A Michigander's California Beer Trail

I spent a week in beautiful Southern California in late September this year with my wife for our first anniversary. We stayed in San Marcos for the week. While this wasn’t solely a beer trip, we did a couple solid days of touring and sampling, and hit a few other spots in our travels as well. With only seven days and so many places to possibly visit, we chose breweries that were close together and used recommendations from friends and beer fan sites as our guide. Of course, when we left California we had a huge list of places that we still wanted to check out but didn’t get to. That’s how it goes I guess; we still had an awesome time and really enjoyed the area, the people we met, and the beer we tried. I rated each beer I had, whether it was a pint, a bottle or a four ounce sample (on a scale of 1 to 5) and tried to describe the feel of each establishment that we spent some time in.

Saturday
Sublime Alehouse, San Marcos
We came here on Saturday pretty much right from the airport after a day of travel. We were hungry and wiped out. It was about 7 pm local time (10 pm for us) and we didn’t know the area of San Marcos yet, but I had read some good things about this place. We got a table within five minutes and had a great server who went over the menu and draft selections. (Jonathan, really friendly guy and gave us great service.) To start I ordered Blazing World, an American amber by Modern Times. That’s not my usual go-to style but I wanted to get something from their list from that wasn’t from somewhere we planned on going. It wasn’t too malty, it was nicely dry and very drinkable; well balanced. I may have been an easy sell at that point based on the long day and being so happy to finally be drinking a local beer in California. I gave it 4.5 but my notes said ‘extra ½ star for it being my first Cali beer’
My second beer was Camel Corps IPA by Latitude 33. I liked it quite a bit, hoppy with a certain subtle fruity sweetness to it. By that point we fell out and called it a night.

Sunday
Culture Brewing, Solana Beach
On our way to our anniversary dinner at Jake’s Del mar, we stopped for a flight at this little place in Solana Beach. Cool vibe here, casual and airy with open doors at both ends of the small but cool tasting room. The walls were decorated in surf photography; I’m guessing they may spotlight different artists from time to time, as it seems Solana Beach has a big artist community. We each got a flight of three beers and grabbed a lean at the edge of the bar. I had their Pale, Session Citra and Session Amarillo. The Pale was average, nothing special but certainly drinkable. The Session Citra was good and also familiar as a lot of MI breweries use Citra hops. The Session Amarillo was really special. It was very unique and had a dark nuttiness to its flavor. As I was sampling, one of the owners (John) stopped to ask us how we liked everything. We chatted a bit and found out he had recently been to the Detroit area and knew a bit about the brew scene in Traverse City as well. I mentioned how much I liked the Amarillo and he gave me a nice pour of it and one for himself as we talked about it a bit more. After that we stepped out back to their small patio and finished our beers before heading down to Del Mar.
Pale 2.5 Citra 3.0 Amarillo 4.25

Jake’s Del Mar
I know, it’s not a brewery or beer bar, but I had two local taps selections with dinner. (after a Bulleit Rye on the rocks at the bar while waiting for a table.)
I had the Sculpin IPA – Ballast Point. Wow, this was one of the best of the trip and maybe one of the best IPAs out there. Crisp, flavorful, almost light if that’s possible. Rating of 4.0 (until later)
I really should have just gotten another one of those, but I was aiming to try as many different beers as possible. Sometimes in my quest to ‘try everything’ I forgo having a second of something outstanding. More on that and the 4.0 rating later. My second was Mermaid’s Red by Coronado. I chose one of theirs because I had been seeing them around in both bottles and taps, they seemed to be doing well and/or are popular. This was good, nice flavor, and went well enough with desert. 3.0

Sidenote – Jake’s Del mar was awesome. We loved the atmosphere and the food. We waited for a window table next to the beach and it was perfect; watching the bustling beach, then the sunset, it was sweet.

