Category: Travel in North America

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.

 

It has been a long time since we visited the San Diego area together. And truth be known, we have never made a trip to San Diego that was focused on beer. We have visited breweries in the area, but always as a side trip when we were here for a Cal football game. So we were excited to have our last Year in Beer North American destination be the United States’ hottest beer destination.

We started our trek down to San Diego on Monday night after I got off work. It was rainy and dark, but we were excited about what this trip might bring. On the way, we stopped at Hollister Brewing in Goleta for some dinner and a quick beer before our final destination for the night, Camarillo. Hollister Brewing had tasty food (try their white bean puree dip with flat bread) that went great with their beer. The more unusual beers I sampled included the Pumpkin Ale, which was like drinking a pumpkin pie, and the Orange Blossom Ale. With a hint of sweetness, the Orange Blossom reminded me of Bonny Doon’s Vin de Glacière, a very sweet dessert wine, but in beer form. Being the hophead he is, Chris tasted a hoppy pale ale, called Beer with Hops, an IPA and their GABF silver medal winning Double IPA.

On Tuesday, we woke up optimistic and full of hope. It was election day after all and in 24 hours we would know if we were packing our bags to be ex-pats in Germany. The first brewery on our agenda was Breakwater Brewing in Oceanside. We found it easy enough, which was good. What wasn’t so good, however, was that they were not yet serving their own beer. They were putting the finishing touches on the brewing equipment before the City was to come for their inspection. The bartender told us he was hopeful that everything would be all approved in a week. Too late for us, though. They did have a good selection of local and near-local beers, plus Sierra Nevada’s Chico Estate Harvest,  and we enjoyed some pizza and a salad before continuing South. We were disappointed, but our hope for a brighter day was undeterred. We knew that our second stop was a sure thing.

We were headed to Escondido and, you guessed it, Stone Brewing’s World Bistro and Gardens. It’s not so hard to figure out that I am not a huge fan of Stone. The beers are too big and too hoppy for my taste. Even Chris isn’t a huge fan. But no matter.

This place was COOL! The facility was gorgeous and once inside, it was like being in an oasis with water features, lots of greenery, and ethnic music. The place is green and you can see it in the recycled rebar and industrial fixtures.

After some samplers, I ended up with Stone’s Pale Ale and Chris started with the Cali-Belgique. Even if you’re not a huge Stone fan, the atmosphere is soothing and they have an awesome beer list with over 20 taps and double the number of bottles. As a second beer, Chris chose a Blind Pig.

We ended our visit there with a game of Scrabble at an outside table and a walk through the gardens. Much to my chagrin, Chris beat me in Scrabble, but with the surroundings, I remained calm and serene.

Our last brewery for the day was San Marcos Brewing. I visited San Marcos Brewing  about a year ago when I was down here without Chris, so it didn’t count on my list. Chris is now back to a 3 brewery lead.

The atmosphere was a little slow, so we had our taster set and went to Hensley’s Flying Elephant Bar and Grill in Carlsbad. Matt Hensley is the accordian player for Flogging Molly and last time I was there, Matt was, too. However, FM is on tour in Europe, so we knew we wouldn’t see him. The mood at Flying Elephant was jubilant and roars of applause rose up each time it was projected that Obama would win a state. The place is very hip and the food was good. I had a trio of sliders, one turkey burger and two pulled pork. Yum. Chris had a trio of tacos.

We returned to our hotel to watch the concession and acceptance speeches. With the hope of a new President and a plan to visit at least 10 more new breweries on this trip, the future is looking bright!

 

Our last Year in Beer stop in United States brings us to the hottest beer scene in the craft beer world, San Diego. While craft beer has been around San Diego since the late 1980s with the likes of Karl Strauss, Southern California’s other metropolis burst on the scene in the last decade as a new wave of innovative breweries opened their doors.

And America’s new craft beer mecca is a place where we haven’t spent much time, as evidenced by the fact that I had to look through pre-digital camera beer pictures from the 1990s for this post. And as you probably notice, I couldn’t find any.

We will definitely make up for lost time as we have targeted a dozen breweries from north county to east county and finally, San Diego proper. Our list includes all the cult breweries; Alesmith, Green Flash, Port Brewing/Lost Abbey and Stone.

Our big beer day will be on Friday when we hit five; Alesmith, Lightning, Green Flash, Oceanside and Port Brewing/Lost Abbey. And we are excited because we finally get to feature a beer tour company, Brewery Tours of San Diego. Beer tour companies are popping up in all the beer meccas and it’s nice to be able to promote one, especially in a public transportation starved county like San Diego. Brewery Tours of San Diego offers both scheduled and private tours of the San Diego beer scene.

This day is not without controversy. As we have mentioned before, breweries with multiple locations only count once on ‘the list‘. If we have been to one Karl Strauss or Oggi’s, we have been to them all. We have already been to the Pizzaport in Carlsbad, so Port Brewing doesn’t count as a new brewery. But what about Lost Abbey? Is Lost Abbey just Port Brewing’s second label? Or are they a sister brewery? This is something that will definitely have to go before ‘the committee’.

We will finish off our San Diego visit with the San Diego Brewers Guild Festival on Saturday, November 8. “Up to 21 San Diego breweries” will be pouring beers at the World Beat Center at Balboa Park. Since we will have already visited most of them in the preceding days, this will be a good time to try the breweries we missed and retry our favorites from our previous days.

All and all, San Diego looks like a very productive week especially in pursuit of our goal of reaching 450 breweries by the end of the year.