Los Angeles Vegan Beer & Food Festival

I went here with my parents when they were in town from CO. We were all super stoked for a plethora of beers to try and awesome vegan food. Yes, vegan food is good.
Ambiance: I was a little disappointed though when I walked into the stadium. It was not packed with food, beer, or people. The band was no good. But people seemed to be enjoying themselves overall.
Food/​Beer: Considering all the microbreweries and craft beers in the U.S. I was expecting more, alot more. What they had though was a decent sampling. I tried the lager from Speakeasy, the IPA from Three Weav3rs, and the belgian from Epic. The food was also under represented though good. I had the Kung Pow Bowl, Ewy Guwy Fries, dumplings, and cupcakes: all super good !

I have to say I was looking forward to going to this, when I got there. it seemed pretty cool.
After about 5 minutes though I realized the lines for EVERYTHING were ridiculously long. Most all the beer tasted the same, not very good, generic, and bitter… I’m not sure what I expected… maybe a variety of beers and flavors considering it’s a BEER festival. Who knows maybe the lines that were 30 minutes long had some variation of beers but honestly… ain’t nobody got time for that. Oh and all for a 4oz pour of beer, are you kidding me? I mean I know it’s supposed to be for tastings but. shoot I just waited 15 minutes to get a pour that I’m going to drink in a minute.
Next let’s just take a moment for the overpriced food options. Yes I know it’s a festival and usually these things are overpriced but… $ 4 for a handful of popcorn? 8 $ for a cupcake sized donut… Oh wow chili looks good, oh wait it’s the size of a teaspoon. I’m sorry I have an appetite and I’m not looking to spend $ 15 dollars waiting in a 30 minute line for a fried avocado.
Oh the tickets didn’t have a time that the festival ended either… maybe I was just being naïve for thinking it would go later into the night, but they made it very hard to find out how late it actually went till. Surprise! all the companies stopped giving out samples of beer at 6pm, and everything else shut down by 630… what a joke.
People actually thought there’d be a drunken crowd? Oh that’s funny… but you can’t get drunk off of 4oz beers when you wait in line 30 minutes to get one pour.
There was no seating… feel free to plop yourself down in the middle of the grass where you please though.
I honestly am surprised by the reviews… I think people that go to these things are just so obsessed with everything vegan they look past how actually terrible it is.
Shout out to the parents who brought their babies and stroller to a beer festival… wtf?

I LOVE VBF. We’ve gone every year except one, and I was crushed to miss it. It’s an event I look forward to. If I rated it on previous years, I probably would be giving this 5 stars (and I would have but it never occurred to me that VBF would be on Unilocal… buf of course it is? So why was this year different?
Let’s start with what’s great about VBF.
Quarrygirl, Nic Adler, and Tony Yanow have worked their butts off to make a tremendously successful event that is a beautiful thing to behold. Even if you’re not vegan (our herd each year is made of people of various dietary interests), it’s no big thang, because the food here is amazing.
.ZING. It’s a celebration of good food and good beer and it doesn’t even have to be political (though I’ve seen some fantastic vegan shirts there).
The growth of it has made it possible for them to bring in more and more breweries from all over, and encourage more amazing food vendors and indeed, other services, from animal rescues to breathalyzers to you name it. In short, there is a ton to do there, and they have needed to move from the Roxy to that abandoned lot to a bigger venue like the Rose Bowl because the really did need the space — and that is awesome!
But here’s the thing.
The growth has meant other things. Many people beefed (heh) about the ticket price, but I don’t have a problem with the organizers making a profit. The Rose Bowl ain’t cheap. Fine. But at $ 80/​ticket for VIP, I was somewhat sad to find that the separate VIP entrance actually was not any faster than the regular entrance. We couldn’t show up early to take advantage of the early entrance, so our friends with regular tickets got in line and we got in the VIP line… and we got through within a minute or two of each other, despite the regular line being REALLY LONG. Ok, shit happens, fine.
Then once we were in, the lines. There were long lines on everything, which made it difficult to actually get to a lot of things since half the day was spent in line. Previous years there were lines for some things (Seabirds truck!) but you could get beer pretty quickly. Here, not so much.
We headed up to the VIP lounge which was a complete joke. It was miniscule, with about 2 tables, no seats, and, I shit you not, no one serving beer. We waited in line for 15 min, and didn’t move because there was still no one there. I still don’t know what was on tap in the VIP room. The only perk was that I think the line was shorter in the VIP area bathroom?
A lot of places had no signage so they were hard to find among the throngs of people, and then even more places ran out of beer… with the net effect being that the people then had fewer places to queue up so the lines got even longer…
In short, if this was your first VBF, I can see maybe liking it, but holy crap has this thing grown way too fast for them to have a handle on how to manage crowds of this size.
All that said — what an amazing crowd of people to spend a day drinking with. People were kind, friendly, and largely helpful to each other. I try to hit up pretty much every beer fest I can and I never see one where people are so just plain nice, especially in LA, which is one of the reasons I keep coming back.

