Modern Times has put on the Festival of Dankness, an IPA focused beer festival for five years now. With each year the number of hazy IPAs has increased quite a bit. I didn’t make it to the previous two years due to scheduling conflicts but I finally came back for the 2019 festival in part because Other Half, Great Notion, Monkish, Moksa, Tired Hands, and a few other big name breweries were present.

In the years since Modern Times first put on the festivals, they have improved their system of scanning tickets so that for the festivals in 2019 I attended, including Carnival of Caffeination in February, they scan everyone’s tickets and check IDs before it is time to let people in to the festival. They have a waiting area ready for people to chill until it is time to open the doors or in this case let people break past the ribbon.

It happened that some of the bigger names were right next to each other, leading to tons of lines mostly in the back section of the festival. Monkish, Moksa, and Other Half were all clustered together meaning those who braved the lines got to enjoy those beers. This is the one benefit of having VIP – VIP got to access these breweries with shorter lines. In my case, I didn’t bother with the lines and didn’t get to drink beer from either of those.

Despite sticking to General Admission tickets this year, I wasn’t short on beer and I had plenty of excellent breweries to choose from without waiting very long for any particular beer. The longest line I waited in was for Green Cheek, which was usually no more than 5 minutes at a time. Standouts beer wise were Green Cheek with their double and triple hazy IPAs plus Boneyard with their always excellent double and triple IPAs that were not hazy. And Wayfinder from Portland Oregon brought an incredible Oktoberfest beer that was as excellent as I remembered.

Plenty of local breweries were on hand serving their always excellent IPAs including Burning Beard, Pizza Port, Burgeon, Societe, and of course Modern Times with their ever large spot serving many different beers including the always-present massive imperial stouts. Two of those stouts were reserved for members as usual so it helps to know people.

With so many breweries bringing double and triple IPAs as they have from the first year, it doesn’t take much to get quite intoxicated. Thankfully this year the festival started at 3PM, meaning the sun was less intense. They also had shade tents put up in the center between brewery tents so people could avoid getting too much sun. Of course, all the money from the festival goes to charity so it is always a good cause. I like to think that the various Modern Times festivals were instrumental in the addition of new bike lanes that have shown up or are in the works in San Diego.