LOL. Typo on my part. I meant Ocean Beach in San Diego. We were there in the early afternoon on a Monday. Wasn't too crowded, but for some reason service was a bit slow. Parking was also a bit of a struggle. You must have been very well organized and have a much greater capacity than me. Even with half pours and many unfinished beers, that would have been a very long couple of days for me. Well done! Cheers!
good for you then. sounds like a lot of traffic and mediocre beer but to each their own. this is a tough forum and a lot of shit talk but mostly well intentioned. mostly. thanks for supporting SD economy. aloha.
I keep hearing about how bad the traffic is... but I thought the worst part of driving was always the parking. Traffic always seemed to be flowing.
Got it. It was pretty quiet. One couple and a family were the only ones there. Got a 2 hour max parking spot nearby. Not going to pretend like I feel 100% coming out of a marathon weekend. It's a detox week.
Made it to Green Cheek - Oceanside. Great spot. Enjoyed the beer very much. Thanks for the note on it.
Parking usually depends on the location (ie downtown, little italy, balboa park, etc) you have yet to experience what traffic truly was during your stay (805, 5, 15, 8) after 2pm
I moved to San Diego in September, 1969, driving down the newly completed I5. Little traffic on the road and very few businesses lining the highway. Traffic and parking were rarely a problem. Downtown was pretty deserted after 5:00 PM. The downside was the beer selection.
I have lived in Portland, San Diego, Chicago, and outside NYC. Those cities are all choked in traffic, and parking is a problem, compared to 50 years ago. Portland's parking downtown eased up some with the advent of rapid transit.
deft is the brewery i miss the most in SD. i worked for a haze-heavy hype brewery and on my days off, i could go there and know 100% id have good beer, see none of the regulars from my job, and there would be a laid back vibe. also coronado's flagship is walkable so you can finish off with world class west coast ipas if you need to scratch that itch... also, poor choice on the meadery. it is one of the best in the us! always worth a quick stop to try a taster of whatever is new and bizarre
Didn’t make it to Coronado. On any normal day, the meadery would have absolutely been a stop on the list, but we had limited time and liver capacity to work with. I have done the member thing at a more local meadery (Pips Meadery) and I think they are listed as the top “brewery” in the US. Cheers!
I was a member of Lost Cause meadery for about 5 years. I would say that it is less sweet than Pips but not nearly as dry as Superstition. It is too bad you didn't have the time to visit, I bet you would have enjoyed it. Just something to put on your list for your next visit. The couple that owns Lost Cause also owns the little winery in that same complex. I'm not a fan of wine so I can't say if it is worth it or not, but when it is all just right there.......makes it easy to try it all out.
Downtown San Diego memories of the early 70s. We only went downtown a couple of times over several years. We got an introduction from an ex-marine friend of ours who took us on a tour of the navy/marine bars. They were themed -- Chinese, Korean, Philippine, . . . -- all packed with military customers. Kim-chee for a snack and Pacific Rim beers. Another occasion we noticed that Tom Courtney's TomCat blues band (https://sandiegotroubadour.com/tomcat-courtney-a-blues-life/) was playing at the Zebra Club. The bouncer was huge and menacing, but we were admitted and ushered to a good table. The crowd was colorful, the band was great, the beer was -- AAL. And I imagined we had been magically transported to the South Side of Chicago.
In the late 80s, I accompanied my wife to a convention in San Diego she was support staff for. Big differences downtown near the convention site even then. We stayed in a Pacific Beach motel near the beach, where time seemed to have stood still since the 60s. In the morning, surfers and other itinerants were lounging with coffee and rolls, waiting for the good waves to roll in.
Another city with changes is Portland. I was a PSC (and U) student in the 60s. My claim to fame is that I was a gofer for Arlene Schnitzer at the Fountain Gallery during the summer of the moon landing. PSU is bigger, downtown is spiffier. But other than the incredible upgrade in the beer selection, I still think the city center character has been basically retained. Present day Northwest (Pearl, Nob Hill) is terra incognita for me. When my family lived in NW, I attended K and 1 at Couch school. Later during college, I shared a northwest Portland 2 BR house on NW 14th near the Lovejoy ramp for a while, with a foundry and a freight terminal as neighbors. Blitz aromas wafted my way when I walked to PSC in the morning.
A couple of years ago, we were in SD for a wedding during SD Beer Week. I hadn't heard of Deft, but they had a couple of cask ales so I forced my wife to go check them. It was a week day and not a lot of people, but great service and beer. Hard to say whether it will be added to rotation when I visit, but I plan to visit again.
I wish I was at the Blind Lady Alehouse in San Diego this weekend. Here is their BLAHtokerfest lineup: FEATURED BIERS Fonta Flora Marzen (North Carolina) Grimm Festooning (New York) Heater Allen Bobtoberfest (Oregon) Urban Roots Weis Festbier (Stockton) OEC Oktoberfest (Connecticut) Wayfinder Spider Dance (Oregon) ) BLAH Ultimate ********* Marzen (San Diego) Bottle Logic Quarktoberfest (Anaheim) Humble Sea Taste Güd (Santa Cruz) TDNE Festbier (San Luis Obispo) everywhere x schilling - something we return to (Orange) Burgeon Festbier (Carlsbad) Paulaner Festbier (Germany) Paulaner Pils (Germany) Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest (Germany)
Didn’t want to start a new thread so thought I would ask here. Does Stone no longer have an online store of any sort? Even for merch? I tried finding it on their website and it redirects to their brick and mortar locations.