Great event, & great venue. I wasn’t sure want to expect since this is a beer fest & vegan food fest combined, I kind of expected a half drunken frat party & half hippie vegan snob crowd, but there was neither. It was thousands of cool people enjoying unlimited samples of beer (and whatever food they bought) having a good time. I came with a group of 7so we brung a few blankets with us so we could have an area to sit, all the beer vendors were in the center out the field, & the food vendors were on the sideline of the field leaving plenty of room at the end zone of the field for people to set up their own sit down spots.
I saw online a lot of people were complaining about the price being too high at $ 50. To me the price was perfect (except for the crappy $ 8.75 TicketFly «convenience» fee). Most beer fest are around $ 40 and they only last 3 hours, this one (non VIP) was from 1pm — 6pm, two hours longer than most & at a much larger venue with $ 5 parking.
Depending on date id defiantly go again next year especially after learning a few things. On the FAQ on their website it said you weren’t allowed to bring a water back packs, and a hand full of other stuff. When we got to the rose bowl I saw about 4 people with theirs on as soon as we got there. No one even checked my bag when I got in, and I didn’t even get my ticket scanned. Even though I paid for my ticket I pretty much snuck in since there was a split in the line when they were checking tickets. To save $ 20 I’ll probably but a non drinking ticket (they sold out of those 2 months before the event) because they weren’t even checking your wrist bands & let you grab one of the sample glasses to get beer.

Vegan heaven is the only way to describe the vegan beer and food festival in LA! It’s a must for any foodie as the best of the best come out to showcase menu favorites! The beer is unlimited with tons of craft brewers that are local. I’d recommend purchasing the VIP tickets as it gives you early entry and exclusive areas to relax and enjoy bands while feasting on your macaroni stuffed waffles!

