Lost Abbey Takes Beer Festival Best of Show

DEL MAR, CA — In just six short years, the San Diego International Beer Festival and Competition at the San Diego County Fair has become one of the largest in the country, with nearly 140 breweries and more than 500 beers from around the world. For this year’s festival, held June 22-24, participants came from 15 countries, including the U.S., and 15 states.

Carnevale, from the Lost Abbey Brewery of San Marcos, was Best of Show. Runners up: Mirror Mirror from Deschutes Brewery of Bend, Oregon and Matilda, from Chicago’s Goose Island Brewery. Honorable Mention – Paulaner Salvator, from the Paulaner Brewery in Munich, Germany.

Along with Best Of Show, Lost Abbey Brewery was awarded eight medals. The brewery’s Sage Osterfeld said, "San Diego is the Mt. Olympus of craft beer. We are being judged by our peers – the best of the best. To be honored with Best of Show and then eight more medals - given the all the incredible brewers and breweries we competed with, it was a high honor, indeed."

San Diego North County breweries have dominated the competition in five of the six festivals, with Carlsbad’s Pizza Port taking the top honors in 2009 and 2011, Solana Beach's Pizza Port winning in 2010, and the Green Flash Brewery of Vista winning in 2008. Only in the festival's first year, 2007, did an out-of-area brewery win the highest honors (Shipyard Brewing Company of Portland, Maine).
For the entire list of results at the 2012 San Diego International Beer Festival, go to: www.sdfair.com/beerfestival.

The summer of 2012 is taking San Diego County Fair fans "Out Of This World" to the stars, planets and beyond. Every day at the Fair is filled with discovery and mystery of the outer limits. The Fair will explore man's history and fascination with space and space travel starting with the ancient astronomers, to the NASA program and the future of space exploration.
The 2012 San Diego County Fair is open every day, now through Wednesday, July 4.
Gates open daily at 11 a.m., weekdays; and 10 a.m., Saturdays, Sundays, and July 4. Admission is $13 for adults; $7 for ages 6-12 and 62 and older; free for ages 5 and younger.

For more information about the fair go to the Fair website, www.sdfair.com. Facebook fans will find the Fair at www.facebook.com/sdfair. Twitter fans can get updates and special offers at twitter.com/sdfair and those on the go can use the Fairgrounds mobile phone website at m.sdfair.com.

The San Diego County Fair is the largest annual event in San Diego County and the sixth largest fair in the United States, drawing more than 1.4 million visitors annually. The 2011 Fair broke an all-time attendance record for the third year in a row with a grand total of 1,412,113 guests.

The 22nd District Agricultural Association is a State of California agency that owns and operates the Del Mar Fairgrounds, Surfside Race Place, Horsepark Equestrian Center and the Del Mar Golf Center. The 22nd DAA produces five events each year: The San Diego County Fair, the Del Mar National Horse Show, Professional Bull Riding (PBR), The Scream Zone and Holiday of Lights. The Fairgrounds hosts more than 350 events annually, the largest of which is the live horse racing meet each summer, which is operated by the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club for the 22nd DAA and the State of California. For more information on the Fairgrounds, visit www.delmarfairgrounds.com.