Prepare For San Diego Beer Week

The two weekend long San Diego Beer Week starts this Friday, November 3rd, and runs until November 12th.  It is an event filled ten days so plan accordingly.  Here are four resources to help set your daily beer drinking itinerary:

The official San Diego Beer Week website's list of events.

The San Diego Brewer's Guild's website list of events.  It looks similar to the San Diego Beer Week list of events, in part because the Brew's Guild sponsors beer week.

The West Coaster's master list of events.

The West Coaster's list of highlights from Beer week.

There are so many events it's hard to know what is worthwhile and what is just a Beer Week excuse.  The spotlight events at the Bottlecraft locations look interesting, as do some of the spotlight nights at O'Briens including Melvin Brewing (11/6), Kern River (11/7) and Fieldwork Brewing (11/8), as well as events at Stone Brewing locations, Societe Brewing, and the sour and rare beer night (11/10) at Pizza Port Ocean Beach. 

Beer Bars v. Tasting Rooms - Part II

Here is a Good Beer Hunting interview with the owner of Fort Collins, Colorado's The Mayor of Old Town beer bar.  I am posting this article because it addresses the competitive relationship between beer bars and brewery taprooms, which is becoming contentious.  The Mayor of Old Town is carrying fewer local beers due to the increased number of local brewery taprooms that the bar's owner believes are hurting his business.  This is unfortunate, but not unique to Colorado.  I noted last month the complaints about this beer bar v. taproom dynamic here in San Diego.  Expect this story to grow in the future, as many breweries are seeing taprooms as an important point of distribution and profit.  The beer bars and breweries need creative thinking so they can both coexist.  Cannibalizing each other makes both weaker.

Give This Man A Raise

This Good Beer Hunting podcast is worth a listen.  The podcast is a recording of a panel discussion from London's Beavertown Brewing's recent Extravaganza beer festival.  The panel was on New England IPAs and the panelists were, in general, negative on new hazy style.  A man in the audience, only identified as Andrew from Modern Times, breaks up a pedantic discussion and gives a robust defense of hazy IPAs and adherence to consumer preference (this happens about the fourteen minute mark). Andrew also defends the shelf life of Modern Times' hazy IPAs, which he says should be good for three or four months after canning, not several weeks as stated by panelists.  I can confirm that Andrew's statement is correct as it relates to the three- to four-month life of Modern Times' New England-style IPAs.

Andrew is an employee to keep and validates Modern Times' decision to become employee-owned.  It is awesome that a guy goes to a London beer festival and not only defends a style that Modern Times crushes, but at the same time articulates Modern Times' ethos to making beers.

Aged Pumpkin Beer

I bought some of this year's Dogfish Head Punkin Ale over the weekend.  Then I found a bottle of last year's in my beer fridge and decided I had to taste them side-by-side.  I was ready to pour out the year-old Punkin Ale, but the beer was excellent.  It showed no signs of age, and had more depth and complexity than this year's version.  Its pumpkin and spice flavors were more pronounced, while remaining an easy drinking beer.  This year's Punkin Ale was lighter, but still good.  Both beers went great with barbecued sausage and spicy mustard, along with some homemade applesauce. Later, I found an even older version of Punkin Ale from at least two or three years ago.  As I have one bottle left from last year, I am planing a three-year vertical tasting (with pictures this time).  I will put the aged pumpkin beer to the test.

Beer Reads

I have had multiple beer articles open in my browser for about a week or more.  Below are quick summaries and links to the articles:

San Diego brewers had a respectable showing at the Great American Beer Festival, via the West Coaster.

Here is a wide-ranging interview with Jeff Bagby from a European website, the name of which and country of origin I can't determine.  He captures the problem with many hazy beers, "I just don’t see the long term appeal of something like that, pouring soup out of a can and drinking it – which is kind of what I equate some of these to."  Bagby reminisces about the early days in San Diego's craft beer history and has other insights on the craft beer industry.

San Diego City Beat has an article from Beth Demmon on problems facing some brewers.  In particular, the article highlights issues with the Brewery Igniter business model, which provides new breweries space but has high costs and apparent lack of flexibility.  Wiseguy Brewing was the first Igniter brewery to cease operations last month. 

