How to survive your next beer festival: Planning is everything

The unrelenting schedule of beer festivals across Los Angeles has begun, and dedicated craft beer lovers can fill every weekend from now until L.A. Beer Week with brew-fueled parties, tastings and pairing dinners. It’s enough to make your head spin.

After years of punishing my body at endless brew fests I have a few helpful tips for making the most of the events and escaping the worst of the morning-after horrors. I also have one secret that just might save your morning (and no, it isn’t baker’s yeast).

Have a plan: Have an idea of what beers or breweries you just have to try, and hit those booths early. This is especially helpful at the bigger events that feature the rare or specialty kegs that draw beer fans like gulls to the grunion, or events with limited drink tickets and time. Make a list if you have to. Plot your route on the festival map. But also be prepared to throw all the plans out the window once things get going.

Don’t just drink beer: I know that you know you should be drinking water, but it’s worth reiterating. Drink water. Hours of walking around under the (probably) blazing sun while drinking often high-alcohol brews is a quick ticket to the dehydration station. Sure, beer is nearly all water, and it’s not like you’re drinking martinis for four hours, but nothing will take you out of the game quicker (and make tomorrow morning worse) than alcohol’s diuretic effect. It’s worth an extra few minutes in line for the porta-johns to not feel like beef jerky the next day, right?

Beer is social: From the “give me your strongest brew” crowd there to party hard to the geekiest of note-taking beer bloggers, beer festivals attract all manner of beer fans from all walks of life. Sure, they’re a good way to try a bunch of interesting beers, but so is a beer bar. The festival is about sharing those brews with the like-minded fans surrounding you, so strike up a conversation and make some new friends to raise a toast with. Festivals are also often a good time to meet the brewers or other folks from the breweries; don’t miss your chance to let them know what you think of their offerings or ask them what they’re impressed with. Brewers love that stuff.

Breakfast: My all-time No. 1 tip for surviving festival season goes back to parental advice from our childhoods: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This is never more true than when the day includes countless tiny glasses of beer. A hearty pre-fest breakfast gives you the nutritional foundation for all that booze, and if you include protein-rich eggs in your pre-game meal, you’ll be even better off. You can call this pseudo-science or confirmation bias, but I call it a folksy ounce of prevention. In addition to the high fat content of eggs that helps fuel the liver, there’s an amino acid in the yolk of eggs, cysteine, that is said to help the body metabolize acetaldehyde (one compound that contributes to hangovers) and giving you body a ready supply of cysteine just might help you stave off the worst of the after-fest torpor.