{"id":13816,"date":"2016-05-26T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/?p=13816"},"modified":"2018-04-17T11:37:27","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T18:37:27","slug":"qa-tom-nickel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/2016\/05\/26\/qa-tom-nickel\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A: Tom Nickel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tom<\/a>Organizer, San Diego International Beer Festival<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s more to the San Diego County Fair <\/strong><\/a>than tilt-a-whirls, geode collections, hot-tub shows and deep-fried everything. It also plays host to one of the largest annual craft-beer festivals, here or anywhere on the West Coast, the San Diego International Beer Festival <\/strong><\/a>(SDIBF). This year\u2019s event will feature hundreds of beers from multiple states and countries, all of which can be sampled in an all-you-can-drink (responsibly) format during five sessions taking place over three days from June 17 to 19<\/strong>. In addition to fun for the general public, there is also a brewing-competition component, the winners of which were recently announced. For the second straight year, AleSmith Brewing Company<\/strong><\/a> earned Champion Brewery bragging rights, with 23 gold medals (and 41 medals total) awarded to local breweries. It\u2019s quite an event with a rich history and promising future. For more on both, we sat down with event organizer Tom Nickel<\/strong> (who also owns Nickel Beer Company<\/strong><\/a>, O\u2019Brien\u2019s Pub<\/strong><\/a> and West Coast Barbecue and Brews<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n

What was the impetus for the SDIBF?<\/strong>
\nThe original idea came from Chad Stevens<\/strong>, who was a member of (local homebrew club) QUAFF<\/strong><\/a>. He\u2019d been running the homebrew competition at the fair for a number of years and felt there should be a professional competition there as well. He brought me in because he felt he needed someone on the professional side to legitimize the idea it was a professional competition. The vision was for a competition for professional brewers by professional brewers. We had like 200 entries the first year and thought it was highly successful. We held it in the paddock area and it was a one-day afternoon festival. It was fun, and it\u2019s grown from there.<\/p>\n

Tell me about the tremendous growth of the field and competition over the years.<\/strong>
\nTwice before we\u2019ve had exponential growth where we\u2019ve reached another plateau. We slowly grew by a hundred or so each year, then four-or-five years ago, when the real boom of brewery openings occurred, we had a jump from 600 to 900 and we hovered at just under 1,000 for the last three years. This year, we jumped from 979 to 1,356 total entries, over 1,300 of which were beers\u2014a 44% increase overall.<\/p>\n

Who are some of the individuals who\u2019ve been integral to the SDIBF\u2019s success?<\/strong>
\nChad was with us the first three years, then moved on. That\u2019s when I brought (Bagby Beer Company<\/strong><\/a> founder) Jeff Bagby<\/strong> in to help me. He was there a number of years, and the last two years that slot\u2019s been filled by (O\u2019Brien\u2019s Pub general manager) Tyson Blake<\/strong>. Throughout the whole time\u2014from Chad to now\u2014Chris Shadrick<\/strong> has run the homebrew competition and served as judging coordinator. He helps coordinate all the judges for the competition, as well. Tyson and I do the festival and entries, marketing and promotion of the competition and festival.<\/p>\n

How are judges solicited for the competition?<\/strong>
\nWe have two avenues. One is registering in the competition with the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program<\/strong><\/a>). The SDIBF is posted on their website so all BJCP judges can see and access the event. What really sets SDIBF apart from most events is most BJCP-certified homebrewers don\u2019t have the opportunity to judge professional beers. That\u2019s a real carrot as far as enticing the judges. Secondly, we solicit through the local professional brewing community; from people who enter through the San Diego Brewers Guild<\/strong><\/a> and also, for the first time ever this year, through the craft-beer programs at UCSD and SDSU.<\/p>\n

What can attendees to this year\u2019s SDIBF look forward to?<\/strong>
\nThere\u2019ll be an expanded VIP area with food pairings and more space on the festival floor as we continually grow our footprint. We\u2019re expecting beers from 15 countries, and the selection of beer in terms of number of different places it\u2019s sent from will be unparalleled compared to any festival west of Denver\u2019s Great American Beer Festival. Ditto the number of different beers and the diversity of international beers that we\u2019ll have. We\u2019ll also have a special beer, Steampunk Ale, a California common brewed specifically for the SDIBF by Abnormal Beer Company<\/strong><\/a>, and rare beer tappings throughout the festival.<\/p>\n

Where is the SDIBF going?<\/strong>
\nThe competition component is only going to continue to grow and we\u2019re expanding our paid staff to accommodate that. The Del Mar Fairgrounds are doing everything they can to keep SDIBF growing at whatever pace it naturally grows at. If it doubled in the next 10 years, I don\u2019t feel like there will end up being a cap. With the festival itself, there are a lot of interesting ideas. It\u2019s always been my belief that the SDIBF will become enough of an event that, eventually, it won\u2019t be part of the fair, but will instead take place as its own event over a weekend. I feel like for some connoisseurs, they don\u2019t want to deal with the fair crowds, tickets, etc., but I do see us easily doing an independent festival. But having a presence at the fair is always important, so maybe we\u2019ll do two events. I feel like part of the benefit for brewers is not only getting to expose their products to die-hard beer-fans, but also make new converts in an all-you-can-taste setting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organizer, San Diego International Beer Festival There\u2019s more to the San Diego County Fair than tilt-a-whirls, geode collections, hot-tub shows and deep-fried everything. It also plays host to one of the largest annual craft-beer festivals, here or anywhere on the West Coast, the San Diego International Beer Festival (SDIBF). This year\u2019s event will feature hundreds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[367,368,369,4905,287,1],"tags":[1353,1674,1340,376,2784,1057,442,2785,2783,1675,391,804,1535,1717,466,467,2483,219,2292,754,309,2786,1439,1925,2780,2779,579,149,441,578,2782,2781,1637],"class_list":{"0":"post-13816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-beer-events","7":"category-beer-news","8":"category-beer-styles","9":"category-craft-qa","10":"category-homebrewing","11":"category-san-diego-beer-beverage-news","12":"tag-sdbeer","13":"tag-abnormal-beer","14":"tag-bagby-beer","15":"tag-beer","16":"tag-beer-judge","17":"tag-bjcp","18":"tag-brandon-hernandez","19":"tag-chad-stevens","20":"tag-chris-shadrick","21":"tag-cork-and-craft","22":"tag-craftbeer","23":"tag-del-mar","24":"tag-del-mar-fair","25":"tag-derek-gallanosa","26":"tag-gabf","27":"tag-great-american-beer-festival","28":"tag-indiebeer","29":"tag-jeff-bagby","30":"tag-nickel-beer","31":"tag-obriens-pub","32":"tag-quaff","33":"tag-quality-ale-fermentation","34":"tag-san-diego","35":"tag-san-diego-beer-festival","36":"tag-san-diego-international-beer","37":"tag-sdibf","38":"tag-sdsu","39":"tag-tom-nickel","40":"tag-tyson-blake","41":"tag-ucsd","42":"tag-west-coast-barbecue","43":"tag-west-coast-bbq","44":"tag-west-coaster","45":"entry","46":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdtr4y-3AQ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}