I was wrong. Living
in the Northwest and thinking that without a doubt the best craft beer in the
United States is either (a) in Seattle or (b) in Portland might have just constituted
jumping to an erroneous conclusion. As provincial
as I am about our beer scene it became apparent to me shortly after arriving in
San Diego that there’s a new participant on the block.
There are 29 microbreweries within the city limits of San
Diego. According to my sources, Seattle
has 21. Of course I’m not counting the
many breweries in surrounding towns in both cases. With limited time, we barely scratched the
surface of beer in San Diego but here are a few highlights:
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| The Taps in the Stone Brewing Tasting Room |
Stone Brewing. This
large and quite well known microbrewery is actually in Escondido, around 30
miles north of the city. They have a
nice, newer facility with a great restaurant and tasting room. There’s also a great outdoor garden to stroll
around with lots of outdoor seating. We
also took the free tour after our lunch and ale sampling session. Great tour, costs a few bucks, but you get
repaid in the form of more sampling in the tasting room afterward. They have a lot of different things on
tap including some aged ales, but many are familiar with their flagship IPA and
their Arrogant Bastard Ale. They also
had a smoked porter on draft that was tasty and unique. Stone is well worth the short drive and a
visit.
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| BowlingJoe Can't Decide Where to Begin |
Pizza Port Brewing Company. Yeah, I
know it doesn’t sound like a brewery but don’t let first impressions deceive
you. This place makes a ton of different
and interesting types of potent potables.
My favorite of theirs, being a hophead, is their Jetty IPA. It has a nose and follow-on burst of hoppy goodness
on the tongue that rivals anything we concoct around here. Pizza Port also has many guest taps
available, too. BowlingWidow ordered and
enjoyed a West Coast IPA brewed by Greenflash Brewing. I followed up the Jetty with a stronger
double IPA brewed by Societe Brewing called Pupil IPA which turned out to be a
fine sipping ale.
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| The Tanks at Pizza Port Brewing |
Ballast Point Brewing.
We showed up at this smaller north San Diego brewery’s tasting room at
around 4:00pm on a Friday afternoon. And
we were not alone. I think that most of crowd in the surrounding neighborhoods decided to get an
early start on the weekend with growlers in hand. And most of them hung around for a pint. After all, one has to do something while that
jug is being filled. We waited in line
for our pints and it was well worth it.
If you ever find Sculpin IPA from Ballast Point in bottles or on draft,
get some. It may be light bodied, but it's a big beer. You won’t be disappointed.
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| Ballast Point Brewing on a Friday Afternoon |
The San Diego trip was a success and I really only have one
wish: we could uproot San Diego and put
it in between Seattle and Portland (maybe where Chehalis is now….nobody goes
there anyway). Wouldn’t that just set up
a nice three-day weekend?
