I just finished up doing my taxes (ouch), I’m really not in the mood to hear about MORE of my money being wasted on other people’s stupidity.
From: NBCSanDiego.com
Beall: Alcohol Industry Should ‘Pay Fair Share’
It was only five years ago that we all came together in San Diego for the first time to discuss our successes, struggles, and opportunities as small wholesalers specializing in craft and specialty import beers. Well, those five years have flown by and we are back in San Diego this coming April 16th & 17th at the Town and Country Hotel. Complete Details
I recently had the opportunity to travel to Europe with a large group (the most cost effective way to take big trips). After spending 5 days with crappy Bulgarian beer, we were off to Vienna Austria. Vienna was 4 days of the metric system, a weak dollar, smoking indoors, street performers, museums, public transportation and most important, bier. RateBeer has put together a solid list of beer bars in Vienna, this was a life saver for us! Without it we would have never hit all the establishments we did.
Vienna’s large network of buses, street cars and subway trains make the entire city easily accessible. I paid €18.50 for a Vienna Card that allows unlimited access to the entire system for 72 hours. As an added bonus, the Vienna Card also gives a discount at most major attractions. I must have saved at least €10 by just presenting the card at various locations, well worth the investment.
While I was buying beers for the Pale Ale Challenge, I came across the Sea Monster Stout from Ballast Point. I’ve had this beer several times at O’Brien’s and Home Brew Mart, but never seen it bottled. I had to give this bomber a spin.
From the deep dark depths of our Brewmaster’s imagination comes this rich and monstrous oatmeal stout. Our Sea Monster embodies all that the true dark beer aficionado will appreciate: roasted coffee notes, with hints of bittersweet chocolate and currant flavors all brought together by a perfect hop balance.
Don’t fear the Monster!
Our Robust Series gives all beer lovers an opportunity to try our most rare beers, previously available only on draft at select tap houses. Enjoy!
The first in a series of posts dedicated to comparing San Diego beers within a specific style. Pale Ale being one of the most popular styles, it was an obvious choice for the first challenge. I wanted to keep things simple, so I drove down to BevMo and grabbed five different beers. These five were all easily accessible at the time, we’ll run the Pale Ale tastings again with some of the breweries that I’ve left out at a later date.
Here’s the basic idea of how we’re going to run the single blind (the drinkers don’t know what they’re rating) tastings. Each beer will be assigned a number, we’ll pull numbers at random to select the order of the tastings. From there, each participant will be given ~4 ounces to review. Their thoughts and rankings on each beer will be reported below. Like I said earlier, simple. 
If you can judge a book by it’s cover, then you can also judge a brewpub by it’s website.
San Diego Brewing Company’s website (www.sandiegobrewing.com) is the epitome of small brewery websites. It’s beautiful, feature rich, full of quality content, updated frequently, and extremely informative. Hats off to the team that put it together. The site set our expectations for an inaugural visit to their establishment.
We were, unfortunately, over sold.
There’s no better way to celebrate a special occasion than visiting local breweries with a couple of close friends. A problem arises when you have to find someone to drive though. We solved our dilemma by hiring Brewery Tours of San Diego to shuttle us around the greater San Diego area this weekend.
Brewery Tours took their time in explaining all of our options and assisted in selecting an agenda that matched our group’s specific needs. Their staff is very informative and knowledgeable about San Diego’s beer community.
Is there anywhere better to live than San Diego? Our weather is perfect. We have miles of beautiful beaches. Low crime rate. Fantastic restaurants. And several world class breweries, bars and brewpubs.
As it has been for the last 7 years, RateBeer Best was again the largest beer competition in the world — over 1.4 million reviews of 76,000 beers from over 8000 brewers worldwide were tallied. A particular emphasis was placed on tastings from the last year’s performance. Additionally, brewpubs, bottle shops, restaurants and bars around the world were awarded prizes. Cheers to all the winners and to everyone who keeps the magical world of craft beer growing!
RateBeer.com
Here are the San Diego specific results for this year’s competition.
After a heated soccer match there’s nothing I like more than opening up a quality ale and drinking it while cooling down. Today was a double header, picking up a couple of beers was a requirement. I wanted something a little different, I took my time and reviewed the stock at the liquor store. Lots of Belgium beers I’ve never had, a couple interesting looking East Coast labels, but nothing really caught my eye. Left Coast IPA? Hmmmmmmmmmm.
This IPA represents the West Coast with high honors and continues to build its presence throughout Southern California… Intensely bold hop flavors define this American-style India Pale Ale. Five different types of hops and imported English malts are used to maximize flavor and create fresh hop flavor and aroma. It is double dry-hopped in both the fermenter and serving tank to please any hop-head. Hop Drinkers, get ready, get set, go!
We have a winner! I grab a couple of bottles and head out.
Alesmith X Extra Pale Ale is an outstanding example of a pale ale brewed here in San Diego by the masters at Alesmith. This hazy golden beer is 5.5% alcohol, hopped perfectly and absolutely delicious. I consume this brew on a regular basis.
American Pale Ale (APA) is a style of American beer based at least originally on beers of the British pale ale tradition. They are pale to amber in color and generally their flavor and aroma is centered around the citrusy and pine character of American hops with caramel-like malt flavors and fruity esters from the ale yeast playing a supporting role. The style evolved in tandem with a renewed interest in ales and the insurgence of microbreweries in the United States which brought about a new focus on American hops.
- Wikipedia American Pale Ale