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This will be the California State Fair’s last year during the summer, as it moves to a fall time frame in 2027. For now, that means sometimes sweltering days that send you scrambling for a refreshing beverage. This year, the fair delivers on multiple fronts.
Arguably the most interesting beverage offerings at the fair are at The Modern Pour, which has a presence near the entrance and in the cannabis pavilion. Run by Seattle-based elixir shop Cheeky & Dry, the vendor offers a selection of non-alcoholic functional beverages. A bank of machines churn a colorful display of CBD slushies ($14-21) in flavors that you can mix and match.
The Modern Pour also offers a selection of non-alcoholic cocktails ($14) with different functional ingredients, such as kava, a tuber from the South Pacific Islands used as a social lubricant, and kanna, a South African succulent that purportedly has mood elevating effects.
This year they launched a new cocktail called the terpene spritz. It’s a sparkling passion fruit base infused with cannabis terpenes and kanna. Terpenes are the aromatic compounds in cannabis, bringing piney, almost dank, notes, as if it had been hopped like an IPA.
If straight-up soft drinks are more your style, hit up the Dirty Soda Company for creative concoctions such as the dirty cherry cola ($8), a combo of Pepsi, cherry syrup, lime and cream. Some sodas are playfully topped with cotton candy, like the cotton candy cloud ($10), a lurid blue drink made with Starry lemon-lime soda with vanilla and blue raspberry syrups and cream. You’d expect the cream to make the drinks heavy, but they manage to stay refreshing, and the drinks are less sweet than you’d imagine.
This year, the beer experience has been reconfigured. The fair appropriated an air conditioned tent-like structure formerly used for retail vendors to create the Beer Den. Inside are six booths representing various beer-producing regions of the state: Sacramento Valley, NorCal, Bay Area, Central Coast, Central Valley and SoCal. Each booth has three award-winning beers on offer.
Urban Roots Brewery is the main representative for Sacramento, with its Smart Decisions brown ale and Right Right hazy IPA. Also on tap is newly launched Balance Beer Works’ Balancing Act West Coast IPA. Balance Beer opened the weekend of June 11 at the original Device Brewing Company location at 8166 14th Ave. in Belvedere.
Best in show this year went to Malibu Brewing’s green chili lager in the SoCal region. It’s a crisp, light beer with a pronounced vegetal flavor and a faint tingle on the back palate. Non-beer drinkers can also partake of Tioga Sequoia’s blueberry honey spritzer.
Beers are available for $16 for a 20-ounce pour, or for the same price you can get four, four-ounce tastings in an adorable mini keg, so you can sample the wares before committing to a full pour.
The Save Mart Wine Garden remains a central attraction in the fair. The wine bar offers dozens of selections for every taste, from around California and beyond. However, a mainstay is the wine slushie ($12-19) in moscato, blackberry, rosé and red sangria. A souvenir glass (+$10) for the large allows you to get refills at a discount in perpetuity. When the fair gets hot, these are a perfect tonic.
Many local wines had good showings in the judged competition, including Yolo County producers Silt Wine Company, Heringer Estates and Great Bear Vineyards.
