Joint Baltimore Beer Guy, Summer of Beer Homebrew Update

On my recent trip to California I made a stop at my friend Steve's -- of Summer of Beer fame -- place, to make a batch of beer. That is, basically watch him make it after he'd procured all necessary ingredients since I'm such a novice at this.

We settled on a Belgian Strong Pale/Golden Ale to make. After much debate various malts and yeasts were decided upon. It would have been one yeast strain but I'm crazy and didn't feel like doing things perfectly by the book.

The brewing was fun, and we enjoyed much delicious beer in the process. But that's over with and its now in that intermediate stage of fermentation for a bit. Steve was kind of enough to send along a few photos of the early fermentation. It isn't much to look at but I thought I'd share. Can't wait to see how this puppy turns out.

Update: one more image -- initial fermentation complete!

Miscellaneous

Pabst Blue Ribbon, on tap? Hmmmk.

Dog Pub has remedied their website and it looks much improved and useful. Nice work.

A year/beer in review post? Might be a good idea. BTW I tried that Hoppy Otter IPA tonight ... yeeeeeech. I hope the problem was that it was skunked. Beautiful label but that was about as far as the pleasant experience went. Hopefully the Nogne O IPA I also purchased at The Perfect Pour is an improvement.

Red Brick Station's current seasonals on tap include a Scotch Ale and a Schwarzbier.

Looks like Franklin's has a legitimate website for once. They were briefly featured in a D.C. area public television program about "local" dining/drinking.

Victoria Gastro Pub's website has added some pictures, so you can get a feel for the overall layout and vibe. Personally I love the setting and bar and can't wait to try the outdoor patio in the summer.

As noted by Beer in Baltimore, Blob's Park will reopen for a New Year's Eve Party, $50 with music, a traditional German food buffet, doors open at 6:30 and festivities until 1 AM or so.

I've been reading this in bits and pieces. It looks like I'll be making a collaborative brew with my friend Steve who writes Summer of Beer the next time I'm out in California. Should be interesting. I tried homebrewing once when I lived in Florida and it was a disaster, but hopefully this experience sharpens my awareness of the process and I can make a batch or two of my own this year.

The old man gave me two beer books for Christmas: Microbrewed Adventures by Charlie Papazian and Michael Jackson's Eyewitness Companions book Beer. Can never have enough beer reading material around.

San Diego Day II

On this day I was finally able to check out the famed Pizza Port. Pizza Port is a pizza and beer place that is basically the same company as the great Lost Abbey Brewing. Where Lost Abbey operates as a Belgian inspired brewery with tasting room, Pizza Port is the classic pizza and beer joint, except with incredible beers. There are three Pizza Port locations, in Solana Beach, Oceanside and San Clemente (Orange County).

I made a stop at the Solana Beach one since it was easily the closest of the bunch. Unfortunately it also happens to be the smallest, so there was no bar, but rather a walk-up order counter and their famous first-come picnic table seating. Not feeling supremely hungry I ordered some beer buddies (see their menu) and a Lil' Wednesday "Extra Pale" Belgian pale ale. I've got a thing for Belgian style beers, and this thing lived up to the general style. It was exciting, light and refreshing but with that weird flavor created with Belgian yeast, a creamy texture, slightly cloudy, just hit the spot.

After that I ordered what I think was called Black Spider, a black west coast pale ale, on cask. Usually I'm conservative when ordering new beers and I had wanted to try several other of Port's options, but the risk paid off, another delicious offering with a huge frothy head thanks to the cask kicking just as my pour went through.

Pizza Port has exactly the right concept of family friendly vibe with various video games and pizza on the menu, to go with that beachy feel. There were several surfers taking a break inside while I was there. Its a few blocks from the beach in one of my favorite beach areas in San Diego, Solana Beach, not far from the Amtrak station there and a street designated purely for artsy type shops. The pizza + beer thing reminded me of the Russian River Brewpub in Santa Rosa. Its all very relaxed and unlike most pizza joints paired with great beer.

I guess at the other two locations there's an actual bar to sit down to, and multiple levels. Next time. On the way out they had memorabilia, glassware and a few bottles of their own creations as well as those of Lost Abbey for sale.

After that I started getting a little beer heartburn, which seems to happen after I've been drinking strong for a few days. Its painful and slows me down so the rest of this day's trip was colored by that.

After leaving Pizza Port, I ventured down to the AleSmith brewery hoping their tasting room might be open. No go, however, as they're only open on Friday and Saturday.

From there I almost decided on a return trip to Ballast Point since I had so much fun, but instead went to Stone Brewing Company's World Bistro and Beer Gardens. I've been here a million times before but its always a great stop with all it has to offer. Unfortunately the heartburn was still flaring up so I grabbed a single beer before departing. It was an Echt Kriekenbier, another Belgian offering. I should have enjoyed this more, as its one of my favorite beer styles, a Flemish sour cherry ale and quite tasty when one is not in pain, heh. The rest of Stone's draft and bottle menu was great as usual, so a return trip would definitely be in the works.

However, that was it for Day II of the beer adventures.

Follow along with yet another custom Baltimore Beer Guy beer map.

