San Diego hidden gems

Counterpoint. Great burger. Solid lineup of 10 or so taps.

$1.50 Monday Happy Hour @ The South Park Abbey. Eat at the fish taco truck across the street.

Distiller's Outlet in Poway. You never know what you might find... also $1-$2 less per bottle on many of my favorites.

Livewire. I have no idea how this has not become a major San Diego beer bar. 25 years. Great bartenders. No bullshit. Luigi's next door. Eclipse next door (for a little while longer).

Jake's on 6th. Wine bar. 1/2 off beer bottles on Thursday nights. Pliny. Solid taps (but not many).

Downtown Johnny Brown's. Great tap list, often very quiet on Sunday evenings after the shows start at the Civic.

Ritual Tavern. Damn good food. Alpine often on tap.

Toro. Hardly a hidden gem. But anyplace Islander is pouring... (he's also up at Lost Abbey a few days a week)
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Monkey Paw is no longer a hidden gem. Weekdays 12-5 are pretty mellow, but weekends are packed and noisy. Hammy's has also gotten very loud. I sound like an old man. The old man that I am rapidly becoming. But I like to have a chat when I'm drinking my beers, not listen to metal at 90 decibels.

 

I agree with this on so many levels.

 

Seriously. Please walk through Skyline and get back to me

 

I shall be headed to San Diego this week to pick up my BA Speedway.

So far I have ballast point, societe, and alpine for my one day san diego tour.

Do you guys recommend Ballast Point? It was kind of a throw away choice. I'm considering Aztec Brewing Company instead.

 

Not piimping out Ballast Point, but since they've expanded their tasting room I would hardly call it tiny. I suspect that you either have not been there in a while, or that maybe you went to their Home Brew Mart store in Linda Vista (which is not their brewery).

 

How long ago did they expand? I was there maybe 6 months ago and it seemed pretty small. Mostly to the fact that it was about 5pm and was packed full of people.

 

I am pretty sure it was longer ago than that, but they have added a small outdoor patio since then. Imagine it being less than half the size that it was when you visited, though.

There's a pretty good description of it in here:

http://sandiegobeerinsider.com/ballast-point-brewing-a-dorado-on-the-patio/

 

Check a map brah, Aztec is nowhere near Societe/Alpine.

 

I'm guessing he's probably coming from LA/OC and so can hit it up along the way.

Having said that, you have to go kind of far inland for Aztec - I would stick to Ballast Point (you can see what's on tap here), and the Scripps Ranch location definitely isn't that small anymore.

 

I suspect he was considering shooting down 78 and then hitting Alesmith, Societe, and Ballast Point from the the 15.

 

Start at Ballast Piont head down Miramar to go to White Labs, then to Alesmith, Hess Brewing, Rough Draft then to Wet n Wreckless to Green Flash to English Brewing...

 

Good Lord - you are suggesting this place?

 

Something to do...I tend to do this on Fridays .

 

I'm always confused why people recommend White Labs without the qualification "if you're a homebrewer." If you don't homebrew, White Labs will be mildly interesting, but ultimately not as good as an actual brewery (with a few exceptions, since some breweries are putting out glorified homebrew). Sure, if you're local, go check it out, but anyway who has a finite amount of time and doesn't brew shouldn't have WL at the top of their list.

 

They do sometimes do a take over the Tap (collaborations ) Right now they have 10+ versions of Alesmiths Wee Heavy...They had Green Flash's Flanders Drive on 4 different yeast...St. Archer's (another Brewery opening up down the street) did a piot batch of their IPA there...

 

White labs makes homebrew. They brew like a homebrewer and their fermentation is sometimes worse. What they're doing is a great idea in concept, but they are not execuiting the idea very well.

 

Yeah I am headed from Los Angeles to San diego.

Are all the Port Brewing/Pizza Port's similar to one another? Which has the biggest tap list?

 

Carlsbad usually does. If you are going to pick one, I'd go with that. Solana Beach is the "original", but is smaller (tap list and size). OB is pretty nice, between the two I'd say in size, but it might not be in your "flight plan".

I've heard more than a few people say they weren't entirely happy with San Clemente. Never been there myself.

 

As someone who doesn't live in SD but visits semi-often, is it too obvious to say that even though it isn't a hidden gem that you should go to Toronado? I love driving around, checking places out etc but Toronado is where I go to just relax & drink Alpine, Societe etc.