Category: USA

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Looking to the Future in San Diego

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.

YiB-11We 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.

YiB-11We 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.

YiB-11After 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.

YiB-11The 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!

 

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Crossing Over

Merideth and I took the afternoon off this past Tuesday to take care of some business on the other side of the Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz. Our business was twofold. There are two new breweries in Santa Cruz to visit and add to the list. Plus we wanted to make a recruiting visit for SF Beer Week.

Santa Cruz holds a special place in our hearts. When we moved back to the Monterey Peninsula in 1994 from the Bay Area, it was somewhat of a culture shock… not to mention a beer shock. After we tired of driving to Berkeley every other weekend to get our ‘fix’, we discovered Santa Cruz, Berkeley lite. It wasn’t quite Berkeley, but it was a heck of a lot closer and the beer scene was good.

So, we are always excited to cross over to the other side of the Bay, especially when we get to add some breweries to the list.

The first new brewery was Santa Cruz Ale Works.  ‘New’ might not be the most accurate thing to say because they did open their doors in 2007. And we had tried their IPA earlier in the year when a friend shared his growler. But this was our first visit to the brewery.

The head brewer, Marc Rosenblum, was formerly the brewer at Santa Cruz’s venerable Seabright Brewery. There were four beers on tap, a Hefeweizen, Pale Ale, IPA and Saison. The Pale Ale and IPA, both nicely hopped just as I like it, were the beers of note.

The brewery and tasting room is located off of River Rd behind Costco. Call or email for tasting room hours.

Our second brewery of the day, Uncommon Brewers is located just minutes away on the other side of Highway 1. We first heard about this brewery when we met the brewer/owner, Alec Stefansky, at the Red Restaurant and Lounge in Santa Cruz on Halloween last year.

Uncommon Brewers is part of the new wave of brewers, organic, green, canning and innovative.

We tried both of their beers; the wonderful Golden State Ale flavored with toasted poppy seeds and Siamese Twin Ale, a Belgian-style Dubbel brewed with kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and coriander. Siamese Twin, at a hefty 8.5%,  is deceptively easy to drink.  In the spring, look for  12.5% version called ‘Sinister Twin’.

Many breweries today are looking for ways to reduce their impact on the environment and Uncommon Brewers is a part of that trend. One of the more interesting green things – and something we had never seen before – were these cool plastic kegs sourced out of the Netherlands. Round and light in weight, they save on transportation costs and when empty are simply crushed and recycled.

If you want to visit the brewery, you need to make an appointment. I suggest visiting their website for the listing of where to find their beer.

All and all, we enjoyed a productive day in Santa Cruz. We added two more breweries to the list and we were also able to generate interest in SF Beer Week.

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Year in Beer – San Diego Preview

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.

YiB-11Our 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.

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New beergeek.TV Episode – Great American Beer Festival

YiB-10“Great American Beer Festival” is the latest Year in Beer episode of One Pint at a Time.

The Great American Beer Festival is the premier beer gathering in the United States… it’s certainly the largest in terms of breweries and beers. Over four sessions, four hundred plus breweries will pour almost two thousand different beers to legions of thirsty beer fans. The question is how do first time attendees find their way in this world of endless beer choice.

So enjoy our first Great American Beer Festival…

For all the episodes of One Pint at a Time go to beergeekTV.

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And the Award Goes To…

YiB-10Today was our second and last session at the 2008 Great American Beer Festival. The Saturday day session is the ‘connoisseur’ event exclusively for members of the Brewers Association and American Homebrewers Association. You even get a glass glass as opposed to the plastic one the masses get. This is also when the Brewers Association announces the medals in the beer competition.

Before the medal announcement began, there were two beers I wanted to try. The Dissident from Deschutes is a Flanders-style sour brown ale and is getting a lot of press lately. As I am going through somewhat of a sour phase right now, I loved it. And the judges loved it, too, as the Dissident took Gold in the American Style Sour Ale category.

The other beer was Sierra Nevada’s Chico Estate Fresh Hop Ale.  Made from fresh hops grown at their Chico brewery, I really wanted to try this beer because I doubt I will see it in Monterey area.

Now for the announcing of the medal winners. There are 75 different categories and each of the winners is called out and the brewers walk across the stage to receive their medal and get their picture taken with Charlie Papazian. The categories range from “Fruit or Vegetable Beers” to “American Style Specialty Lager” (swept by Anheuser-Busch) to “Old Ale or Strong Ale”

And the reading of the winners is quite spirited. The crowd cheers a win by their favorite brewery, groans when their least favorite brewery medals, and grumbles when only a bronze is awarded in the category. This actually happened in the English Style India Pale Ale category.

The most spirited group was from Iron Hill Brewery whose various locations walked away with six medals. Probably numbering a dozen, they would shout and jump for joy whenever they were announced as a winner. The group had matching shirts with the motto “Our beer snobs can beat up your wine snobs”.

The other big winner was  Firestone-Walker, which hauled in an impressive six medals. Although it is two hours away, Firestone-Walker is part of the Central Coast so we are now adopting them as our local brewery.

Once the medals are announced, the crowd scrambles to go sample the medal winning beers. And as if magic, the brewery signs that display the names of the beers suddenly have little gold, silver or bronze medal sticker next to the winners.

In the scramble I managed to sample three medal winners.

Arquebus, from our Boston favorite Cambridge Brewing, won in the Experimental Beer category. And experimental it was. Described by the brewery as a summer barleywine, Arquebus had a syrupy sweet character that reminded me of an ice wine.

From our local medal winner Firestone-Walker, I tried was Pale 31, which won bronze in the American Style Pale Ale category. They also won Gold in this category.

Finally, I tried Bishop’s Tipple Trippel from Main Street Brewery in Corona, CA. Winner in the Belgian Style Abbey Ale category, my main motivation in trying their Gold medal winner was that when we visited the brewery years ago, we found the beer lacking. It has definitely improved.

With the session winding down, the last beer we searched out was Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout from Foothills Brewery in Winston-Salem, NC. Of course, the name was a draw, but the beer was very chocolaty and at 9.75% VERY much an imperial stout.

Merideth finished up the afternoon playing guitar hero with our friend Brad Ruppert and his crew from Beer Magazine. She was able to belt out Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” to the enjoyment of the gathered crowd. Unfortunately, her band failed on their attempt at the GoGos classic “We Got the Beat”.

Our first GABF is over and we survived. We only tried about 50 of the 1,967 beers available but we had a great time at what has to be America’s greatest beer spectacle.