I have been wanting to come to LA Vegan Beer & Food festival for as long as I can remember. Salivating over all the social media photos coming from this event for years built up an anticipation that could never be lived up to. Being in its 6^th year I could say for 6 years I’ve been wanting to come here, but that would be untrue. Not many people new of it in its infancy. Now it’s one of the most anticipated events in the Vegan world.
In a way, I’m actually glad that I held out until this year. Instead of taking place in the parking lot of one of the co-​founders clubs, this festival has grown enough to fill the entire field at the Rose Bowl stadium. This is a case of where the venue actually enhances the experience. My babygirl sure picked a great year to surprise me with tickets to the show. Just stepping onto the storied field at the Rose Bowl to sip beer and gorge on unique foods is a momentous experience for me. The fact that it was so extremely well run, is icing on the Vegan cake.
Thank you my love. This was everything I could have hoped for and more. Ladies, if you’re unsure of what to get your man as a gift, tickets to LAVBFF would be a great start.
What an accomplishment it is to get this number of people into a festival with the word «Vegan» in the title. I would guesstimate that of the 6,000 plus attendees, that maybe a third are actually Vegan. Maybe half if you count Vegetarians. There were plenty of carnivores that put away the meat for a day in exchange for beer and maybe even to sample some Vegan food. Or as I call it, simply «food».
Make no mistake about it, as a beer festival alone, this is one of the best you will ever attend. For $ 50 you could choose from 50 or so breweries to keep your 4oz commemorative glass full. It was a task in itself to try all the sought after brews, let alone all the oddball stuff I didn’t know even existed. All I can say is I have so many brewery bookmarks that we would need to make a separate LA/​SD trip to attempt to try them all. Modern Times, Bell’s, Babe’s, Figueroa Mountain, El Segundo, Dr. Jekyll, Kinetic, Noble, Ritual, St. Archer, King Harbor are just a few of the new breweries that I sampled along with the more established names such as Ballast Point, Stone, Oskar Blues, Karl Strauss, and Knee Deep.
A special mention to Golden Road for their fantastic Almond Milk Stout. I can’t believe they don’t produce this year round as it’s one of the best beers that I’ve had. Oh, and Three Weavers is so damn good that they are the only brewery that I sampled both beers that I have already tried previously.
Bathrooms were part of the Rose Bowl as opposed to port o’ potties which I’m sure the ladies loved. They were only on the entrance side which means you needed to make a mad dash if you gotta go. I would have preferred a few restrooms on the north end of the field as well. Although you would be surprised at how fast you can cover 100 yards when there’s a good chance you might piss your pants when you’re on the other side of the field. That is if you’re not making a pit stop at as many brew tables as you can sneak in while on the way there.
They seemed to be pouring beer into whatever was presented in front of them. From plastic cups to small mason jars, I saw it all. Officially however, you were allowed to purchase a pint glass separately to be filled at the pour stations. I have never seen this before at a beer festival. The Grilled Cheese Truck (not worth the wait) was the only line where I wished that I had a pint glass of beer instead of a 4oz taster. Well that and at the very end when they stuck to their 6pm cutoff time to the very second. It would’ve been nice to have a pint to last until the event’s closing at 7pm. I think a 6:30pm cuttoff time would have been more appropriate.
Oh, and there was food. I almost forgot about that. It was actually overwhelming to the point that this could easily be a two day event. There were far more places that we didn’t get to try than the ones that we did. How many food festivals trot out fine dining restaurants like Shojin as enthusiastic vendors? Garden to Grill from Vegas was far and away the winner in my book. They put our local Bay Area Vegan outfits such as Hella Vegan Eats to shame with what they’re doing.
This absolutely blows away anything and everything I’ve ever been to including the sad attempts that have been made at doing this in the SF Bay Area. This was on my bucket list and now it’s on my annual «must attend» list as well. I was half expecting to be disappointed due to my extremely high expectations, as well as the known saying that «Vegans can’t get their shit together». This was not the case at all. It exceeded my astronomical expectations and beyond.
To read more about the food from a designated drivers perspective, peep my honey’s review:

I picked up a flyer for Vegan Beerfest while I was at Monocle Tattoo, the only 100% vegan shop in LA. Since then, I’d been counting down the days till the event! I heard some others mention how tough it was to try to get a friend to go with you, largely because of the word ‘vegan’ in the title.
Aside from the fact that the food venders were all vegan, and there were a number of funny vegan t-​shirts, it was exactly like all other beerfests I’ve attended. No one could tell who was/​was not a vegan. And more importantly, no one cared!
This was the first time I’d gone to one of these alone, but I’m kinda glad it worked out that way. I talked to so many strangers while in line for refills and everyone was so friendly. Can I just say there were a lot of attractive people here? I even ran into a friend from Nashville who I hadn’t seen in about ten years!
There was a good variety of local brews, all types of beer, and no one ran out until the last hour of the event. I tried a LOT of food too! I had bahn mi, Mac n cheese, a pb&j cupcake, a cronut, and a sriracha peanut butter cup. Seriously yum. And don’t worry, they had pretzel necklaces too ;)
Rose Bowl was a great location for this event. Sure, sometimes the lines overlapped, but the tickets DID sell out! Parking was only $ 5, there were plenty of places to sit down and eat (or sip and people-​watch). And I never once had to wait in line for the bathroom!
I will totally be back here every year that I can make it out!

