Best Bites From Los Angeles Vegan Beer and Food Festival 2014

What a great time yesterday at the Los Angeles Vegan Beer and Food Festival in West Hollywood! This was my first time attending the event which has been serving up amazing vegan food and beer for the last five years. With access to amazing vegan food from 30 food vendors and craft beer from over 40 breweries, I almost didn’t know where to start. My husband and I took an Uber to the festival in anticipation for tasting lots of beers. It was cool that the promoters even had a special Uber discount code for festival attendees.

After grabbing a couple beer tumblers with the fest’s logo on them, we started our adventure with the help of some handy vendor checklists that were being passed out at the entrance. First stop, the Tony’s Darts Away booth for some Asian Tater Tots with Cole Slaw. These delicious crunchy nuggets coated in a sweet and spicy sauce were the epitome of the perfect munchies for a beer fest. Paired with a cool, creamy slaw to cut through the tanginess and finished by a swig of some local craft brew, I can’t imagine a more pleasing combination.

After enjoying our first mini meal of the day, we slowly made our way around the fest, stopping occasionally to try some vegan beers. A question I kept receiving from my friends recently was “isn’t beer always vegan?” The simple answer is no, and Banivore has put together a nice resource explaining the details as well as a search tool to find beers that are vegan-friendly. Some of the beer highlights from the day were the Rusted Coffee, a coffee-infused amber ale from Kinetic Brewing Company and Almond Milk Stout which Golden Road brewed up especially for this event. 

As we walked around we enjoyed music from artists The Battlefield and Megan Jacobs and stopped to snap some silly photos at the photo booth set up in the corner. As we ventured we saw some cool things like a bike powered blender at the Cafe Gratitude booth and overheard many beer-fueled quips such as “put veganism in a jar and stir.”

After a couple beer tastings, our stomachs started rumbling for more delicious vegan treats so we stopped by the Real Food Daily tent and picked up a couple Tu-Nut Sliders (vegan tuna made with nuts), a quesadilla and a cronut(croissant slash donut). I’ve never had vegan tuna taste this amazing! Creamy, tangy with a nice crunch from the celery. The quesadilla was hearty, gooey and perfectly satisfying with a refreshing sweetness from the mango. Never having tasted a cronut, I fell in love at first bite! Crispy and coated with a sweet vanilla glaze, the cronut instantly became my new favorite vegan dessert. I may have even gone back for seconds. I can’t wait to try more of their food when I visit their restaurant in the near future.

We came with high expectations for delicious beer and amazing vegan treats and we were not disappointed. Even my omnivore husband was completely impressed with the food! It’s no surprised that this festival sold out ten weeks before the event. Overall, the Los Angeles Vegan Beer and Food Festival was a great day of fun in the sun with tasty, cruelty-free snacks and craft brew. Looking forward to next year!