SD Beer Tour.

Drove down to San Diego this past weekend for a pretty sizable beer tour. Over three days, we hit 9 breweries as well as the San Diego Zoo and Legoland in Carlsbad, which is probably the most epic thing I have ever seen in my entire life. The San Diego Zoo has a rep for being pretty awesome, and it did not disappoint. Of note, I have finally seen a giant panda in person. They are as hilarious as I expected.A solid morning and early afternoon was well-spent. There is also the Safari Park, but we didn't have time for that this time around. We also fit in a couple hours at Legoland which is coolest place I have ever been. There were Lego builds of Vegas, San Francisco, New York, iconic battles from Star Wars, and plenty of random Lego builds throughout the park.

I should also mention that I didn't take notes. This was mainly in the interest of time as we had a fairly tight schedule. Plus, impressions should suffice. As I've said before, it's not always about good beers and bad beers. At the end of the day, there are beers you remember and those that you don't. First brewery on the list was Stone.

Stone Brewing Company.

In Escondido, Stone is the largest in SoCal and, I believe, the largest craft brewery in CA. This place is the epitome of West coast philosophy and probably the beer mecca of the west. Their facility, of which I didn't think to take pictures at the time, is by far the nicest of any brewery I've visited. Their brewing floor is expectedly huge but is walled off by floor-to-ceiling glass panes which allow a view from their restaurant which is also fantastic. The high vaulted ceiling carrying over from the brewery makes for a wide open space and floor-to-ceiling glass on the opposing wall minimizes the separation from the indoor and patio dining sections. The ambiance is very big, uncrowded, simple, and natural...dare I say, organic. The food is naturally organic and local when possible and is quite tasty and fresh. I had a buffalo burger which is always nice to see. Beyond the patio is a small but walkable garden, complete with waterfall and pond. It's all done very tastefully and none at the expense of the other components, so bravo, Stone. They also said they're planning on opening up a hotel across the street which should be pretty epic. I will have to come back for that.

I had a Cali-Belgique IPA with my meal which was a great representation of the Belgian pale ale style. This was a beer I had been putting off for one reason or another, but seeing it on tap, I decided I probably wouldn't see that again anytime soon. I thought it was milder than Stone IPA and had a well-rounded spice profile that balanced well with the hop backbone. The Belgian influence is present, and all the bases were covered on this one. I would definitely drink this more often.

Their guest tap list was also pretty impressive. The Biscoff Break and Before, During, and After Christmas by Evil Twin Brewing, a brewery from Denmark.

The dessert was a blueberry-bleu cheese-jalapeno cheesecake which was also very good. The bleu cheese meant a cheesier instead of overpoweringly sweet cheesecake and probably also lent to its creamier texture. The jalapeno was an interesting addition as it added a mild jalapeno taste but with very little heat. A cool dessert to have tried.

Tour was the standard spiel, and our guide was pretty funny and had a sweet beard. Tasting was four pours from the standard lineup, and the swag in their shop was pretty cool. They had swingtop potbelly growlers and swingtop 1L bottles; they also had a fill price for 40 oz Kleen Kanteens. They also had awesome glasses, a lot of different, unique styles for some of their specialties: tumblers for Double Bastard, tulips for pales, wide-mouth flutes for Vertical Epic, a pilsener-like glass for Arrogant Bastard. Cases of 15th Anniversary were up for early sale, which I would have liked to have bought but they weren't breaking up cases yet and my money probably would have been better spent elsewhere.

Green Flash Brewing Company.

Green Flash was tucked away in a commercial park that also housed some genetics research places. Weird. Their tasting room was a large, cordoned area of their brewing warehouse and was run rather more like a bar. A nice touch was contracting with good-looking food trucks to provide the munchies. Their bar was very street fair-style but with way more taps, which came out of nondescript, white building which could have been a portable shed.

Palate Wrecker IPA, Trippel, Le Freak IPA, San Diego Saison, Cuvee Trippel, Double Stout, Sugar Smack Dubbel.

Pizza Port (Port Brewing)

For dinner, we tried to get into Pizza Port at Solana Beach, but it was packed. We ended up just driving back to Carlsbad and got into the Pizza Port there, which was also busy, but larger and easier to find seating. The pizza was great and the draft list was pretty diverse. We got the Whambo IPA and Great American Brown. Whambo was a slappy IPA with a really strong hop character. I actually didn't get through the pint because I had a headache and it was just a bit too assertive after a long day.
Pizza Port was a fitting end to the day as Lost Abbey was the first stop the next day.

Lost Abbey.

Lost Abbey is the Belgian-style side of Port Brewing. Their beers are bottled in bombers, corked, and pricey, but not without good cause. Left to right: Road to Helles, Witch's Wit, Serpent's Stout, Wipeout IPA, Mongo IPA, Old Viscosity Barley Wine.

