Reports from the trenches of the San Diego beer scene

Beer & Sandals

San Diego is home to some of the finest beers, breweries and brewmasters in the world.

We relish the opportunity to be your companions in navigating these glorious waters.

Field Report: The Neighborhood

 

Before heading to 4th and B for comedy night with Craig Gass, the wife and I decided to stop at a place called The Neighborhood.  Located on the corner of 8th and G, Neighborhood offers a 4-page menu with only 1-page dedicated to food and the rest to their extensive lists of beer and wine.  

Upon entering The Neighbor hood you are welcomed by a unique atmosphere with parallelogram shaped tables, leather chairs, pictures of Jesus eating a sandwich, a long row of beer taps, bottles of wine on the walls and a mosaic of the San Diego skyline.   Read the rest »

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Stone’s Google Calendar

 

Stone recently unvieled, on their website, the ability to add their calendars to your google calendar.  

Simply visit stonebrew.com/calendar and the available calendars are located near the top.  Here you can add all or you can choose between the 5 available calendars (Events at Stone, Growler Fills, Bistro Beer Lineup, Brewery Tours and Special Releases).

Now go sign up for Google Calendar, if you haven’t already, and add Stone so you never miss an event.

*Incase you forget to check your calendar, configure the events to send a reminder via email.

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BOTW: Lost Abbey’s Avant Garde

“Avant-garde means “advance guard” or “vanguard”. The adjective form is used in English, to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics.
Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm.” - Wikipedia.com

Beer of the Week:  Lost Abbey Brewing - Avant Garde

Serving Type: 22oz. Bottle

Price: $7.99

ABV:  7.0%

Style: Bière de Garde

Avant Garde was suggested to me as a beer that had turned one friend into a craft brew fanatic.  He said, “This beer will change your thoughts on everything you know on beer and you will not be dissapointed.”  Well, I was dissapointed. Read the rest »

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Head-to-Head: Ballast Point Big Eye IPA vs. Blue Frog Grog & Grill Big DIPA

This week we’re pitting a local favorite against an out-of-town challenger.  Blue Frog is a brewpub in Fairfield, north of San Francisco.  We’ll see how they’re double IPA fairs against the tried-and-true quality of Ballast Point’s offering after the jump.

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AleSmith ‘08 Decadence

AleSmith

I’m mad at AleSmith.  They are evil, conniving people.  AleSmith has gone off and created a beer that will most likely ruin me for beer for weeks to come.  I will not be able to drink a pint of anything without comparing it to said beer, and thus all others will fall short.

I had the opportunity privelege glorious luck of getting to try the new (unreleased) Decadence at AleSmith’s tasting night at the wine cellar in Escondido.  It was about the tenth beer and things were really starting to get interesting when they busted this out.  As soon as I tried it I got the chills.  I’m not exaggerating.

AleSmith’s newest Decadence (which they offer up every year) is an Imperial Porter.  As previously mentioned, I am not a huge Porter fan, or at least I wasn’t before this.  Decadence is aged in Bourbon Barrels for nine months.  The nose is a strong mix of bourbon and vanilla.  It’s definitely complex; you get hit with all sorts of flavors while drinking this, but nothing really gets lost.  It is a perfectly balanced beer.

I begged and pleaded with them to sell me a bottle.  They politely refused.  AleSmith hasn’t said when they’re releasing this, but rest assured that we will be there when they do, and we’ll let you know about it (as soon as we’ve bought ours, that is).

Creative Commons License photo credit: brixton

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Field Report: Cask night at Hamilton’s Tavern

Hamilton's Tavern

We had a chance to stop by Hamilton’s Tavern on Friday night.  They were pumping a cask of Coronado Brewing Co’s Chocolate Porter.

The bar had a good sized crowd, but wasn’t so crowded that is was uncomfortable.  As soon as we entered we were greeted by either:

A) A very large dog

B) The van from Dumb & Dumber or

C) A horse dressed like a dog

None of us could figure it out, but this place is laid back for sure.

The beer was excellent, very light for a porter.  I could have about a dozen of these.  We tried to get in on the shuffle board but our time was short so we’ll have to hit Hamilton’s back.  They also have an excellent collection of tap handles screwed in to the ceiling.

Apparently Hamilton’s does a lot of featured beer nights and they have tons of local stuff on tap.  Check back for details, we’ll keep them up-to-date in the events section.

Creative Commons License photo credit: D.B. Blas

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BOTW: AleSmith’s X

Beer of the Week!

Beer of the Week!

Beer of the Week:  AleSmith Brewing Company - AleSmith X

Serving Type: 22oz. Bottle

Price: $3.99

ABV 5.0%

Style: American Pale Ale (APA)

I recently had the pleasure of attending an AleSmith tasting, at the Holiday Wine Cellar In Escondido, and sampled many of the offerings of AleSmith including AleSmith X.  While this was not my favorite brew from AleSmith, I thought it deserved a second chance but this time apart from it’s more dominating counterparts. Read the rest »

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Field Report: AleSmith night at Holiday Wine cellar

Holiday Wine Cellar

Creative Commons License photo credit: nicmcc

Last night we had the privilege of attending the all-AleSmith tasting at Holiday Wine Cellar in Escondido last night.  This was probably the most well-catered and most crowded event we’ve seen at the Wine Cellar, and there was surely good reason. 

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BOTW: Lightning’s Black Lightning Porter

Beer of the Week!

Beer of the week is a feature we will be running, you guessed it, every week.  We will mostly feature local brews, but will occasionally mix in some others.

The first edition will cover Lightning’s Black Lightning Porter.

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Head-to-Head: Port’s Old Viscosity Dark Ale vs. Lost Abbey’s Judgment Day

We know this isn’t exactly an apples-to-apples comparison.  I don’t know how to categorize Old Viscosity, and apparently neither do they (from the label):

“We know you’ll come to love and appreciate everything about Old Viscosity even if we never tell you exactly what kind of beer it is”

However, we figured it would be fair to put it against another locally offered dark ale, Lost Abbey’s Judgment Day, a Belgian-Styled Dark Quad Ale.  Details after the jump.

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