San Diego Beer Week Kicks Off Friday

There is no one location for the many event celebrating your week in San Diego. You have festivals, tastings and flings about all over the county. What are the central celebrations takes place this weekend at the festival at the Port Pavilion on Broadway P or. It's a celebration of food and music on the Bayside with unlimited peer samples. Joining me to talk about beer week is Rich Chatman cofounder of the Coronado brewing company and Gina Marsaglia , founder of Pete support. Both of you are on the board of directors. Each year we've seen a talk about the beer industry getting bigger. Is is still growing?Definitely. There is bruits opening up every month. There are still quite a few open.Gina, are there startups of small brewers or is the company's getting bigger?It's a combination of both. I think it is exploding in the last five years with the small breweries that have open.I ask you both this. What kinds of trends or changes have you seen in the local beer community?I think people are going towards lighter beer. You see a trend a lot of people are drinking Mexican loggers and also the tart beers are becoming popular.I think the most astonishing new styles to come the market is the Northeastern IPA. We spent years and years praying for -- to clear beers so that we would have clear IPA and all clear beer. A trend is the hazy, crazy IPAs. It's exploded in the last year. Hardly anybody new about that style and now today it's almost rare to not see one in a beer menu.You see -- you run your breweries in your restaurant. How loyal would you say San Diego beer drinkers are?I think there's a certain amount of loyalty but this curiosity they want to try new things so some people are looking for the newest item on the shelf. I think it is inspiring for everybody to become more creative and develop new recipes a new styles for the consumer to enjoy.You don't see people coming and asking for the same thing over and over again?Yes, you do. People like what they like but they like to explore also. We do samplings and Gina does as well at Pizza Port. That's where people go to different flavors and exploring different flavors.Gina, what you think San Diego is a big IPA town?I'm not sure but we love her hops. I think the original style was pretty much you can give them credit for creating the first IPA and I think just networking and going to the different festivals. I think IPAs are popular everywhere.I was going to ask that. I imagine that beer week is helpful in the effort to expand beer drinkers pallets.I think it just opens up the attraction of beer week and all the events. There's over 1000 events. Just the exposure from that in all demographics of people that are going out and they see all these events. People want to try new things.People are encouraged to try new things during your week, are the question markSure. I think it's overload of events that they're exposed to that allows them to try pieces and then everyone gets more and more creative every year.I see there are several bury events during beer week. Overall, San Diego Beer Week is not a competition between brewers.No it's for all the beer drinkers getting together to explore different styles and events and have a great time.Rick, what would you say that it does for the industry?It expands it. It brings a drinkers in the retailers that showcase our beer and showcases them as well. So it's just elevating craft in San Diego.How hard is it for you guys to pull it off?It's a lot of work. We been working on it for a lot of years. In the 20 years it's been around, we've been on it most of the time.I think part of it is it started out as just an idea and then as it has evolved, we've grown with it so it made it easier. If it started out now as it is, it would be unbearable.There's multiple your weeks around the United States.Is there anything in particular that you are looking forward to this beer week questionYes, there's great event is. The Friday night event at the port pavilions are incredible. The Lodge at Torrey Pines and the end of beer week on Sunday. That is a great one. The San Diego guilt took over the frisbee fling. This is the nine peers so this is the first year that we've taken it over in organizing it.Would you like to add anything to that, Gina?Anyone can check out the events on the website for the San Diego Brewers Guild.It starts Friday, November 3 and runs through November 12. I've been speaking with Rick Chapman and Gina Marsaglia founder of Pizza Port. Thank you both very much.Thank you.