Monday
The day started with some light hiking around Torrey Pines then choosing an area kind of close to there where we could eat and hit breweries. So we headed to Miramar…

Woody’s Burgers, Miramar
A simple diner with great burgers and a good beer list; something every city could use at least one of. This place is right around the parking lot from Saint Archer and we needed lunch before touring, so it seemed perfect. (Plus SA didn’t open until 3) I had Mother’s Earth’s Pin Up Pale. This was bitter but refreshing and seemed pretty balanced. Went well with the burger. 3.5

Saint Archer, Miramar
This was the first of the industrial park breweries we would hit out here. I read before coming out here that that was the deal, not many pubs, mostly just taprooms. Michigan is much different; most places are brewpubs and have food. But, there are about 1/100th the number breweries in Michigan so the whole scene is different. Anyway, on to the brewery and beer…
We got there right at open and sat at the bar and had very friendly service. (we didn’t ask her name) The place got fairly busy as the time went on, we probably stayed an hour or so.
I had the Pale, Double IPA and Coffee Brown.
I really liked all three, each beer was a great representation of its style. The Pale was hop forward, the Double was strong but not crazy, and the Coffee Brown was a classic coffee brown. I compared it to a Michigan favorite - Perrin’s Kona Brown, if you see it in your area make sure to try it. I gave each a 4.0

Our next stop was Alesmith, Miramar
We both really liked the tap list in this place, and it was difficult to limit and/or narrow down our choices. I went with Pale Ale 394, Anvil ESB, and Grand Cru. I figured that I’d try a pale in each place we visited since that’s the prevailing style out here…this one was good, drinkable and my notes don’t give me much else, I gave it a 3.5 The Anvil ESB was a good drinker, but I didn’t get much else out of it. I didn’t dislike it by any means, but it didn’t stand out even though it was a style I hadn’t seen much of out here. I gave it a 3.0 The Grand Cru on the other hand, was amazing. I gave it a 4.75 and it really was one of my favorites of the entire trip. It’s a Belgian Dark Strong, and I found the flavor and feel to be outstanding and complex and very consistent to other BDS’ that I’ve had. I loved that one. While I’m not mentioning all the beers my wife tried (and they were usually different than mine) I will mention that she had their Belgian Strong Pale - Horny Devil, and rated it high as well. Their space was roomy enough, pleasant and lively. We liked it quite a bit.

Ballast Point, Miramar
We headed east towards I-5 (or was it I-15?) and saw that northbound was jammed up, so luckily enough Ballast Point was really close. This place seems really popular, it was fairly crowded and lively. After choosing a flight (Fathom, Black Steamboat, Sculpin) we grabbed a table on their patio, along with some chips & salsa they had available. (timely) Fathom was an IPL, that style is catching on in Michigan but I hadn’t run across one yet out here. It was solid, quaffable. My notes show I liked it enough to give it 4.0 Steamboat is a dark lager, it was nice. Kind of light but a bit roasty and fit the style well. 4.0 Then the Sculpin. This time it really sunk in how good this IPA is. I upped my rating to 4.75, and I’m not even sure why it’s not 5.
We enjoyed sitting on the patio, overlooking the business park as the sun went down. Very mellow.

San Marcos Brewery and Grill, San Marcos
We headed back to our part of town and grabbed dinner here. The beer list was ok, the menu was ok…nothing special. I got a pint of Pompous Ass, their American brown. 2.5 It’s not entirely their fault; we were at the end of a day of drinking some fantastic stuff…pretty difficult to stand out, beer-wise.


Tuesday
We took a drive to Julian, had lunch (and pie, because it seems that’s what you do in Julian) then drove down to Alpine where we went to Alpine Beer Company. Cool set up here; on one side there’s the beer store where you can fill growlers, buy merch and sample a couple of their beers. The other side of the porch is a pub with their stuff on tap. A very hoppin place, even on a Tuesday afternoon. It seemed like everyone knew each other and even I was mistaken for someone they knew. I got the Captain Stout, Alpine Ale, Duet and Nelson. I gave the Captain a 3.0, it just didn’t move me, very middle of the road. The Alpine Ale earned a 3.5 but it too was just kind of average. The Duet scored a 4 with me, I really liked the marriage of the Simcoe and Amarillo hops. And finally I sampled Nelson. I had soft spot for this one going in because that’s my last name, but I also read great things about it. Add in the fact that Ryes are awesome and it couldn’t disappoint right? It truly didn’t. It was a great beer, excellent balance of hops and malt, I gave it a 4.5 If we had time I would have gotten a pint of this one but we had to get back to the SM area for dinner with friends.