There’s a whole lot of Food vendors I wanted to grab but the lines had me@Good byee. It was great Food mmm Nom-​lish-​us & super suburb for Vegans & non !! Totally will do it again shout out to Broke Vegan Beetch’s eehh she said hold the Peppas lol awesome ppl, event & Beer !! Full before any day uhhhmm mmmm

This was my first time to the Vegan Beer Fest. I had heard about this event for a few years but the tickets are always so expensive and the venue had always been small. However, this year it was in Rose Bowl. It is Epic and was Epic. I decided to go and pay.
I know there were a lot of grumblings about the costs of ticket but the venue is Rose Bowl and there were about 40 different restaurants serving vegan grubs, 20 or so breweries? Not to mention 7 different music bands playing for 5 hours. I had an AMAZING time.
I think the organizers did a marvelous job getting thousands of like-​minded people to enjoy the day together, socializing, eating, listening to music, dancing, eating, drinking, eating and send the message that although we changed our lifestyle away from the general public, we still can have fun.
Security was tight but there were no rowdies in the crowd. Vegans are nice and happy people. We don’t do harm to others.
Parking was $ 5 and the entry was smooth and organized.
The food vendors were awesome. The lines were not too bad.
I say that this was a perfect venue for next vegan events. Please do not choose small venues anymore. There are THOUSANDS of us now and we keep growing bigger. With a bigger and nicer venue, of course, the ticket will be higher but that is the price to pay.

My honey has been waiting 6 years to experience this festival and I finally took him! Let’s just say he was a happy boy. I’ll let you read his review for his experience from a beer guys point of view. As for me I’ll break it down for you as short and sweet as possible. Lol
1. Cost: $ 50 (beer drinkers) $ 30 (non-​drinkers. Yes you can say it WTF! I sure as hell did. I have to pay $ 30 just to get in and I don’t even drink. I guess DDs are not important to them. As for the VIP. We weren’t able to experience it because they don’t offer VIP tickets to DD. Yup haters gonna hate! I guess what you don’t know won’t hurt you.
2. Beer: lots of it! They give you a 4 oz glass to use during the festivities but you can buy a pint glass before entering the field. Highly recommend because they were filling the pint glasses if you had it. LAST POUR IS 1 HOUR BEFORE THE EVENT ENDS.
3. Food: Variety of sweet and savory dishes. You name the ethnicity, I’m sure it was there. My favorite was the chicken, bacon on a donut bun sandwich. It was the bomb! The chocolate peanut butter Rocky road cheesecake was beyond amazing. Creamy and not too sweet! The grilled cheese truck which we waited 1−½ hours to get a chicken waffle melt was a waste of time. Don’t believe the hype. Not worth the wait. Of course Shojin was there with their awesome Baked Scallop roll. PRICES: they all varied. From $ 5-​$ 14.
4. Parking: this particular location (Rose Bowl). Cost $ 5
5. Water was located near the bathrooms. No they don’t have water filter station. You would need to use the water fountain or buy water at $ 2 a bottle. Highway robbery I tell you!
6. Bring a picnic blanket. You will not regret it.
Overall this was a cool event. Long lines everywhere. So I highly recommend going to the places you really want early on because they will sell out. The beer lines may look long but it moved fairly quickly.
My honey enjoyed himself so much, by 6:30 (ended at 7) he was giving people «fist pounds», «high fives» and talking up a storm. If you know my honey, you know he’s a quiet/​shy guy. Yup this boy was wasted. Don’t know half the stuff he was saying towards the end. Hilarious! By the time we got to the car and to the freeway (3 miles) he was knocked out! I’m glad he had fun and he was able to experience this for the first time with me.