Wipeout and Mongo were both pretty tasty, and I ended up getting bombers of those just in case I wouldn't be able to find them at a Bay Area store.

And then Devotion, Red Barn, Lost & Found, and Judgment Day.
Devotion is a blonde ale which was average to me, maybe a little overcarbed, but I'm comparing to something like Leffe. Red Barn is a saison, nothing to say about it. L&F is a dubbel, Judgment Day a quad. Both were pretty tasty, and I might pick up some bottles to bring home.

The brewery itself is small but nice, previously inhabited by Stone. Despite being a random bar built in a warehouse as is typical, the staff and patrons made for a much better atmosphere.

Ballast Point Brewing Company

Next stop was Ballast Point which was a new, high priority brewery for me ever since I saw their Sculpin IPA take top seat in a readers' poll for best IPA and, consequently, tried it. Tour was interesting since they talked about their continual expansion, basically knocking down walls and sprawling into the neighboring floor space of the commercial building. Ballast Point also has a budding distillery section though I didn't get to try any of that. I believe a vodka should be hitting shelves soon to be followed by a whiskey with rum and gin plans down the line. A bit diverse but Rogue has done just fine on that road. They also mentioned that eat batch of Sculpin takes $10K of hops. But the magnitude is lost on me since I don't know what they're paying for hops and which ones. We did the full board tasting: Wahoo Wheat, Ballast Point Pale Ale, Calico Amber Ale, Piper Down Scottish Ale, Black Marlin Porter, Sextant Oatmeal Stout on nitro, Fathom India Pale Lager, Big Eye Ipa, Sculpin IPA.

The first round was fairly meh, porter was average, stout was super light with the nitro line. Fathom IPL was an interesting twist and would like another shot at it sometime. Having had the Sculpin before, Big Eye didn't bring much to the table.

Hess Brewing Company

We headed over to Hess for their one-year anniversary bash. It was a lively event tucked away in a light commercial/warehousing district, complete with two food vendors, a t-shirt printer claiming to be able to screen a Hess shirt "in 6 minutes or it's free", and a band that was setting up as we were getting ready to leave. I went for the Unno Anum BPA, I suppose their anniversary brew, which came with the nice willi glass and discounts on fills. The Unno Anum was pretty good, and it wasn't something I expected to see from such a new, small brewery. We also had tasters of their porter, a rye imperial stout, and the orange honey wheat.

AleSmith Brewing Company

Around the corner from Hess was AleSmith. I had never heard of this brewery until recently, by happenstance really, trolling Google Maps for random breweries. They are highly rated, and for an SD brewery, that means a lot. In fact, their distribution only appears to go as far as north as LA so I guess I'm lucky I bought the bottles I did. Had I known just how limited their distro was, I would have bought more. Left to right: IPA, Old Numbskull Barley Wine, Speedway Stout, Grand Cru, Nautical Nut Brown, Anvil ESB.

All the beers at AleSmith were quite good, and it's not common for a brewery to have a big lineup and nail it on every one of them. A well-deserved rep.

The Bruery.

On the way back to the Bay Area, we stopped at the Bruery in LA, rolling in a few minutes before opening. A fish taco truck was parked outside. We forewent the snack as we were headed to another ale house nearby for lunch. The Bruery was a nice setup, and I liked their flight tasting mechanism. You buy in for 5 pours, get a nice full-size tulip, and 4 bottlecaps to cash in for your next 4 pours. Kinda cute.

Salt of the Earth (geuze with truffle salt) and Saison de Lente. SotE was crazy and killer. I tried to get a few bottles but they were all out. I could definitely taste the salt and truffle influence, a very interesting beer.

Cuir 3rd Anniversary Old Ale and Black Orchard (dark wit bier):


Batch 300 (oaked tripel with citra hops) and Loakal Red:


Iniquitus (Belgian golden strong) and Bierbauch (oaked imperial maibock):

Acer Quercus (smoked brown ale) and Run BMC (imperial pilsner):


Mischief (hoppy Belgian golden strong):

Ladyface Ale House and Brasserie.

We stopped for lunch at Ladyface on the way out of LA. The draft list was not bad for being an eatery, and we got a flight of part of their offering. La Blonde (I think), Trois Filles Tripel, Ladyface IPA, Chesebro IPA, Picture City Porter.
Most were so-so but I remember the the porter had chocolate shavings on top. The regular, Ladyface IPA, I thought was much better balanced and a better drinker than the Chesebro IPA, which is actually a too-blown-out imperial. Food was decent though rather overpriced for the portions. It was bit of an anti-climactic finish after the Bruery and the weekend in general, but you make do with what you get.

Naturally, I also got a lot of swag: about 9 bombers, though a few of them are extras to trade back home; a glass at pretty much every place; and a shirt and a sweatshirt, my first brew-related clothing. I figured I needed to be able to show some cred at brewfests. I'll take a big picture of all the glass and swag when I get back at the end of the summer.