Stone Brewing, Oscondido (the first time)
My buddy from the Vista area and his wife picked us up and we all headed to Stone Brewing to get a primer before dinner at Vintana. This place is unbelievable. Now that we had been to a few breweries in the surrounding area we couldn’t believe how different this place was. Huge property with a beautiful building and garden area. It looked like the kind of place that I could be for hours, easy. The four of us all got something different, so I tried a bunch of their beer, sometimes it was just a sip though, so I didn’t rate all of them. I tried to make sure and get something I hadn’t tried in Michigan, since we do get a lot of Stone 220z bottles here. I started with the Coffee Milk Stout. 3.75 It was great, with all the things I like in that style. Smooth, and not too much coffee so as to overtake it. Then I went off the Stone list and got a Belgian Strong called As Follows by Stillwater. This was a completely random choice based on the style I wanted to try; I’d never heard of Stillwater. I looked them up, they are out of Maryland. Does this beer get kicked off my Cali blog? Nah. 4.0, it was really good. We had to split after the second round to be on time for our reservation. (we weren’t)


(End of part one, due to character limitations. Not my character limitations, mind you...)

 

(part two)

Wednesday

We planned to do some breweries on Thursday with our local friends and they didn’t seem that into The Lost Abbey, and that was high on my own list, so just the two of us went there in the afternoon, right about when they opened. The tasting room had a ton of taps because they have Port Brewing there as well. Nice tap list, it was very hard to narrow down. If I lived in this area I would probably frequent this place both for the impressive list of taps and the other stuff in bottles, both 375 and 750 mls. Since they had bottles that weren’t refrigerated we bought two, more on that later. My first sample was Avant Garde. It’s a Biere de Garde Farmhouse Ale. Sometimes that style hits the spot. The malt in front and strong finish were present but I only gave it 3.25 even though I was sure I was going to rate it higher beforehand. Next was Lost and Found Abbey Ale. Very good, the yeast and malt were both super present but stayed short of overpowering. A good dubbel that I rated a 3.75. Then I had the Carnevale; a light saison with a nice depth of flavor. Another 3.75 The only drawback to this stop was that it was such a hot day that the place was really hot inside. (90+, which a lot of locals said was uncommonly hot)


Stone Brewing, Oscondido (the second time)

We knew we’d return to this place to spend a little more time while in town. This time it was in the afternoon, and it had a very mellow vibe. We ordered beers and three apps. If this blog was about food I’d get into the apps more, I’ll just note that they were impressive. (quail, ribs and a cucumber salad.) I got a There and Back, an English bitter collab from Sierra Nevada and New Glarus. I love almost everything SN does, so seeing something that unique on the beer list was irresistible to me. It was delicious, malty in front and a crisp fruity hop finish. 4.0 Next up was Xocoveza Mocha Stout. Something about this was very different than others in that style, maybe a peppery presence in there somewhere. I gave it a 4.0. We cashed out with our waitress and walked around the garden area with our second beers. I’ll say it again, this place made me want to stay and stay. We stopped and sat for awhile at one of the tables in the back of the garden and enjoyed the late afternoon sun through the trees and sipped our beers for quite awhile before grabbing some swag at their impressive store and taking off.


Thursday

After a round of golf and some lunch the four of us headed out to do some tasting. The Lost Abbey was the only place open before 3 pm so we went there again. I was cool with it, I was up for trying some of Port Brewing’s offerings this time. First up; Board Meeting by Port Brewing. An 8.5% American brown ale. It was very drinkable and not very strong tasting for being up at 8.5%. Hints of cocoa and coffee were present, I liked it and gave it a 4.0. Next I had the Hot Rocks Lager by Port. Not bad. I think the heat in the place was getting to all of us though. It was 90+ again that day and not much air was moving around in there. I gave this a 3.25 and my notes don’t show noticing anything distinct about it. My last sample was Road to Helles by Lost Abbey. Not sure why I chose it, it’s not my favorite style. It was kind of thin, just didn’t move me at all. 2.25


