Author: Chris

Yesterday was our last day in San Diego and the last day for the Year in Beer in North America. The focal event of the day was the San Diego Brewers Guild Festival, but we had the whole day to play before the fest began.

We had one more brewery to visit, Coronado Brewing in Coronado. And I thought it would be fun to take the ferry from San Diego instead of driving. My choice was wise as it was another amazing November day here in San Diego.

A short and pleasant ferry ride and a short walk found us at the doors of Coronado Brewing.

Things didn’t start off on the right track as our waiter informed us that we could only get three tasters at our table. Still not sure why. Luckily, we picked the right three, Pale Ale, IPA and Nut Brown, all very flavorful. So, we had a nice, relaxing meal and pints on their patio and enjoyed the incredible November day.

Coronado Brewing has a three pint limit on customers. We have never seen this policy before and I am not sure if odd or admirable is the correct word.  On one hand, I have a strong belief in personal responsibility so this seems a little much. But on the other hand, it is a easy way to combat excessive drinking.

The day’s main event was the San Diego Brewers Guild Festival held in Balboa Park. The festival is an opportunity to try a large number of San Diego brews in one spot.

And if you remember one thing from this post, it is to pay the extra $10 for the VIP pass. Many festivals advertise a special session with exclusive beers but at this fest, it was really true. Plus, once the main session began it got quite crowded.

Another cool thing about this festival is that the food is free and all the vendors pair their food with a beer. You get the food and give them a token for the beer right at the same table. Going to the VIP session, we were guaranteed that the food wouldn’t run out before we had a chance to try it..

Beer number one in my book was a Gueze from Ballast Point. Close behind was a Belgian-style Triple collaboration between Stone, Alesmith and the Danish brewery, Mikkeller. Then there was Alesmith’s 2007 Decadence, an Imperial Porter served on cask.

Merideth’s ‘girls are beergeeks too‘ was a magnet as people came up to ask about it and thebeergeek.com. One woman even twittered  her followers about us.

One person we met was Julie from pubquest.com and ended up spending quite a bit of time with her.

It was a fun festival, but if I have one complaint – and it is a complaint I have about most beer festivals – the loud music. A bit of background music is nice, but why blast music in a small venue so you have to shout to hear yourself think. If I want loud music, I’ll go to a Flogging Molly show.

So, the Year in Beer in North American is finished. We drive home today and prepare for our last trip in a little over three weeks; Belgium and the Netherlands.

 

When we told people that the Year in Beer was visiting San Diego, we received a lot of recommendations of places we had to visit; Ballast Point, Green Flash, Stone and several others. But the people with the most passion told us we had to go out to Alpine and visit Alpine Beer Company. So we planned a day in eastern San Diego county.

The bonus was that the Cleveland National Forest is nearby so we could get in some much needed hiking before returning to drinking beer.  We drove the 40-some miles east of San Diego and found the Ranger station to pick up a trail map.

The elderly lady behind the counter was very helpful and we are grateful that she warned us off one particular trail. Being so close to the border, this one trail is apparently popular with smugglers, both drug and human.

Our two hour hike was beautiful. It was a bit windy, but it definitely recharged our batteries.

Then it was back to Alpine and Alpine Beer Company. The tiny brewery and tasting room is located on the main drag of the city. And it is tiny. But as the saying goes, great things come in small packages.

Besides all the hearty recommendations, I was especially jazzed to visit because they make one of my favorite beers at GABF, Pure Hoppiness. If the rest of their brews were half as good, it was going to a good beer day.

Alpine had ten beers to sample, everything from a Wheat to a spiced Dunkel Weizen. Merideth was especially pleased with the vanilla version of the Wheat, Willy Vanilly and the blend of the Stout and the Willy Vanilly. I enjoyed the more manly beers, the Irish Red, Stout, Pure Hoppiness, and Ichabod, the spiced Dunkel Weizen.

We definitely left with a smiles on our faces. But one of the frustrating things about living in our beer backwater is that you visit these small towns elsewhere and are dumbfounded as to how they can support such a great brewery and we can’t.

The amazing thing about Alpine is that the city also has a world-class beer bar located a few blocks up from the brewery. The Liar’s Club, formerly located in the beach area of San Diego, lost their lease and decided to seek their fortunes inland. And Liar’s Club was another place we were told we HAD to go,.

