San Diego trip coming up

My 2 favorites:

Modern Times

Alesmith

Now if you go to 30th street in North Park you can hit a literal treasure trove of breweries. Mike Hess, Modern Times, Belching Beaver, etc. all within walking distance. So you could way more then 2 within that allotted time frame. Also, Toronado is a killer beer bar. I also highly recommend Mike Hess North Park.

 

I'll second the above. Mike Hess, Modern Times, and Alesmith make world-class beer.

I don't know if you'll have the time, but I'd say no trip to SD county would be complete without stopping at Stone in Escondido.

 

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/visiting-san-diego-winter-2016.372021/ <-- It hasn't been updated recently but just add North Park Beer Co to the essentials list and it's basically good to go.

And don't go to Mike Hess. It absolutely blows my mind that people recommend that place.

 

I'll add a disclaimer here. Never been to their taproom in person. Just recommending the beers. If you don't like the beers... We'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

Some of Mike Hess's stuff is decent, but if you're in the 30th St area I'd go to Modern Times and Rip Current before Mike Hess.

Alesmith is another great one but pretty far from the 30th St/North Park area. I'd say either hit up 30th St to do Modern Times / Rip Current (and if you have time check out Toronado, Fall, Mike Hess, etc), or go up to Alesmith and then hit Mikkeller or some of the other breweries in that area if you can only pick one region.

 

Speaking of new places ... have you been to Little Miss Brewing yet? If so, thoughts? Was thinking about hitting Little Miss & Abnormal up while down there for League pickups.

 

Their taproom is their only redeeming quality. Beautiful facility in which to drink beer that is, at best, thoroughly mediocre. I would honestly wonder what San Diego breweries you've visited and why you came to the conclusion that out of the 140+ breweries here, Mike Hess is worth recommending.

I have not been, nor have I heard much about them. If you'll already be at Alesmith, Little Miss is a slam dunk, but if you weren't hitting Alesmith, Abnormal + Second Chance are a good combo. I haven't been to Second Chance yet but I've heard a lot of good things and will be checking them out when I pickup my bottles of M3 this weekend. They're just a couple freeway exits South of Cork and Craft/Abnormal so it would be easy to hit both.

 

Obviously, I'm not a local that hits all of the newest startups. I've only been to Stone in Escondido and BP in Little Italy in person. I've had a lot more beers from SD in bottles/cans/on tap. As I said, I can't comment on whether some of these places are worth physically visiting, I just said they make good beer. And I think the reason to visit the place was stated by Bergbeer: It's close to some other places that may be of interest. Is MH my absolute favorite in town? Absolutely not. I think BP and Stone make better beer. I think Modern Times makes better beer. And that's off he top of my head. But I do think that Mike Hess makes great beer, and is worth a visit if you are within walking distance already.

Just because you don't like MH beer doesn't mean OP won't.

 

It all depends where you are staying. Because while you are out here on vacation you probably don't want to try and make Stone (Escondido) and Modern Times (Point Loma) be two you try in the same day.

 

Make sure you go to Bottlecraft in Little Italy. Best tap list in San Diego by a wide margin. Bolt Brewing is a couple of blocks away.. Never been there, but it's close and they have food.

 

If you want to drive just a bit, Bottlecraft in Liberty Public Market also has a nice taplist, plus plenty of food and you can walk around inside with your beer. You can go outside onto the nice grass but you need to have your beer put into a plastic cup instead of the glass one. Stone Liberty Station is right next door if you feel the need for more beer, more food, and some competitive bocce ball.

 

How has no one mentioned societe? They make the best hoppy beers in San Diego, and they only distribute kegs in So Cal, so you can't get it anywhere else.
Alesmith is great if you go to anvil and stave, I'd personally skip Modern Times unless their tap list is really good, most of the times its their core beers + 1 or 2 others, and you can get their core beers at any local bottle shop and a lot bars.
Skip Hess, you are better off at some gastropub.

 

When's the last time you were at Modern Times? They doubled the size of their draft system at the brewery tasting room in August and the taplist has been killer ever since then.

 

To pick up Blam Blam, they had that and goblin rock, maybe a devils teeth variant on tap. Maybe there were a couple others but I would never go there if I wasn't picking up beer, that and their parking is awful. I am sure I come off like a Modern Times hater, but I love their beer and coffee just not their tasting rooms and prices of special releases. I feel like going to a tasting room should be special, like it is the only place I can find limited releases, but I don't feel that way with them.

 

Interesting. Thirty beers on tap right now according to their online list, seven of them barrel aged. Maybe you got incredibly unlucky that day but I go reasonably frequently and I never have trouble finding anything to drink. Hopefully your next visit is more fruitful.

 

I think Little Miss is doing some good stuff. Their berliner, porter, and IPA were my 3 standouts when I visited. For locals hit them up sometime for sure. Though for someone out of town I would sooner recommend a visit to New English, 32 North, Mikkeller, or Pure Project if up to visit Alesmith already. It really depends on style preference though. Second to Alesmith, New English and Mikkeller have the best imperial stouts in the area. Pure Project has the hazy IPAs and interesting adjunct offerings with an ever changing tap list.

 

At the risk of simply echoing Xul, this comes off as an old critique. I know I once had similar thoughts. Something else: Not every available beer appears to make the board. Pretty sure I ordered Underworld Dreams "off menu" recently at PL. Didn't see it listed above, but I saw the tap handle.

 

That's correct, although it's not off-menu per se. They have a printed menu with far more beers than what's available on the boards above the draft system (more than double at this point if I recall correctly). They usually have plenty of copies of the printed menu floating around the bar/tables but if you don't see one, ask.