Night In

InNOut double double (no onions, extra cheese) and grilled cheese (off the not so secret menu, no onions, extra cheese).

Plus, I picked up a cold Port Brewing Wipeout IPA and Boulevard Brewing Saison at BevMo. Good times.

And and and, Orval is I think $5.49 here, way cheaper than what I've seen in Maryland.

Ridiculous

So I'm back in San Diego for a while ...

One day, I hope, what San Diego has as far as beer, will happen in Maryland.

Look at what is possible on this Friday alone:

Stone Brewing has tours at 2 and 6 Monday through Friday. They'll also have a special Smoked Porter + Vanilla Bean on cask. Lost Abbey just down the road, is open from 4-8 and they're holding some kind of welcoming event as they hired a new brewer from the excellent Boulevard Brewing, complete with some special brew they've put together for the event.

Other breweries with tasting rooms and/or tours on Friday and Saturday include AleSmith, Green Flash, Ballast Point, Alpine and Lightning among others.

At perhaps the greatest bar in the world if you dig hoppy beers, O'Briens, they're having a Green Flash event with 10 taps. And then Summer of Beer Steve tells me at a place I also need to check out named Downtown Johnny Brown's, they have Ballast Point's wonderful Sculpin IPA on tap right now. Tentatively we have plans to check that out (or O'Briens, or La Jolla Brew House or Toronado or Hamilton's or...) and catch the Ravens game down here. Good times.

I've got some things to do Friday so I'm pulling my hair trying to figure out how much if any of that I can squeeze in especially with traffic and family but wow. The best and worst part is its not any particularly special weekend, there's just a ton of great beer down here and the big boys tend to have something going on all the time whether its special beers, events, growler fills and so on.

All that said, I've got my eyes on the prize, one of the greatest beer events anywhere, the February 13th-15th Belgian Beer fest at Max's in Baltimore. San Diego would be lucky to have that kind of event, glad we have it in Baltimore though.

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.

Hop, Beer Prices Rising

Every beer nut knows this already.

Consider this an excuse to unload a video on the topic as I learn the ropes with this RedLasso video grabber program. The story is from a San Diego news station and they go to the authorities in the region: Stone Brewing. Good call.



I grabbed a few other beer-related videos tonight and will post them in the future as discretion merits.