San Diego visit

San Diego is pretty spread out so you should consider how much driving you want to do and how much sight seeing (outside beer markets) is going to be involved. San Marcos has a great collective of renowned breweries and then towards downtown San Diego there are more breweries and better bars.

I wouldn't bother with Alpine. As much as I love their stuff a buddy went there last weekend and they had zero of their IPAs for sale in the store and their pub is a huge disappointment for the amount of driving you will do.

Best brew garden: Stone Escondido
Best bars: Hamiltons and Churchills (really far apart).

 

Just came back from SD, so I can give my input as an outsider. I was there for 4 days but didn't do all day beer drinking.

I hit up Alpine because I love their beers, picked up a mixed case of Duet/Pure Hoppiness, usually, you can get 2 of the big three. As the poster above said, brew pub is small, cozy, something lacking.

Definitely hit up Stone. We went to the Liberty Station one since it was closer. It was nice, good food, family enjoyed it.

I went to the Ballast Point in Little Italy, not worth it. Overpriced and small pours. Grapefruit scuplin was $7 for a 8oz pour, not even a pint.

In regards to bars, I hit up Toronado, Tiger Tiger and Bottle Craft. Toronado had a solid tap list- Grapefruit Sculpin, Pliny and an amazing bottle list- all the RR, Almanac sours. They just had a Societe tap takeover when I was there so I got to try all the Societe beers without having to make the drive up to Societe.

Tiger Tiger was eh, I would pass next time.

Bottle craft is a cool spot to grab a few brews while your bottle shopping. They had Nelson on tap, which I missed at Alpine.

 

I live here. If your going for a lot of breweries in a day do the Brew Bus tour.

Or, go to 30th and El Cajon Blvd and just walk 30th. Belching Beaver, Modern Times, Tiger Tiger, Poor House, Fall, Blind Lady, Hamilton's, and many others are a quick walk or cab ride.

 

Stone is always a favorite of mine whenever I make the drive to San Diego. The Liberty Station location is much closer to downtown than their main one in Escondido so it's a short trip depending on where you are staying.

 

Stone, Modern Times, Ballast Point, Societe, Council, Alpine, Saint Archer, Toronado, Hamilton's, Tiger Tiger, Blind Lady, Polite Provisions

 

Gotta love duplicate posts.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/visiting-san-diego-fall-2014.216013/

 

I'm assuming he started this version of the thread in the Beer Talk forum and a mod moved it into the Pacific forum.

 

I live in SD and I think you have to go to Alpine, especially if they have Nelson and Duet bottles.

Check here before you go: http://brewerycam1.alpinebrewing.com/view/viewer_index.shtml?id=13205

Your FL buddies will be happy when you return with Alpine bottles.

 

Silly mods, must throw rocks at them.

Also mentioned in your other thread, yes to Modern Times and Societe as well.

 

Use search instead of posting topics that are discussed every other day.

 

I was there in May, visited several, and particularly liked Mission and The Lost Abbey.

 

Were you in Council today?

 

I was. Showed up there at like 5 or so and stayed for a few tasters

 

I should have said hello. I was at the right end of the bar (near the restroom); headed out around 5:15.

 

Not the first time I've heard that Alpine is some sort of long, painful drive. It was a 30 minute drive for me from Hotel Circle when I stayed there in late July/early August. I mean, to some, is it really that painful to drive 30-45 minutes anywhere? I drove 2 hours to get to Russian River today...and then had to wait 1.5 hours to get a table and I still had fun.

 

It's hardly a secret where Alpine posts what they had in bottles and in growlers, and figuring out their typical schedule for releasing bottles of a particular type is easier than using the Beer Advocate search function to find "San Diego visit". There is no reason to be surprised about something being out.

 

That live webcam....so tough to read the giant red letters that say "OUT".

 

Not true. There website sucks for up to date information on that. If they posted that they were out of Duet/Nelson people wouldn't make the trip in the first place meaning less people would go "Aww Crap well at least I'll down a couple in the brew pub."

 

Umm, do you ever look at their webcam? It is on like a 2-5min delay and the board shows what bottles are in/out along with price, if growlers are available, and growler prices.

I would say it is about as up to date as you can get.