Hometown Fair Beer Garden 2011 Photos Manhattan Beach

Images of the Annual Fun Festival in the Los Angeles South Bay Beach City

HometownFairOkotberfestGirl — How appropriate for a beer garden – a girl dressed in an Oktoberfest outfit!

Gorgeous weather brings out gorgeous people and, it seems, the beer flows just a bit faster.

Though with more than 300 kegs consumed in two days, the beer always flows pretty darned fast at the annual Manhattan Beach Old Hometown Fair Beer Garden.

In 2011, the temperature was in the upper 70s and not only was the sun out, but there was not a cloud in the sky. Also out, or so it seemed, was every single person (or “pretend single” for this one weekend!) in the South Bay. It was crowded by 1, packed by 2 and crazy all day long. Here’s photos from Saturday at the beer garden; ones from Sunday will be added after, well, Sunday.

HometownFair11ThreeGirls — Happy faces and full cups at the 2011 Hometown Fair beer garden.

HometownFairBlondeBabe — What's a beer garden without beautiful babes!?

The beer garden runs from 10 a.m.-6 p.m., with beer ticket sales cut off at 5, and tickets are not good for both days so you can’t “load up” on Saturday, plus you can only buy five at time anyway. The cut-off for ticket sales is 5 p.m., and the volunteer servers stop serving at 5:30.

Beers are $5 and include Budweiser, Bud Light, Widmer Hefeweizen, Michelob AmberBock and Longboard Lager, a favorite of the Bar Blogger. Proceeds from the beer garden from 2011 went to various Mira Costa High School athletic teams.

Something new for 2011 were tents for shade, including one that looked like a Vegas-style cabana. Still most people preferred to do their mingling in the sun.

The Manhattan Beach Old Hometown Fair is the first weekend of October every year.

BEER GARDEN SUGGESTION: As great as it is, it could be even better. Just beyond the beer garden is a stage with a band. But you can’t hear the band while in the beer garden. So it’s PubClub.com’s suggestion to extend the beer garden to include the stage. Yes, the area has seats and families to gather there, but simply put the fence where both could enjoy (plus, there’s another smaller stage on Valley/Ardmore, far from the beer garden, where the kids could be entertained).

The beer garden is in need of a change. In 2011, too many groups of people from the South Bay did not even go to it; they went to Vegas instead! You can go to Vegas anytime but the beer garden is only once a year, yet for them it lacked the appeal that it has held for so many longtime locals for so long.

By making the band a part of the beer garden, officials would create a new buzz and also bring in increased revenue from the larger capacity.

For more on the beer garden, click here.