When the majority of local craft fans think of San Diego Beer Week (SDBW), their minds conjure memories of that annual 10-day celebration’s largest and most well-known events, Guild Fest and Beer Garden. The former brought all of the San Diego Brewers Guild’s (SDBG) member breweries together to show off their wares to thousands of attendees in a sprawling, convivial space, while the latter was a more intimate affair in which brewers teamed with local chefs to present top-shelf beer-and-food pairings at The Lodge at Torrey Pines.
Coordinated by the SDBG, these cornerstone events thrived during the craft-beer surge of the 2010s, but couldn’t be held during the pandemic and lacked their former mass appeal coming out of COVID. In 2022, revivals of Guild Fest and Beer Garden fell far short of expected attendance, resulting in financial losses that led the non-profit SDBG and its volunteer Board of Directors to develop new vehicles for promoting local beer culture geared to be more compelling for today’s consumers.
“The craft-beer scene has changed so much, and we realized we need to evolve how we attract people to celebrate with us,” says SDBG President and Modern Times Beer Director of Hospitality Jake Nunes. “It used to be that just having great beer was enough, but now we need to offer a wider variety of attractions that appeal to different interests, with beer being the common thread that brings it all together.”
This year, SDBW will take place from Friday, November 1 through Sunday, November 10, and feature an SDBG-organized festival more fit for the times, the Capital of Craft Beerfest. Loosely modeled after Modern Times’ popular Festival of Dankness, it will be a celebration of the style that put San Diego on the map, the West Coast IPA. Taking place in the parking lot behind Kearny Mesa’s Kilowatt Brewing from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday, November 9, the event will feature around 30 breweries stocked with hop-forward offerings.
“Hops and San Diego go hand-in-hand,” says SDBG Executive Director Erik Fowler. “There will be a people’s choice award for the best hoppy beer at the festival, which will be a pretty big honor, but breweries will also be providing non-hoppy beers for those who prefer other styles.”
On of the IPAs that will be served at the festival is one sharing its name, Capital of Craft IPA. This year, Black Plague Brewing, BLAH Brewing, Hodad’s Brewing, Hopnonymous Brewing and Ketch Brewing will also assemble at Fall Brewing’s headquarters in Miramar to produce this annual collaboration beer, which will be available in cans and on-draft throughout San Diego County. And for the first time ever, homebrewers will also be able to brew it, thanks to Home Brew Mart. As that Linda Vista homebrew-supply outlet does for San Diego Beer News’ annual Homebrew Summer program, it will scale down the recipe for this year’s celebratory IPA and open-source it to the general public.
Also in the works are a series of Guild on the Streets neighborhood clean-up events, which will be hosted and attended by various members of the beer industry and craft-beer community. A full list of events will be released in the near future, but one which will close out SDBW is a North Park clean-up taking place at noon on Sunday, November 10, which will start at Black Plague’s tasting room on the corner of University Avenue and 29th Street, and end at Seek Beer Co.’s tasting room in the Craft by Brewery Igniter facility on El Cajon Boulevard.
Businesses and individuals interested in hosting or participating in Guild on the Streets events are invited to reach out to the SDBG via email.
“In moving away from the large Guild Fest model, which had become difficult to execute without financial strain, we’re instead focusing on smaller, more approachable events that are easier to pull off but just as fun,” says Nunes. “Our main focus is to get as many breweries involved as possible and encourage them to showcase their creativity through fun, unique events.”
While the SDBG and its Board developed the idea for SDBW in 2009, it’s important to note that early editions were made up of hundreds of smaller events conceived and coordinated by individual breweries, brewpubs, restaurants, bars, hotels and other public-facing businesses, one of which was Beer Garden. Guild Fest, which first took place in 2005, was folded into SDBW as its only established property. While the SDBG’s bookend events performed well, so, too, did the smaller, often unique and creative events held throughout SDBW’s 10 days, enough to draw not only locals, but also droves of out-of-town beer enthusiasts over the years.
The SDBG provided a foundation and marketed SDBW, but its success was just as reliant on the participation and drive of its member brewing companies, something that fell off over the years as those organizations have faced mounting business-related challenges and largely looked to the SDBG to carry the day where SDBW is concerned.
We hope to see Beer Week continue to evolve and change as we bring new members into the San Diego beer family. We’d love to see those new to beer join us and make Beer Week their own. I think a great sign of success would be to look at Beer Week five years from now and have it look completely different, championed by different people with new ideas. Things like this are meant to be fluid and ever-changing, and that’s not only OK but encouraged.
Erik Fowler, Executive Director, San Diego Brewers Guild
Fowler invites any local breweries with ideas for SDBG-supported events to reach out via email, stating he and his colleagues are happy to serve as a support mechanism to help member organizations achieve success. Such teamwork and camaraderie are more important than ever for local breweries.
“The last few years have been tough for San Diego’s beer scene, especially post-pandemic, but San Diego is still one of the greatest beer cities in the world, and it deserves to be celebrated,” says Nunes. “We believe that, with a unified effort and renewed energy, we can bring San Diego Beer Week back to its former glory. The Guild is committed to being that driving force and inspiring our members to put their best foot forward this year.”
Tickets to the Capital of Craft Beerfest are available online, and SDBW updates can be accessed on the SDBG’s website.