Aztec Brewery, Vista

This place was cool. Our friends from Vista hadn’t been here yet, so it was on their list. We got there right about when they opened. The bartender was playing Bad Company’s eponymous debut on vinyl, so I was already digging the place as I looked at the beer menu and chatted with him about the band and music in general. (Later he was setting up a drum set for an open mic they have, sweet!) I started with the Aztec Amber. This was very good. Malty in front, a little caramel in the middle and a little bit of hop to finish. 4.0 Solid. Next was their Belgian Tripel. This was another one I really liked from Aztec. Not too strong, soft in front, a bit of coriander and sweet malts present. Another solid 4.0. Last I got their Belgian Pale. For as much as I liked the Tripel, this one didn’t move me as much. Kind of thin and tame. 3.0 (they also had a quad, maybe I should have tried that) We had a good time here, the second album played was Synchronicity, which made my wife happy.


Belching Beaver, Vista

This is a favorite stop of our local friends, and I’m glad they brought us here. Fairly large tap list, it was hard to narrow down to four. After we got our samples (in a really cool glass holder) we headed outside to a park like area with picnic tables and Adirondack chairs. It was nice and relaxing sitting around the table sampling and chatting. First up Saison de Beaver. Crisp and a little sour with nice carbonation and a little bit of a bitter finish. Good solid beer that I gave a 3.5 Then I tried Hop Highway IPA. I’m running out of original adjectives.. I’ll go with quaffable again. I gave it a 4.0. Then the Rabid Beaver Rye IPA. Delicious comes to mind, I do like the ryes. 4.25. Then, the one I saved for last (dessert) but was most anxious to try- the Peanut Butter Milk Stout. Wow, what a beer. It was unique, exciting, delicious, an all around great beer. Not too sweet, not too peanut buttery, not too anything. 4.5 easy.



Rip Current, San Marcos

This was our last brewery stop of the night. Cool looking place and great logo. They had a massive beer can collection behind glass on one wall, it was fun to check out, since I collected them as a kid. I recognized a ton of the old cans for sure. I started with the Ankle Breaker Alt. I rated this one a 4.25, it had everything I like in an alt, they just really hit the spot sometimes. Malty with a bit of bitterness, definitely balanced and very drinkable. Next was the Lupulin Lust, an American IPA. At 8.2% it was strong and present but the subtle grapefruit/tangerine flavor offset the hoppyness nicely. 4.0 Last was the Tube Rye-der Session IPA. It was good, but to me seemed kind of stuck between a session and an IPA. I gave it a 3.25, it wasn’t bad at all, just a little jammed between styles.


Sadly, that was the last of the breweries we hit on the trip. Below is a rated list of tap beers I had at various restaurants and a few bottles bought at stores or breweries during the week.


Saison Blanc – The Lost Abbey 375ml corked bottle 4.25. Very good. It was crisp and flavorful, a little fruity with a nice strong finish.

Inferno – The Lost Abbey 375ml corked bottle Another good one from these guys. A bit spicey, I didn’t like it as much as the Saison, but still give it a 4.0

Idiot IPA – Coronado 12oz bottle I didn’t love this as much as so many other reviewers seem to. It was a bit sharp and strong. I only gave it a 3.0

Citra Session IPA – Green Flash 16 oz tap A so-so session beer, not bad, not great. 2.75

DBA – Firestone Walker 16 oz tap This English pale was delicious after a round of golf. I only had one, but definitely would have enjoyed another. 3.75

Hop Head Red Double IPA – Green Flash 16oz tap Very enjoyable and well balanced especially for being over 8%. 4.25


So there it is: A trail of 12 breweries and almost 50 beers on a vacation that only covered a small number of places, with so many more worth visiting. We’ll go back, hopefully sooner than later, I’m just not sure if we continue in SoCal or start farther north next time. Wherever we go, I’m sure we’ll find some great breweries and beers.


Cheers!

 

holy crap, and I truly hate errors like that. Sorry all.