Visiting San Diego - Winter 2016

Bolt Brewery?

 

IMO, skippable.

 

2nd this

 

yes, skip that ish.

but dude, who is your profile pic? I always think its kiefer sutherland (RIP 24)

 

Lol....The one and only...Edgar Froese...R.I.P. Founder of Tangerine Dream.

 

... yea, I got nothin

 

You'd have to understand the late 60's and into the 70's to understand the music of T Dream. It's way out there. Kinda imagine Pink Floyd on steroids with hash thrown in there. YouTube TD in the 70's- Rubycon, Ricochet, Phaedra, and Zeit (69). The 80's was a turning point for them. Downhill.
But thanks to all for the recommendation on Mexican Fiesta. It was spot on. And we were tripping out on the fly by's at Bottlecraft. Like being at work. But enjoying some great beers.

 

about 630PM (scheduled) daily, the 747 from London comes in (started a couple months ago) and it sounds like the world is about to end.

 

I work at LAX and live in HB (overhead is planes landing at Long Beach). Doesn't even phase me. When 911 happened it was like the world ended. No sound overhead for 3 days. Very emotional 3 days of silence. I love the sound of planes. Freedom!

 

For the past few days my wife and I have been brewery hopping San Diego as we do with most cities we visit, and man you guys do it right. First thanks to Xul for creating this thread. It was a huge help in my planning. Second, the people at these breweries couldn't be nicer or have offered us better service. Truly class acts everywhere we went. Plus every brewery has a self service water station. My local breweries act like it's such a hassle to get you a water. Here's where we visited with my very quick thoughts on each.

Pizza Port Carlesbad - Enjoyed all brews we tried. Had a great DIPA on called Double-up. Liked our slice of pizza so much that we went back to the OB location the next day for a full pie. My bartender looked like Jessica Alba.

Port/Lost Abbey - Current taplist just didn't agree with us and we struggled to find brews that stood out to us. Favorite was Older Viscocity 2015.

Toolbox - My wife and I both enjoyed the sours here immensely. Tried everything on the board.

Stone - Hands down most beautiful brewery/gardens ever. Delicious food. Admittedly drank more guest taps here than Stone brews due to us having excellent Stone distro in FL and Stone having good guest taps. Neat store. Wife bought a shirt. Masters of marketing here.

Alesmith - Was top of my list to visit, but sadly the current taplist failed to connect with us here. Lots of construction noise. I hear this place is supposed to get really cool about the time we leave to fly home.

Ballast Point - Stopped in honestly just to have Sculpin and VaS from the source. Tried a couple one-offs, but wasn't impressed by them. Beautiful place though.

Saint Archer - Was not on my list to visit, but had time to drop in and was pleasantly surprised. Tried 3 T&G barrel aged beers that ranged from solid to excellent. They weren't quite what I get out of my local Cycle & CCB BA stuff, but damn close.

Societe - Solid IPAs. Enjoyed The Pupil most. Wife didn't like anything here. Bartender liked to tell me what order to drink my beers in, when to cleanse my palate, and what styles to order together. Take this how you will.

Modern Times - Was high on my list to visit. Everything I had was solid to great. Their brews really connected with the wife more than me surprisingly. I love the style, packaging, and mood of this place and its people, but somehow the current tap list just didn't grab me in the way I thought it would. I think this was more a case of me managing my expectations.

Belching Beaver - Don't get me wrong, it's neat what they do here with the fun flavor stuff. Kinda reminds me of Funky Buddha. But I don't see myself drinking these beers often if I lived here.

Rip Current - Wow! Not only the IPAs, but also a couple BA brews they had on were stellar. Ended up sampling almost the entire board. Definitely a standout taplist at the time of our visit.

Alpine - Probably the most disappointing brewery of my visit. Was high on the priority list, but I felt like Fall and Rip Current are currently killing them in the IPA style that Alpine is known for. Not worth the drive for me. Bad Boy was good.

Council - 6 Beatitudes on tap were great! Other styles, not so much.

