What it was like
The beer scene here has never tried to be San Diego's, and that stubbornness is exactly the point — small, local, poured by people who will remember your name the second time.
Once a year the whole thing gathers on the grounds of an adobe rancho built in 1844, which turns a beer festival into something closer to a garden party held in somebody's very old backyard. Fifteen tastings, a souvenir glass, gardens and thick white walls, and no pretense that this is a national event with local participation. It is the only festival built specifically around this city's own breweries, and it is family friendly in the genuine sense rather than the marketing sense.
The LBC people who drink local on purpose will already be there when you arrive.
Come taste a whole neighborhood in one afternoon, and bring whoever first taught you that beer could be interesting.