You’ll understand why by the beers I had… The Dissident from Deschutes, Little Opal from Firestone-Walker, Damnation from Russian and Petrus’ barrel aged Pale. Need I say more?

We are definitely happy we made the journey out to Alpine but now it is back to San Diego for the meat of our trip. Today, with the help of Brewery Tours of San Diego, we visit five breweries.

Update:
We learned the fate of Mission Brewery. They are now brewing down in Chula Vista.

 

Though we have been enjoying ourselves down here in San Diego, we had another hiccup in our beer tour yesterday. Luckily, the two other breweries we visited and a beer bar gem we found through the recommendation of a friend more than made up for it.

The day’s beer tour started at 11am in a business park in northern San Diego at Ballast Point Brewery.  Well, we actually got there 15 minutes early, so we enjoyed the beautiful San Diego sunshine for a few moments while waiting for opening time.

I was especially anxious to visit Ballast Point. They are one of the breweries that San Diegans speak of with a certain sparkle in their eyes and we have had limited exposure to their beers in Northern California.

It is always fun being the first customers of the day as you generally get the undivided attention of the staff and in this case, we had a good time chatting with our host, Amber (No joke). And when she pulled out the cheese made with their Porter, we were BFFs.

They had nine beers available to taste; five beers from their regular lineup, Wheat, Pale Ale, Amber, IPA and Porter. The sampler was rounded out by four specialty brews; Double IPA, Oktoberfest, a session beer called Even Keel and finally the Porter aged in bourbon barrels.

The IPA, Porter and three of the specialty beers stood out for me. I particularly enjoyed Even Keel not just because it is truly a session beer at 3.5% ABV, but also because it is quite flavorful. The bourbon barrel porter was the one specialty that didn’t ‘WOW’ me, but that’s because I generally don’t like bourbon barrel aged beers.

It was now on to our second stop, a fancy mall to find Mission Brewery in the Miami Grille restaurant. I have to admit I had a bad feeling about this place. Maybe it was the ‘Miami’ association (didn’t that go out in the 80s when Miami Vice was canceled) or the fact that we parked on the complete opposite side of the mall, but something told me the beer was going to be bad. The situation was actually more dire than bad beer, Mission Brewery was no longer there. Miami Grille was, however.

Luckily we had a backup plan located a few miles away. I had learned about O’Brien’s American Pub from the Internets, but I wasn’t sure we were going to add it to the trip itinerary. Then at our last beer tasting, a friend said to me “you have to go to O’Brien’s.” And it is good thing I listened to him (Thanks Mike V.!).

Located in the corner of a non-descript strip mall, O’Brien’s, the “hoppiest place on earth”, has a beer list that can only be described as ‘world class’. If you don’t fall in love looking at the taps, the bottle list will convince you that this place is special.

Unpretentious and friendly, O’Brien’s is everything we look for in a beer bar. While enjoying our beers and lunch, we relaxed and watched two Champions League matches on TV. Well, actually it wasn’t that relaxing, as I kept switching my gaze between the two TVs located at opposite ends of the bar. I didn’t want to miss anything.

The only disappointment about O’Brien’s was that last night they were having a Chimay 25th anniversary (of being in the U.S.) party and  we were staying too far away to be able to make it.

The last stop of the day before we had to beat the traffic back to north county was Firehouse Brewing Company.  Located near Qualcomm Stadium, Firehouse is the labor of love of two brothers who are third generation firefighters.

Even though being community oriented seems to be the norm throughout the craft beer industry, each individual tale is inspirational.

Inspired to give back to the community by 9/11, these firefighting homebrewers decided to start a brewery where a portion of the proceeds would go to help firefighters and their families. And they do this through their Firehouse Foundation. As their website describes it, “A portion of The Firehouse proceeds go to firefighter widow and orphan funds, assisting the families of Firefighters who have died or been seriously injured in the line of duty. An additional percentage goes to local fire departments to help buy safety equipment.”

Firehouse currently has two beers in their lineup, a Hefeweizen and a very nice Pale Ale. They are also working on some other brews, but you need to go to the brewery to try the ‘works in progress’.  Thanks to Grant for taking a few moments out of his day to show us around… and if you see a Firehouse beer, please buy it. You would be helping a really good cause.