This was SO much fun and i’m definitely buying tickets (VIP next time) for next year!
Great music, Great beer, Great food, Amazing people. What more could i ask for? Nothing. LA vegan beer & food festival is perfect.
Bring your friends and sunscreen!

This was such a great beer fest. A huge selection of microbreweries, generous pours, friendly vibe, and lots of yummy vegan food to help prevent you from getting too sloppy.
Some negatives: the event was supposed to run until 6, but the organizers made everyone stop pouring at 5:30. Many breweries ran out of one or both of their brews within a few hours. They could have used a few extra porta potties, and the hand washing stations were all out of water. There wasn’t really anywhere to sit or get a break from the sun beating down on us. I would definitely get the VIP ticket next time, which is only $ 10 more and offers early entry into the festival and a shady place to sit.
If you really want to enjoy your day, get there by bus or cab. You’ll avoid having to find parking on Sunset Strip and getting a DUI after indulging in too many high ABV beers. Can’t wait to go back again next year.

The greatest beer fest in L.A. Don’t miss it!

Came here as VIP!
What’s the difference between VIP & GA? VIP gets inside an hour earlier and special VIP seating. (which also can get full quick)
Got 4oz collectible glasses and choose your beer sample. You can go back to your favorite kind of beer, but why do that when you’re suppose to be sampaling different kinds? I’m not a beer person, but my boyfriend wanted to go here and I am happy to say that there were some beers for me to try.
The food was interesting. definitely an experience all in all.

This was an awesome event! Even if your not a vegan, who can argue with all you can drink beer with short lines, cheap prices at lots of taco trucks, sushi stands, fried fair food, etc?! Sure all the food is vegan, but why not put your adventure pants on and find out that the culinary world has a lot to offer without the need of animals!

Tons of vegan beer and food. Friendly partiers and the dB quotient (decibels and douchebags) was quite tolerable. I love that the venue has migrated across the street. Great idea!
I strongly advise getting VIP tickets. It’s nice to have that first hour of calm before the storm, and nicer to have access to VIP areas with seats and shade. One of them even had its own Golden Road booth with some exclusive brews.
We parked in a lot for $ 15. After having spoken to some other lot managers, that seemed to be the best that we could do. I’ll bet if you get here early enough, though, that there might be some street parking to be had. Maybe next year we’ll park near a restaurant, (e.g. Addiction Bistro) off of the Strip.
Some suggestions to The Roxy, Tony, and Ms. Girl for next year:
— More port-​o-​potties. Please. How about one in a VIP section?
— More shade and seats, both in VIP and non-​VIP sections.
— Tell the breweries to bring more beer this time, and not to pack up before 6:00.
— Rescind the no-​backpack rule.
N.B.: What may have been my favorite brew of the day contained honey. They were pretty clear about it before they served it.
Cheers!

I heard so many amazing reviews about this event last year that I have to be there this year!
I’ll make sure to post too many delicious pictures of food and booze… then you’ll be encouraged to go next year…
ORRRRR
You can go this year and we can send out yummy pics together hahaha
Event Pages & More Info:
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Get your VIP tickets early to get $ 5 off. It’s definitely worth the extra hour to pace yourself and beat the lines for food trucks.
50 beer choices advertised, but it felt more like 25. This was fine with me because I didn’t even get to try it all. My absolute favorite was the Wreck Alley Imperial Stout (San Diego based brewery) with coffee flavor notes. This would make one delicious beer float (Another booth was selling these for $ 5 bucks.).
VIP gives you a bigger cup and an extra selection of 2 beers. They offered a pretty tasty triple belgian beer, Allagash Curieux. You also get access to the Roxy lounge, but not much was happening there. Music outdoors is where you want to be.
So many food trucks, carts, and booths to try. Unfortunately, my beer belly is horribly limited. I would love to go in a big group and share nibbles.
So ready for another SEXY BEER BELLY year after year! BURRRPPPP

Day drinking with hippies… quite possibly the best day drinking known to man! Ok, so hippies may be an outdated term, but day drinking is timeless and this event proves that no matter your strict dietary regimen, you can get down with the get down. You could cool off inside while scoping out a great band, catch some rays outside standing in line for one of 5 food stations/​trucks, or just gab away with other day drinkers, all while throwing a few back in a cute little 4 oz cup. I wish the glass was bigger, but I think I tried a variety of beers because the tiny glass just begged to be filled every other 5 minutes.
Definitely check this event out next year if you have the chance!

