San Diego recommendations (so many options)

Thanks guys. Leaning towards staying in North Park (possibly near 30th Street) and will keep the tips about Bottlecraft and Slater's in mind. Resident looks promising as well. Cheers!

 

My wife and I are heading to SD on Friday. We are staying near the convention center in downtown. I am making a trip to Modern Times for sure. What other breweries or beer bars have amazing Hazy Ipa’s? Also what beach has the best breweries near bye or on the beach? Any botttles shops in downtown that you recommend to take some home. I live in Phoenix so we get some of the SD goodness so looking for harder to find stuff that don’t leave Cali.

 

I always follow up MT with Pizza Port Ocean Beach

 

Downtown, Resident Brewing out of The Local and Half Door.

Beachwise, Ocean Beach. PPOB plus a bunch of brewery tasting rooms.

 

Hey guys....awesome thread. I'm heading out to SD from NY in less then 2 weeks. I am going with my wife for our anniversary.

She's not really into beer but I plan to sneak a couple places in while we visit.

A couple of notes:
I will have a car
I will NOT be able to bring beer home

I'm doing:
Modern Times
Pizza Port Ocean Beach
Ballast Point Little Italy
Karl Strauss

I didnt see any love for Ballast....so maybe I should substitute something in there instead? We will be eating dinner in Little Italy so it seemed like an obvious choice.

 

Ballast got removed due to their sale and technically not being small craft beer. Depending on your mood, and wallet, there are a slew of wonderful restaurants in Little Italy. This website can help with that: https://www.littleitalysd.com/dine/restaurants

 

yeah, I already have a reservation. We're going to Bencotto

 

Bottlecraft looks cool.....should I do that instead of Ballast?

 

Yep, Bottlecraft is a perfect substitute, they usually have a great draft list and any bottle/can is also available for on-site consumption with a nominal corkage fee. If Bencotto doesn't fill you up, Crack Shack right around the corner from Bottlecraft has excellent fried chicken and Bird Rock Coffee will fill your caffeination needs.

 

Bumping this thread to seek BAs advice on whether it's worth renting a car to visit some of the suburban/out-of-town breweries in the SD area.

If we were to go this route we're thinking of heading north to Escondido (Stone) and San Marcos (Lost Abbey), but also considering Alpine (east) and/or other spots.

Given that there's lots of great options in the city proper, and Stone has a taproom in Liberty Station, I'm not quite sold on the idea of heading out of town, but if there's some great experiences to be had I can be convinced otherwise. We would only have a car for a day or two.

 

Depends on what you are looking for and what styles you want to try. Stone Escondido for me is a place I always take people. Vista has 15 breweries. San Marcos also has Rip Current and Wild Barrel.

 

Was going to hit Pure Project (I've yet to visit) on Friday before the Del Mar races (unless there's something better next to Del Mar?) ... any to-go Mexican food recommendations near Pure Project? I know Supernatural is awesome, but have an SD Mexican food craving @Xul @SDReaper

 

Rigoberto's, same little strip mall as supernatural.

 

Thank you sir ... any SD Mexican joint with an "erto" in the name is a safe bet

 

Does Anvil & Stave still require a password? Can't seem to find one on social media. Thanks!

 

I haven't seen them post one in quite some time, so you should be fine. Worst case, they implement one and it will be at the merch counter when you walk in, forcing an extra 15ft to cut there and then back on your path towards A&S with a ticket in hand.

 

as a taco and burrito aficionado I can conform @SDReapers recommendation is good, despite his questionable tastes (non avocado eating)

 

Cratez, as an Ontario guy who now lives in SD, I had to answer your call for recommendations. I definitely recommend checking out Alpine. It's a pleasant drive from SD, they have a nice patio at their Pub (I haven't been to the tasting room) and when I've been there they have had non-distributed beers you can't get elsewhere (many have been made with a single hop). Some people have gone off Alpine since their sale to Green Flash, complaining that the beer tastes different. I have not found that. They may make the beer with the single lamest hop-based pun in its name (Hoppy Birthday), but they make outstanding beers. (And let the record show, Hoppy Birthday is one of my personal favourites).

Stone's Liberty Station location is nice, but to my mind their Escondido location is even nicer. It's sort of a landmark on the local beer scene, given how long it's been around. If you can get out there it's worth checking out, but you won't be that worse off if you end up going to Liberty Station instead. Down in Liberty Station there is also a craft beer and meatball place called Soda and Swine that has an excellent rotating beer list. Whoever puts it together really knows what they are doing, and I've discovered outstanding local beers there.

I haven't been to the Lost Abbey so don't know anything about it one way or the other. Also in North County about 25 minutes from the Abbey is Bagby Beer Company, in Oceanside, which has a lot of good beers you can't get outside their brewery. Half an hour north of Bagby is Artifex, also one of my faves, but that's probably too far, any you can get their beers in cans around town now anyway. Although I personally find the appeal of Mikkellar Brewing in Miramar mysterious, when I've beer traded with guys in Canada they have often wanted Mikkellar stuff (which, in fairness, changes a lot).

Craft beer in Tijuana is also taking off these days. If you feel like checking out that side of the local beer scene, Mamut brewery is easy to get to from the San Ysidro border crossing: you could take a cheap cab ($5 or less) or walk. They have a great second-floor patio overlooking the street that is a great place to relax and people watch, and their beer is great. Insugente is another excellent TJ brewery, although you can find their stuff around SD now also. The West Coast IPA may have been invented in California, but I find that Insurgente's Lupulosa IPA blows away 90 percent of the California IPAs I've tried (there I said it. Come at me hop heads).

Have fun in SD!

 

Anyone know of anything new that's popped up in the last year in the San Marcos/Escondido area? Heading to Stone Anniversary on Saturday and we always like to use Sunday to check out some new places in the area. Last year we did Rip Current, Booze Brothers and Burgeon which were all worthwhile.

 

Wild Barrel is a stone's throw from Lost Abbey. If you like cider, check out Raging Cider.