
Would I come back to this event? NO, unless ticket prices were under $ 25. I didn’t sample anything that knocked my socks off, besides the choco stout bacon vanilla ice cream. Other than that, it was just meh

Absolutely fuckin ridiculous. Overzealous security who thinks they’re still cops… way long lines, tiny ass bites of food. Ghetto vibe. Fuck your beer festival

Time: 2:32pm/67°F cloudy
Purpose: I like bacon and beer with no cost to me I was excited. Did my routine morning workout and even went for a bike ride just to burn calories off.
Set-​up: Event was located inside empty space next to Haven that was suppose to be like the ferry building of SF, that was 5 yrs ago, talk of the town. Local vendors and businesses participated apply their trade at this event. JFYI the space is were the Jacks OF All Trade is held every second Saturday off the month.
Staff: Security guard with white shirt and sunglasses was the only person who knows their job. The rest of the people were lost not too organized at all. Waiting in line watching them scanning the printed paper tickets was heart wrenching, not sure if their future career is on the line. There were hiccups in lines as some people didn’t walk up to get scan so staff yells «walk up please» backstroking their arms for the line to move. Put a sign there and you wouldn’t have that problem. Some people walk up and ask tickets available staff said sold out but one guy in kango/​sunglasses in deep manly voice. Tickeeeeeets herrrrrrrrrrre! With about 10 people in front of me just as I was about to enter they stop the line in it’s track. For what you might ask? A group of protestors holding a sign about how they hated pigs being slaughter and bull horns blaring about 30 feet away from me, I wanted to plug up my ears with fingers or put a slab of uncured bacon to muffle up that humiliating voice coming out.
Cleanliness: It was marginal as some items being offer looks questionable not sure so i will not say. The space itself is a little dusty can’t remember if I put on a couple of Visine drops or not. Now with so many people attending especially with cook greasy food involve why would one shut all the doors surrounding the building? The hot smokey smell from bacon is bad enough already let alone hundreds of people breathing makes the temperature rise right?
Eats/​Drinks: Bacons from local restaurants/​cafes and beers from local and regional breweries. How much to eat and drink well the first review from Jorgen best describes it.
Products: Beer and bacon items for the event.
Punch Line: Good smell of bacon, lots of people, unorganized, pricey, staff MIA and snooty, wasted time/​effort, vendors seems like they didn’t want you there, hungry and thirsty afterwards. RN was one of participants representing here. No not register nurse, Raider Nation a football team HQ in Alameda Ca.
Final Thoughts: In the beginning after getting past the protestors things were looking up. Upon stepping in first table I saw with see through 10oz cups and white plastic spoon I was excited. By the time I approach the 3^rd or 4^th vendors things wasn’t quite what I had in mind about the event. This place was definitely for the hard core drunks that gets served with beer and bacon. Hell with that most of the people there can get fed thick cuts of Oscar Meyer bacons infused with wooden apple chips, wouldn’t no the difference. They’re too happy to see beer and friends scurrying around the place that they loose control of themselves. In the end the only winners here are the promoters and vendors the rest woke up monday morning wondering what they did with their Sunday afternoon between 2:30−6pm. Thank you for a memory of having my Giant’s pullover sweater and cap smelling like bacon. Now I’m worry about my neighbor’s dog who happens to like bacon bits!

Too bad… Good idea but not well pulled off. Badly cooked bacon is strange combos. Long line to get in. Long lines inside. Poor ventilation for so many people & cooking so much bacon. Even as a fundraiser, way too much money… $ 44 for 8oz of beer and 4 strange bacon samples over 3 hours?! Come on…
Anyway, I did enjoy the vegan protest at the entrance. It was almost worth the 30 min wait in line. If only I had used the line wait time to get drunk, the people that did seamed to have fun. I just felt like a sucker, still I’m still curious and hopeful to see what this local fundraiser provides our town. Maybe more actual bacon. Maybe I would try it again if it were outside.
I’m sorry what they did to you bacon,
Jorgen