Hop Doddy’s slider (All photos by Elise Thompson for the LA Beat)
The LA Weekly’s 3rd Annual Burgers and Beer event took over The Coliseum last Saturday with endless burgers and pours. It must be hard to balance things out at a food festival. In the previous two years, the event had a lot of food and not much of a crowd. This year the pendulum swung far in the other direction, with less food vendors and an awful lot of people. The lines for the wealth of craft beers were short because there were 40 purveyors. IPAs were big and we noticed a general trend towards a sweeter brew, even with pale ales.
We enjoyed Chef Marcel Vigneron’s Wolfburger from WOLF. With a combination of Angus beef brisket, chuck and shortrib, nacho cheese, pickled jalapeno and baby kale on a potato roll, it was definitely our favorite. The Venice Whaler broke with the seafood patty tradition and served a Black Angus Slider with cheddar cheese, arugula and “Awesome Sauce.” Hop Doddy introduced themselves with an extremely impressive slider called “The Primetime.” Made with Texas Akaushi Beef, Brie Cheese, Arugula, Caramelized Onions, Truffle Aioli, Steak Sauce, and a Beefsteak Tomato.
Belcampo Meat Co served lamb burgers with black garlic aioli with onion sprouts. We didn’t get a chance to try the burgers from The Pikey or Hinoki and the Bird because the lines for all of the burgers were so long. I would strongly recommend purchasing the VIP tickets to get early entry next year and avoid the crowd if you are mainly going for the burgers. If you just need something to soak up the beer and like to mingle, don’t worry about it. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and The Coliseum is a great event space.
