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(Carlsbad, CA) – Pizza Port’s 17th Strong Ale Festival is Dec. 6-7 at Pizza Port Carlsbad.

San Diego Beer week has come and gone, so it must be time for one of the oldest beer festivals in the country, Pizza Port’s Strong Ale Festival in downtown Carlsbad. This year’s event will be the largest ever, featuring over 75 strong ales from around the world. As always, each festival beer will be at least 8% alcohol on tap & cask.

With so many quality beers available in specialty beer shops, ale houses, gastro pubs and brewpubs around San Diego, festival organizers have gone out of their way to bring in rare beers that strong ale aficionados can’t find anywhere but Pizza Port Carlsbad.

Here is the schedule for the weekend:

Dec 6th (Friday) VIP Session: 1-4:30pm, $45, rare bottles and specialty kegs
Dec 6th (Friday) Session: 5-11pm, $35
Dec 7th (Saturday) Session 11-4:30pm, $35
Dec 7th (Saturday) Session 5-11pm, $35

Tickets are available on www.brownpapertickets.com. Tickets include a commemorative glass, (8) 4 oz. tasters and additional tastes are $2 each. Please note that some special beers may cost 2 tickets. Guests who buy a VIP ticket get access to all the rare, limited release beers and the entire festival lineup.

As always, the menu will include the annual Festival Pizza (with Rye Crust & Grilled bratwurst with Mustard sauce) and Bratwurst Sandwiches. Here is a short list of some of the more unique and decorated beers in bottles for the VIP Session:

–Eclipse’s FiftyFifty Barrel Aged Double Stout (9.5%), North Coast’s Barrel Aged Old Rasputin XIV Imperial Stout (11.5%), Russian River Consecration Batch 002 (10%) and Avery Dihos Dactylion Sour (10.3%).

–Special kegs: Hangar 24 Barrel Roll No.7 TailSlide (10.3%) and Epic Big Bad Baptist Imperial Stout (11.7%).
Other beers for the general festival: Delirium Noel (10%), Firestone Velvet Merkin Stout (8.5%), Rough Draft Freudian Sip (9.5%), Almanac Smoked Chipotle Stout (9%), Hess Ex Umbris Rye Imperial Stout (9.8%), Lost Abbey Merry Taj IPA (8.5%), Ironfire Barrel Aged Outcast Dead Imperial Red (9%), Mother Earth Sintax Stout (8.1%), Pizza Port Carlsbad Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout (11%) and Six Geese-A- Laying Belgian Strong (11.5%)

*See full draft beer list below.*

A little history:
The first Strong Ale Festival was held inside Pizza Port Carlsbad on a Thursday night in December of 1997. A small gathering of brewers and beer enthusiasts enjoyed a dozen San Diego ales, all at 8% alcohol and above, while families and Pizza Port regulars ate pizza and drank lagers and pale ales that were in the 5% alcohol range.

In 1997, IPAs–or India Pale Ales–were largely unknown and strong ales were considered too “too bitter” for most palates. Pizza Port’s festival was one of the earliest specialty beer events in Southern California and festival organizers weren’t sure there would be another one.

“We just wanted a festival to celebrate strong ales,” said Vince Marsaglia, co-owner and co-founder of Pizza Port. “I think there may have been 30 or 40 people there. Craft beer at that point was still relatively new, so were festivals in general.”

In the late 1990s, strong beers were such a novelty that they were only released once a year. “Not many people even knew what an IPA was back then,” Marsaglia said. “So the festival featured more barley wines and strong scotch ales.”

After two years, the festival outgrew Pizza Port’s brewery and was moved outdoors and expanded to two nights. The festival’s focus is still on San Diego beers, but regional and European beers have been added to the menu. Hop-heads will be in heaven this weekend in Carlsbad as IPAs and Imperial IPAs will be in abundance. But there will be just as many stouts and porters with Belgians, barley wines, American strong ales, Imperial red ales, Scotch ales, Sours and American browns close behind.

Questions? Contact Dave McKibben (760-809-6515).

