Murrieta Pizza & Brewing

Not far west of the I-15 exit at Murrieta Hot Springs is this decent pizza joint which also brews its own beer. On the inside, it's very spacious inside with wooden tables and benches (akin to Lamppost Pizza) making up the seating and dining, an arcade room, and drab walls decorated with MLB schedules of the Angels and Dodgers. There is a bar to the place, but it's located deep in the back.

Five house beers were available during my visit, which you can also take home with you via growler. House beers go for $3.25 a pint, and during happy hour (2-6pm, M-F) it drops to $2.75. Also offered on-tap was Stone IPA....and a bunch of macros from draft and bottles. I tried their porter was thought it was pretty good.

Service is basic, not much to complain or rave about, until my pizza order "was killed" in the oven. I had to wait another 10 minutes to receive a replacement for that pizza. Meh. It might have been worth the wait though, because the pizza turned out to be good tasting.

Every restaurant has a niche it can fill without directly competing against the best ones in the area. Murrieta Pizza fills the niche of good pizza and solid, inexpensive house brew. Would I come here again? Only if I was in the area, and if no good bars open in the area in the near future. If one does, Murrietta Pizza and Brewing may need to replace the macros with craft beer to keep me as a customer.

Visited about 3:00pm on Monday, April 29th, 2008.

Located in one of the generic and ubiquitous strip malls that have sprung up out in the desert during the last ten years or so, Murrieta Pizza and Brewing had me puzzled after my visit; exactly WHY are they brewing beer?

The atmosphere is 100% sports bar. Long wooden benches for large parties adorn the room. There's a game room for the kiddies and lots and lots of big screen TVs for sports. The walls are covered with NASCAR and baseball memorobilia, almost all of which carries a macro brewer's logo.

My friend and I picked a seat as far away form the sports TVs as we could, but a gentleman soon came and sat near us and turned on the TV closest to us kinda loud. There's just no escaping ESPN, I guess.

They brew five beers there but were out of two: 40% of their OWN BREWS. This is more or less a sign of incompetence; if the management of a brewery can't anticipate their own demand, then they're doing something wrong. Do you think if they ran out of pizza they'd still be in business? Another sign the beer is more or less an afterthought (or at least pretty low in the importance rankings). Of the three house brews they did have, the porter was okay, the "light beer" was undrinkable and the hefe was surprsingly German in character though not especially good.

Guest taps included Stone IPA and Arrogant Bastard, Wimder Hefe, Newcastle, Guinness, Fat Tire (which I heard ordered as a "Flat Tire" by a patron at the bar watching sports) and macros. Some bottles as well, but nothing too exciting.

Pizza is average to good, with chewy medium to thick crust and gooey cheese.

I bet this place could cease brewing and have exactly the same amount of business with less overhead. So again... why do they brew, exactly?

this is not a bad little place to have a couple of beers after work. or to take home in growelers, which are not badly priced. my friends and i stop by here at least twice a month if we can, and all of us seem to enjoy it all

beers:
the bad santa in my absolute favorite, but i cannot wait for the next realease in feb 08. (it used to be a seasonal, but they had such a good response, that its now a semi regular.) they have a hefeweisen that is sweet, but not overly sweet. the nut brown and red are also my go to beers

I was on a last minute unexpected business trip near here at the end of the day, and decided to stop off afterwards to see what this place was like. Located in a pretty new strip mall off the Murietta Hot Springs Blvd. off-ramp of the 15 freeway, across from the Wal-Mart plaza, relatively easy on and off.

Very much a pizza place that, oh, by the way, also brews some beer.

A 2-section joint, the front 3/4 of a long narrow room had picnic tables and TV sets designed for groups of young soccer teams to chow down after the match, very family oriented with a side room full of video games. A bunch of large flat panels TVs with ESPN remind us that this place is new and there is money in this town, but also probably makes this a good Sunday football hangout.

It was a quiet afternoon, and I had the back (bar) area to myself (with the bartender). 16 taps total, 6 macrobrews, Stone IPA, Fat Tire, and a few others, and 4 local brews. They were: Murietta Blonde (3.5%), Big House Red (5.2%), Nut Brown (4.2%), and Pacific Pale Ale (3.5%). Obviously safe styles, relatively low ABV ("Drink Responsively" posted in several places) beers. I tried the nut brown (sample) and the Red (pint), and they were decent, not bad, but very standard. Overall for this area, not a bad tap set, pretty good for Murietta, I suspect. But nothing out of the ordinary.

This place seemed more interested in the pizza joint portion of the equation, with beer as an add-on to get you to come in. If you aren't convinced- check the web site. They have lots on their menu and such, but the beer section is "coming soon".

I guess it was fine for what it was, but I have no interest at all in returning.