Things to do/avoid at San Diego Beer Week

sdbw.org

 

Stick to breweries if you want to do tastings, if you're at a pub, you're drinking pints.

 

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/feast/2012/oct/22/san-diego-beer-week-day-one/ i guess you can decide if this is an avoid or go to list

 

Definitely check out Beer Revolution!

 

If you want to brewpub crawl, you'll be doing Oggi's/Karl Strauss, PB Brewing and a few more suck ones, better ones being Monkey Paw or Blind Lady Alehouse.

Just enjoy the chaos.

 

Don't forget the PP though.

OP I would suggest hitting up an area and there should be some great stuff going on no matter what.

30th st: All of the great beer bars; Toronado, Blind Lady, TigerTiger, etc
OB: Pizza Port OB, Olive Tree market (doing a cheese and beer pairing with FW and Alesmith on Sunday), Newport Pizza
Brewery Lane: Along Mirmar Rd there are a bunch of breweries where you can get tasters; Alesmith, Hess, Ballast Point, White Labs
Downtown: I am sure there will be some under radar places that will have some good stuff, but the ones that stand out are: Monkey Paw, Downtown Johnny Browns, The Neighborhood, Mission Brewery
O'Brien's: Honestly, they have some of the most popular events and will have great things going on all week.

and for your browsing, here is a map of places in SD, depending on what area you are in you can look up what events each place has going on. A lot of places don't seem to list events because it cost money to list events on sdbw.org

 

That's pretty much the approach to take for SDBW...if you've seen several posts talking up an event (ie, Million Zillion Speedways), you can count on it being packed. Other events, even if they're not being talked up on the forums, you can assume they'll be packed based on the rarity of what's being poured. Whether crowds are good or bad is up to you, but if you want to avoid them, go early or late and be prepared to miss out on the most coveted beers.

Either way, there's no shortage of incredible beer being poured and with a handful of exceptions, you'll likely get more than one crack at a beer if you miss it.

 

Definitely. I absolutely hate crowds, to the extent that I pretty carefully plan brewery/pub trips around dead times, but during CBC and SDBW you just gotta roll with it and enjoy the company.

 

green flash, ballast point, Alesmith and Hess would be easy to do because they are all close by. Alpine is a ways out, but not too bad, only about 30 minutes from city center. I would recommend Pizza Port OB as it is more centrally located than the other locations.

I would suggest the following

Full Day: Lunch (big lunch, you have a lot of drinking ahead of you) at Karl Strauss in La Jolla, then hit up Brewery Lane (Mirmar Rd). Green Flash first, then Hess, Alesmith, White Labs, and lastly Ballast Point (they should have a food truck out front in the evening).

The following day do a half day. Go to Alpine for lunch, then head back to Ocean Beach and go to Pizza Port, you can chill out around OB for the rest of the afternoon, maybe check out Newport Pizza or Olive Tree Market.

 

At almost every brewery in SD, you don't even need to do flights - they usually have single taster prices posted. And although they're usually not posted, most will even do half-pours.

 

Ditch Karl Strauss, beers are only par. I'd also ditch Hess and White Labs for the same reason (unless you're a homebrewer, then hit up White Labs) and slot in Societe. Wait for Hess to open their production brewery.

 

im probably going to mainly go to things close to my house. tiger tiger has some good sounding stuff. i definitely want to hit up a few sour nights because id rather deal w chaos and have good sours then try to buy expensive ass bottles

 

Rock Bottom's beers have been getting better lately. There's one in UTC one exit south of Mira Mesa off the 805. Alternatively, you can just grab lunch anywhere and head straight to Mira Mesa for the beer. If you do want to hit a brewery, skip the one in La Jolla and head to the one in Sorrento Valley. It has Japanese gardens and is pretty close to Green Flash.

 

^— You’re talking about Karl Strauss, not Rock Bottom.

 

He seems to be talking about both Rock Bottom and Karl Strauss, which seems strange.

The last I read, Karl Strauss was planning of having a tasting room open at their main brewery in Bay Ho for Beer Week. Following the trends as usual.

 

Correct. I changed gears and spoke to the KS in Sorrento (I don't call UTC "La Jolla.") My mistake - I've only been there about 50 times.

Strange? Why is that strange? Both are breweries that also serve lunch, and are relatively close to Mira Mesa. My mistake for totally omitting the KS. Maybe it's strange that I said "the one" instead of "the Karl Strauss."