Vegan Oktoberfest
Last Saturday, October 4th, we were lucky
enough to be hanging out at LA's first Vegan Oktoberfest! It was
amazing. Rows of beer tents, adorable tasting steins, German-inspired
vegan food, and THOUSANDS of other vegans. A place I wish I could hang
out ALL the time, frankly. We're pals with the folks who ran the event
and they hooked us up with preferred parking so we could get in early
and munch, meet, and photograph everything.
After a warm but not overly unexpected 20
minute wait in line upon arrival, we got our tickets scanned and were
given our adorable 4-oz beer-tasting stein. We entered the gates and
were amazed. So many vegans in ONE PLACE! And so much BEER! Seriously,
paradise. We would've been happy with the food options alone! Your beer
stein could be filled (presumably) an unlimited amount of times, all you
had to do was wait in line. The food lines were considerably longer and
slower-moving than the beer lines though, so often one of us would wait
in line for food and the other would run around getting beer samples.
There were several food trucks (including
the Grilled Cheese Truck & the Green Truck) selling Germain faire
like veggie brats & sauerkraut-filled sandwiches, and a number of
booths selling baked goods, non-dairy cheeses, vegan ice cream,
lemonade, pretzels, and fried dough.
They're were some awesome outfits to be seen
at the 'fest, both homemade and otherwise. These cute couples were
adorable AND willing to let me photograph them. They rocked. And
seriously- coolest outfit ideas!
We tried the 'Sloppy Otto' jackfruit,
sauerkraut, and grilled onion sandwich, a Field Roast veggie sausage
with spicy mustard and pickles, some 'bierocks'- ground Beyond Meat
sausage crumbles cooked with carrots and onions and seasoned, plus some
seriously AMAZING 'beer cheese' from Nary Dairy. For dessert we noshed
an apple cinnamon raisin roll with glaze from Life is Sweet Bakery and
some dairy-free blueberry ice cream from Kind Kreme. Oh, and a lot of
beer- but after so many taster cups, I vowed to not even try and
remember which one had been which.
And in case you couldn't tell from our Homemade Chick'n Salad
recipe, we LOVE LOVE LOVE Beyond Meat. They're an awesome company
making amazing meatless meats, and they're pretty damn friendly too. We
met up with our friend Justin, head of their Twitter account, and ate
some of their beer-soaking bierocks, a puff pastry filled with faux meat
crumbles (pictured above). They were handing out coupons and chatting
up visitors, and we were happy to have stolen a minute of Justin's time
to hear about some new products they've got in the works. All we can say
is...GET READY. Beyond Meat is about to take it to a whole new level!
After all the beer and food, we were
stuffed. Though there ended up being a bit of an oversold ticket
problem, the people in charge offered refunds to anyone affected
promptly. And just look at all those beer-drinkin' vegans! Our only
suggestion for next year? A bigger venue. LA has so many people willing
to come eat delicious food and drink delicious beer, imagine how crazy
awesome an extra couple thousand people would be?! SO MUCH good vegan
press! All we can say is...PROST!! For more on the event and next year's
ticket sales: VeganOktoberfest.com.