Treasure Chest Fest at Green Flash happened on Saturday, September 7th, and was a great day of craft beer, well paired food dishes and supporting the fight against breast cancer. In its third year, this event offered amazing specialty and rare beers from Green Flash, exceptional local food, and an original experience of a festival taking place inside the brewery with the backdrop of all the brewing equipment and tanks. Benefiting the Susan G. Koman for the Cure with all ticket sales, this event was truly an experience not to miss.
At a ticket cost of $25, this celebration offered a value rarely seen in the San Diego craft beer festival world. For more information about the beers served and participating restaurants, click here to see my prior post about the event.
It was a super hot afternoon, so I was delighted this festival was inside the brewery. The stations were spread out in a ring around the facility, with tanks, barrels and brewing equipment in the background. Green Flash has an incredible brewery, and if you haven’t seen it before I highly suggest you take a tour. I have long touted the benefits of serving food at craft beer festivals and this event pleasantly surprised me with satisfying pairings. Thankfully, they also added some giant fans and cold water stations, which we needed for sure.
Several things stuck out during this festival that elevated it to greatness in my mind. Let’s get started with the beers; I didn’t say that well enough for craft beer heads, the BEERS! It was an incredible lineup which would please any hard core fan, with rare beers that Green Flash doesn’t make anymore, cask and barrel aged beers, and new beers all available for your drinking pleasure. Poured in a actual glass (more festivals should do this!), my excitement made it difficult to choose what to sample next. When all was said and done some of my favorites were Silva Stout, Rayon Vert with blackberries, and my favorite of the day, a cask of Linchpin they re-dry hopped.
The food dishes were completely on point as well. Check out the participating restaurants on that list (“click here” above); it reads like a San Diegan’s personal list of favorite places. All of the pairings I sampled were really great, but my favorites were Flanders Dr. with a meatloaf from Urge, Super Freak with a Miho Experience venison banh mi, and Silva Stout with a terrific, rich chili from Sielsel’s/Iowa Meats, which I thought was the most complete pairing of the day. By itself, the bahn mi from Miho was my favorite dish. Other plates that deserve mentioning include the bacon wrapped fig with salad, mini fig and blue cheese cupcakes and crab cakes.
Not limited to beer and food, there were pirate pin-up girls happy to pose for a picture for (or with) you, a cool picture booth with costumes/accessories, a giant projection of all pictures being tagged with #greenflashbeer on Instagram, Jack Fm hanging out, booths from Komen for the Cure and Beer 4 Boobs, games, and fun times surrounding you.
Green Flash does a lot for San Diego and this is stellar example of their commitment to giving back to the city that has helped them acheive great success. I found that this event was managed extremely well, offered an amazing value for the ticket cost, had a great atmosphere, benefited the fight against cancer, and was a truly memorable craft beer festival!