First off, thank you Unilocal and Katie B. for hookin’ a vegan sista up! It helps to follow @YelpLA on twitter. I entered and won two free tix to the Vegan Beer Fest! Gave the extra ticket to Brandon B. who was nice enough to tell me about the Vegan Beer Fest when it was first announced.
Also, I’d like to announce that this is my first review since becoming Unilocal ELITE, BABY!!!
Now, you’re probably wondering «how is beer NOT vegan?» Well, sometimes beer is made with gelatin found in fish bladder (or some other animal.) Sorry if I just grossed you out… lol!
Now guess what? I’ve lived in L.A. forever and this was my first time at the Roxy. (pausing until you’re done gasping!!!) I headed upstairs with my mini-​beer mug and started with a Porter. As I was downing the tasty porter, I overheard the bartender promoting a Coffee Ale called Stimulus. So I got myself a pour of that and liked it better than the porter.
I headed downstairs to the beer garden outside where I got a taste of the Hemp Ale. It was okay. I like full bodied flavor which this was lacking. Or maybe the Coffee Ale I was drinking before affected the flavor of the Hemp Ale. Would’ve been good to cleanse thy palate.
Next, the Açai Berry Wheat Ale from Fortuna, CA. Yum! Kinda has that hint of fruity-​ness.
My last pour of beer was the Pumpkin Beer from Fullerton, CA. It was alright… I think I was expecting that hint of cinnamon that Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Beer has. This didn’t have that.
So in my humble opinion, I liked the Coffee Ale and the Açai Berry Wheat Beer the best!
Now…VEGAN FOOD TRUCKS! (…shhh! don’t tell anyone but this was the REAL reason I wanted to come to this event… I’m not a big beer drinker… I guess today I was, lol!)
Seabirds food truck caught my attention with their Jerk Jackfruit Taco and Beer Battered Avocado Taco. WOW!!! The jackfruit was seasoned so savory and complimented by onion/​cilantro. Avocado dipped in beer batter then deep-​fried into yummy goodness… GENIUS!!! When I bit into the taco, it kinda squished out of the batter with creamy awesomeness! At $ 2 for each taco, I was in vegan heaven! This food truck is now on my radar and I’m gonna twitter-​chase it down!
Doomie’s Home Cookin’ had these amazing Jalapeño Poppers that was perfectly crispy and spicy and «cheesy.» I haven’t had Jalapeño Poppers since being vegan so this was a real treat for me!
Then at Franken’s Stand I had a basic vegan dog called The Creature. Meh… I think maybe I would’ve liked one of the more fancier options of vegan dogs on the menu. I’ll keep them on my radar and hopefully I’ll get to taste their other items.
But HELLO!?! Dessert!!!
Headed back to Doomie’s Home Cookin’ and got the Chocolate Cupcake with Coconut Porter Frosting. OHHH-​EMMM-​GEEE!!! Can I get the recipe?
Curious about the bands? I was diggin’ the musical stylings of the Makepeace Brothers. Very mellow, a bit Jason Mraz-​y, but folk-​y and WAY cooler!
This whole event was AMAZING! Free unlimited beer, vegan food trucks galore, live music, cool venue! Great way to spend a Saturday. It was nice to attend a festival and not worry about what I’m gonna eat. ;)
And for my own personal reference, links to the food trucks I’m gonna follow:
Oh, are you curious about the beers I tasted? Meh… I’ll give you one!
Açai Berry Wheat Beer
Hey Los Angeles!!! Let’s have more vegan events cuz this was AWESOME!!!