San Diego Day I

Documenting beer travels in one of the craft beer meccas of both America and the world ...

My first stop was at a place called O'Brien's Pub. Its a bit of a dive, but they absolutely know and embrace their beer here, particularly hoppy beers. I've been here on occasion when they're carrying an "O'Brien's IPA", made by Alpine Brewing, also in San Diego. Its very refreshing and although hoppy, not so intense or off-putting as some of the usual west coast IPA's.

Anyway, aside from their great fish tacos, I went with an Alpine Pure Hoppiness IPA, an AleSmith Yulesmith and a Russian River Blind Pig IPA. The Alpine was fantastic, much in line with the O'Brien's IPA.

The Yulesmith is a seasonal cult favorite made twice a year by San Diego's AleSmith. In the winter its an imperial/double red. It was much more malty and complex than the others, obviously, a bit more hearty of a beer.

And then there's Blind Pig, one of the great American IPA's made by Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, California. Russian River recently became available in Philadelphia and parts of Pennsylvania and is incredibly popular and in demand outside of California. I know plenty of folks in the Baltimore/D.C./NoVa corridor hoping and praying for its arrival in their neck of the woods, but it could be a while if ever since in interviews the owner/brewer is content to brew enough to keep his brewpub in business and distribute where and when he can elsewhere, mostly in the state of California.

Overall O'Brien's has about 20 taps and two beer engines for cask beers which they pour on certain nights. They hold various beer events, regulars have their own mugs, their available beers posted on the website, I saw on the walls posters for a Belgian beer trip they're organizing. Just a lot going on, a strong devotion to beers. Their bottle list is also strong and as I was chilling at the bar I saw several gentlemen splitting a couple bottles of something by Cantillon, a fantastic Belgian brewery.

After O'Brien's, I went to the Ballast Point Brewing Company tasting room. Ballast Point is on a bit of a roll lately as an award-winner at several major beer festivals. They have a nautical/fish theme going (Black Marlin Porter, Big Eye IPA) and enjoy wide distribution in the San Diego area. Their tasting room was nice because unlike most of the really good breweries, it is open most days and I was able to sneak in on a day other than Friday/Saturday.

They had about five standby beers available for a tasting flight, as well as growlers and pints of those plus another four or five special and rotating seasonals, most of which were too heavy for my tastes and stamina after O'Brien's. So I went with a taster flight of the the standards:

1)Yellowtail Pale Ale
2)Calico Amber Ale
3)Big Eye IPA
4)Black Marlin Porter
5)Wahoo Wheat

They were universally delicious, and although not into porters lately the Black Marlin was lightly smoky and delicious. I've had the wheat before, at a Dave and Buster's of all places. The pale is a Kolsch-style, so a bit more unique of a pale ale. For good measure I socialized with the good hosts a bit longer and ordered up an extra pint of the Big Eye IPA.

Other than that, there's not much else beer-related to report from Day I other than the Claim Jumper where we had dinner had several in-house beers of which I enjoyed a Hef with my meal.

Update: I've created a Google Map that should give an idea of the locations of the various beer stops made on this trip. I'll update it the further I get along in the trip.

Touchdown, San Diego

I'll be in San Diego and the Southern California region for about two weeks doing the vacation and family thing, along with seeing a few football games.

There will still be Maryland beer news and hopefully I'll get to reworking the mess of links on the menu at right a bit, improving the maps, etc. to make this all more useful and relevant.

In the meantime I'll try and provide notes from my various beer adventures in San Diego, which is a tremendous beer city, hopefully can compare and contrast and see what works there that can work in Maryland, what works in Maryland that San Diego isn't doing, and so on.

Beer Trip Update

Doing well. Doing really, really well.

Not everything we've targeted is available right now at Russian River but who cares, the place is fantastic. I'll try to resize that picture in a bit, but that's myself and Steve from Summer of Beer chilling at Russian River last night.

Other stops so far: Bear Republic, Third Street Ale Works, The Flavor Bistro (for hard-to-find beers from Moonlight Brewing) and the Toronado Brewpub in San Francisco. Today should be a big day with several possible great stops including a brewpub we heard about near Oakland, Moylan's and Lagunitas.

Anyway, more updates coming.

Six Beer Trends

From my old hometown San Diego newspaper the Union Tribune. Worth a look (via Appellation Beer).

No. 6 is interesting:

6. Distilled wisdom: In Scripps Ranch, Ballast Point's brewer Yuseff Cherney worked until 3 a.m. the morning before the conference distilling his first batch of whiskey. The Point joins Anchor, Rogue and a handful of other craft brewers dabbling in spirits. More will follow, Cherney said: “This is the next step in brewing.”

We Win! We Win!

Or something.

Good news out of the World Beer Cup (San Diego, CA): several Maryland brewers have won awards in the prestigious competition.

Notable: Gold medals for Clipper City Winter Storm (International Pale), Wild Goose IPA (English-Style IPA), Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter (Imperial Stout).

Other local winners can be found in Kasper's link below, and a full listing is available at the World Beer Cup link above. Congratulations to all the local winners!

(Hat Tip: Kasper on Tap)