Tasting a beer at the Idyllwild beer festival.

6-04-2016

I finally got to sleep in today.  Boy did it feel good.  The Inn does your laundry for you, so I dropped it off at 9 and went to breakfast.  After breakfast I found a whole clan of other PCT hikers eating breakfast at a different place so I sat with them.  Everyone talked about going to the beer festival.  I had bought my ticket the night before.  I was on a mission.

I went and picked up my laundry at 11 and headed out to the festival.  The local Subaru dealer was shuttling people to the nature center where it was being held.  Only two of the crew showed up.  We had a good time.  They gave you 10 tickets that you could use at various local breweries tents for a small pour.

There was a Coachella Valley Brewing Company there that had an I-10 IPA that was not as good as Intuitions brew of the same name, but they had a mango IPA that was fantastic.  It was by far the highlight of the festival.

They only brought a 5 gallon keg of the mango IPA, so it was gone in under an hour.  Most of the other breweries were not impressive.  Samuel Adams was there and giving away lib balm, so I grabbed some for the rest of the desert.  [Post hike:  that is the best lip balm I have ever had – I used it the entire trail and still have it.]

The local Subaru dealer shuttles festival patrons from the bear statue next to the hotel.

After the festival it was out to dinner with a different crew of PCT hikers then a quick pass at the grocery store and off to bed.  I packed up a little bit, but left most for the morning.  It goes pretty quick when you do exactly the same thing every morning.