Fall - A beautiful mix of punk rock and beer for me. Solid IPA styles across the board. Berliner was just ok. Had an imperial coffee vanilla stout I enjoyed.

I know a lot of people might disagree with my opinions here, and that's fine. We have different palates and breweries have stronger tap lists at times and weaker tap lists at others. In general, San Diego is hand down the best town for breweries that I have ever experienced in terms of quality brews and quality people. I had a great time here and at the end of the day, that's all I was looking for.

 

You would be correct in what you heard. Tuesdays are always some randall. Wednesdays are special grumbler fill. The tap list tends to be their normal lineup right before a bottle release party/weekend then it goes nutso that weekend and stuff stays on throughout the following week and then goes back to normal with various random things popping on every so often.

The construction noise has limited my time spent there as well to mostly in the evenings. I feel bad for those working there because while I can get up and leave they still gotta do their shift and deal with it. However that stuff should be almost done and over with come allstar weekend.

 

Sounds like you had a good time, nice review and thoughts. I too am not much impressed w/ Alpine's beer.. but.. ehh, to each thier own. Did Ya try Fall's Spirit of '77 IPA ?

 

North Park Beer Co just opened - I'm sure it will join this list shortly.

 

I did! I enjoyed that, interpretive dance squad, and nervous breakdown as far as their IPAs. I also enjoyed Apocalypse Pony and tonight got 2am Bike ride at Coin-Op.

 

BTW the food here.....holy cow. Meatballs at Soda & Swine, flaming Cheetos burrito @ Colimas, fish tacos @ Pacific Beach fish shop, surf & turf burrito @ Lucha Libre, pancake flight @ Snooze, pizza @ Pizza Port.....god we ate just as well as we drank! You lucky San Diegoans!

 

Yeah, it's the reason I've put on like 15 lbs since moving here.

 

My wife and I admittedly did not spend nearly as much time at breweries as you guys (1 night in North Park vs. several days) on our trip to SD this week, but I could not agree with you more on these two points. I too was really amped to visit Modern Times, but Rip Current was far and away my favorite. Between the varied taplist, the people and the space, I loved everything about Rip Current. Took home a bottle of BA Rescue Buoy that I'm excited to crack open. The guys at Belching Beaver were great, even sneaking us an extra sample after last call, but all in all the beer was meh.

I'm also impressed you made it through the board at Rip Current. Between dinner at Waypoint Public, Modern Times, Rip Current, Belching Beaver and a nightcap at Toronado i was huuuuurting the next day.

A few other highlights from our trip:

Bottlecraft Little Italy -- What an awesome place. Tried some IPAs/APAs from Societe, Noble and El Segundo and imp/BA stouts from Pizza Port, Modern Times and Beachwood. Almost didn't make it to dinner thanks to the latter 3.

Oscar's Mexican Seafood -- I'll be dreaming about these tacos for months to come. I'd give the nod to the spicy grilled shrimp. Bummed I didn't try the ceviche but I was too busy stuffing my face with the tacos

Coronado -- Had a really nice, relaxing day on the beach, in town and feeling fancy at the Del. Ferry across the bay and Coronado's free summer shuttle helped too.

Pacific Beach/Mission Beach -- Much prefer the former to the latter. They're both touristy, but Pacific Beach felt much more "local" touristy to me whereas Mission seemed like a mini amusement park for out of staters.

All in all had a great week in your city -- wish we could've stayed longer but we'll be back for sure!

 

Yeah, Rip Current doesn't seem to get nearly as much love as some of the other breweries, but I generally love their beers, the workers and space are cool, and they always have new and interesting stuff. Doesn't hurt that it's within walking distance from my house.

Oscar's Mexican Seafood is amazing. Try their tortas next time if you get a chance.

Also, if you end up in North Park again, I highly, highly recommend Grand Ole BBQ y Asado right around the corner from Thorn St Brewery. They are BYOB and the bbq is the best I've had outside of Texas, so you can't go wrong.

 

I don't see Monkey Paw mentioned much here. It's been a while since my last MP IPA. But I thought it was pretty good......at the time. Maybe because more newer/better IPA's are out there?