VIP Drafts
1. Alesmith – Barrel Aged Speedway
2. Anchor – Our Barrel Ale
3. Epic – Big Bad Baptist
4.
5. Firestone – 17th Anniversary
6. Hangar 24 – Tail Slide
7. Port – Older Viscosity 2008
8. The Bruery – White Chocolate
9. Three Floyds – BA Behemoth

DRAFTS
10. Achouffe – Nice
11. Acoustic – Surly Mosh Pit
12. Alesmith – Winter Yulesmith
13. Allagash – Bourbon Black
14. Almanac – Smoked Chipotle Stout
15. Alpine – Bad Boy
16. Arcana – Something Pumpkin
17. Ballast Pt – Barmey or Navigator?
18. Beachwood – Annihilator
19. Big Dogs – Balls of Holly
20. Big Dogs – Double Down Under IPA
21. Bootleggers – Knuckle Sandwich
22. Bootleggers – Missile Crisis
23. Bruery – Six Geese a Laying
24. Bruery- Old Richland
25. Chicago Brewing – Quad Dammit
26. Coronado – Stupid Stout
27. Delirium – Noel
28. Deschutes – Abyss
29. Drakes – Jolly Rodger
30. Dudes’ – Double Trunk
31. Dupont – Avec les bon Vouex
32. El Segundo – Hop Tanker
33. Epic – Brainless of Cherries
34. Epic/DC Brau – Fermentation w/o Representation
35. Firestone – Velvet Merkin
36. Golden Road – Better Weather
37. Goose Island – The Illinois
38. Grand Teton – Bone Warmer
39. Great Divide – Hibernation
40. Green Flash – Palate Wrecker
41. Hess – Ex Umbris Rye Imperial Stout
42. Ironfire – Barrel Aged Outcast Dead Imperial Red
43. Joseph James – Mother of Quad
44. Karl Strauss – Citrus Big Double Barrel
45. Lagunitas – Hairy Eyeball
46. Latitude 33 – Murder By Death
47. Lost Abbey – Cuvee de Tomme
48. Lost Abbey – Merry Taj IPA
49. Maui – Craven’s Trippel
50. Maui – Red Cock Doppelbock
51. Mendocino – Talon
52. Modern Times – Lost Horizon DIPA
53. Mother Earth – Syntax Peanut Butter Imperial Stout
54. New Belgium/Dieu du Ciel – Heavenly Feijoa
55. Port Bressi – Hoppit
56. Port Carlsbad – Coffee DeathStar Stout
57. Port Carlsbad – Ginger Honey Off the Chain DIPA
58. Port Carlsbad – Spicy Man’s w/Pineapple
59. Port Carlsbad – Strong Ale Fest Blended Ale
60. Port Ocean Beach – Leather Bound Book Scotch
61. Port San Clemente – Cottons DIPA
62. Port San Clemente – Humpty Dumpty (BA Faceplant)
63. Port San Clemente – Operation Latte (BA Dusk till Dawn)
64. Port Solana – Devil’s Calibration
65. Port Solana – Original HOP 15
66. Redstone – Mango Nectar Mead
67. Rip Current – In the Curl DIPA
68. Rough Draft – BA Freudian Sip
69. Sierra Nevada – Barrel Aged Ovila Dubbel
70. Sierra Nevada – Dark Forces
71. Sierra Nevada – Narwhal Imperial Stout
72. Six Rivers – Sasquatch DIPA
73. Smuttynose – Scotch
74. Society – Widow
75. Speakeasy – Butchertown
76. St. Bernardus – Christmas Ale
77. Stone – Cali Belgique aged in White Wine Barrels
78. Stone – Punishment
79. Tenaya Creek – Old Jackalope
80. Three Floyds – War Mullet DIPA
81. Three Floyds – Dreadnaught
82. Three Floyds – Arctic Panzer Wolf
83. Uinta – Sea Legs Baltic Porter
84. Widmer – Kill Devil Brown
85. Wiens – Crowded Anniversary Ale
86. Hebrew – Jewbelation 17