A couple weekends ago, I woke up on a Saturday morning, hungover and unsettled. This my friends, is a rough combination. Something hit me and I realized I had already lost half my weekend, having done nothing substantial. That’s when the craving hit… well for my morning cookies anyway. Sitting down at the end of the bed, I looked back and couldn’t decide if I wanted to get back under that down comforter or start the day so I threw my shoulders back, kept my feet on the floor and passed out for another 30 minutes, until that restless feeling got the best of me. Some people have morning routines, you know, where they go get coffee, stand at the front door or do whatever they do but for me man, I take a few steps and land in my desk chair, mesmerized for another day by my 27 inch Mac [one of the best purchases I’ve ever made]. Before I realized what I was doing, I had kayak up checking flights to places I’d never been. San Diego came into view and moments later the flight was booked; 3 hours before take-off. I had no idea what the next 24 hours would show me, and I didn’t care.

My time in San Diego started with this phenomenal beard and was later joined by more striking beards. Meet Charlie. Charlie runs an Instagram account by the name of @thebottletrade, and we have followed each other’s work for a good amount of time, always appreciating when the other posts something craft beer related. Charlie and his colleagues are embellishing a cool idea of bottle trading craft brews to move them about the state. Such a cool concept. Let me stop here to say that Instagram is my favorite place to exist in the virtual world. Mind blowing photos, people with great humor, entrepreneurs, and interesting perspectives always keep me looking back at it. I appreciate it even more now because it was the gateway to my amazing time in San Diego to experience a 3 set flight of Ballast Point Victory at Sea. So, I hop on to Instagram and see that @thebottletrade is talking about Beer Week in San Diego at this kickass place called Hamilton’s. My interest is peaked and I reach out to receive a warm welcome to come out and see what this Beer Week is all about. A taste of new beer on my lips..Yolo, right? Charlie says he’s going to be the dude with the beard so I walk in to a sea of craft enthusiasts which [apparently in California] is typically accompanied by a mountain man beard. All I could think was, “This is not bigger in Texas.”

Charlie took me around to meet the owner of Hamiltons, Scot Blair, [center] one of those other sweet beards I was talking about,  and then I get so lucky as to meet the specialty brewer at Ballast Point, [the last awesome beard, far right] Colby Chandler. Charlie was so cool to educate my  craft beer questions, explaining things about the process that I had no clue. After trying all the beers, and then drinking them again, I settled into loving the Maple the best, but that Rum Nitro had me going! I hope you’ll enjoy the video I curated of my experiences in those brief hours. I just love cinema, photography, and people being awesome at what they do. Speaking of awesome, I later learned that Charlie works for Sony doing all kinds of cool things back with the multimedia ninjas. Such a great experience to meet incredible new people.

Ok this is just.. I have to sit down, this is so great.

And then there’s this guy, that I instantly gravitated towards. Dude, he was just sitting there at the end of the table, owning this experience of the Ballast Point brews. I kept hoping I looked as cool as he did trying them all out. His name is Jason and he is the Social Media Director at another brewery, all the way up in Cincinnati, Ohio; Lister Mann Brewing. Beer Week brings some amazing people around and makes me want to move to California. How lucky I was to have this experience. You are all amazing people and I hope this isn’t the last I see of you!