Disney food fest taps local brewers
Bottle Logic and Golden Road are among those selling wares at the event through April 22
Disney's Food & Wine Festival brings together 18 California brewers making everything from lagers, pilsners and hefeweizens to a host of India pale ales, with a focus on craft beer from San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange County and specifically Anaheim.
The fest runs through April 22 with local, celebrity and Disney chefs offering cooking tips during culinary demonstrations, plus tasting seminars and other events.
Disneyland Resort festival beverage manager Matt Woods tuned this year's craft beer menu to focus on Anaheim offerings.
“We love working with breweries from our own backyard,” Woods said in a statement released by Disneyland. “We want to be great neighbors and showcase the great things this city offers.”
Highlighting Orange County breweries gives local visitors and out-of-town travelers a chance to sample new offerings and fan favorites.
“Our guests want to try local offerings, especially those traveling from out of state,” Woods said. “I love that we get to uplift small, local breweries by introducing them to people who may not have known about them before.”
Beer lovers will find this year's lineup at the California Craft Brews marketplace booth and the Paradise Beer Garden.
The Anaheim brewers include Bottle Logic, Brewery X, Golden Road, Noble and Unsung. Four more brewers round out the Orange County field: Chapman Crafted (Orange), Delahunt (San Clemente), Left Coast (San Clemente) and Stereo (Placentia).
Further south, San Diego County is represented by Mission (downtown San Diego), Mother Earth (Vista) and Stone (Escondido).
Just up the 5 Freeway, Los Angeles is sending kegs from Crowns & Hops (Inglewood), La Bodega (Whittier) and Eagle Rock.
Farther north, Full Circle (Fresno), Russian River (Windsor) and Sierra Nevada (Chico) round out the tap list.
Bottle Logic Creative Director Lindsay Langton spent a decade at Disneyland working as a VIP tour guide and at the Napa Rose and Carthay Circle restaurants.
Now Langton is back serving Bottle Logic's Fuzzy Logic IPA at the Disney food festival.
”For Disney to seek out small craft businesses and really be so diligent about bringing the community in and showing what the people of this city can do is so incredible,” Langton said in a statement released by Disneyland.
Unsung Brewing founder Mike Crea says storytelling lies at the heart of both Disneyland and beer making.
“I remember coming out here as a kid at 8 years old. I never thought I would make a product that would be served at Disneyland,” Crea said in a statement released by Disneyland. “For Disney to understand the importance of small, family-owned businesses and appreciate it and see value in it is incredible.”
Unsung is pouring the MetaPlex IPA and Intracore IPA at this year's festival.
Brewery X Chief Brewing Officer Trevor Walls says it's an honor to serve his Baja Boi Mexican Lager to visitors from around the world at the Disney food fest.
“I never thought we'd be pouring beer for Disney,” Walls said in a statement released by Disneyland.
The Brewery X Baja Boi is also at the heart of a Frozen Mangonada Beer Slush and a chile-lime michelada served at the California Craft Brews booth.