Via Good Beer Hunting, Ballast Point has opened a separate brewery adjacent to its huge Miramar headquarters.  The new 60,000 square foot, creatively named Trade Street Facility, will focus on sours and barrel-aged beers.  I can hardly wait for a sour, barrel-aged Guava Sculpin IPA.

While Wiseguy Brewing closed last week, Wild Barrel Brewing is opening.  The craft beer cycle of life.  A new brewery opening in San Diego is not big news these days, but this brewery, headed by former Stone beer ambassador Bill Sysak, sounds exciting.  The West Coaster has the inside scoop on Sysak's plans.  Reading this article had me thinking of excuses to get to San Marcos.

Brandon Hernandez tackles hazy IPAs in this article for The Full Pint.  San Diego's hop heritage is on attack from the hazy IPA.  San Diego breweries are balancing the traditional, clear, bitter IPA that made San Diego famous, with demand for the murky, interloping style that is a softer and fruitier IPA.  I love tradition and no region makes better IPAs than San Diego, but I am not against a good hazy IPA either, Jeff Bagby's points notwithstanding, and he makes more points in the interview above than just the quote I pulled.  My haze experience is mainly limited to the cloudy IPAs Modern Times Beer produces, which I have found delicious, so my perception is probably skewed.

 

Jackhammer Dragon

The name Jackhammer Dragon IPA makes no sense to me, but I am sure it has some insider backstory.  While I do not get the name, I do know that this IPA from Pizza Port Ocean Beach is a good beer.  Its straw color is lighter than many IPAs, and while it poured with some opacity, it will not be confused with a New England-style IPA.  It had an initial sharp intensity that did not mellow.  I noticed a classic IPA pine flavor, but Jackhammer's bitterness overwhelmed any pine subtleties.  Maybe it's the yeast, but I detected a "Pizza Port" taste to it, which is not bad, but the beer reminded me of other Pizza Port IPAs, like Jetty or Norse Woman.  If you are tired of the haze craze, or IPAs with hops that taste more of onions or overripe melon, and want a beer that smacks you with the bitter, you need to seek out Jackhammer. 

Time To Get Angry

I missed this Brandon Hernandez article on Little Miss Brewing's Ocean Beach blindside on the West Coaster website last month, but read the full article over the weekend in the West Coaster magazine.  Little Miss Brewing was back stabbed during its application process as it built its tasting room on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach.  According to the article, during Little Miss's original thirty-day public comment period, initial public complaints related to the proposed tasting rooms were raised and then addressed by Little Miss Brewing.  Unknown to Little Miss Brewing, a second "private meeting had been held without their (Little Miss's owners) notification or knowledge in late-April - outside of the public-protest period - between ABC supervisors, representatives of the San Diego Police Department, a State Assembly member, and additional OB residents not in favor of the tasting room."  After this secret meeting the San Diego Police Department said it would not support the Little Miss Brewing tasting room and the ABC would not vote against the police.  The ABC waited months to inform Little Miss Brewing of the permit rejection.

What is the point of the ABC if the police decide what permits to issue?   The police claim an increase in alcohol related crimes in its Western Patrol Division led to its decision to reject Little Miss's application, but this Patrol Division, in addition to Ocean Beach, encompasses diverse neighborhoods including Linda Vista, Western Mission Valley, Midway District, University Heights, and the neighborhoods of Point Loma.  The area impacting Little Miss Brewing, Ocean Beach, has seen alcohol related crime drop by 40% since Culture Brewing opened the first tasting room in Ocean Beach in November 2014.  The leading alcohol-related crime in Ocean Beach is open containers on the beach, not drunks stumbling out of brewery tasting rooms.   

I want to know the other OB residents that attended the private meeting.  Were the OB residents owners of bars on Newport Avenue, and are private meetings regular procedure for beer licenses?   If the police are interested in stopping all alcohol related crimes, why not just pull all alcohol licenses, or delay the permitting process so long that businesses close.  Don't try to tell me that Ocean Beach has too many tasting rooms, let the market sort that out.  Don't submarine breweries through private meetings and backroom deals. 

It appeared to me that Little Miss had spent big money building out its tasting room, and it looked nearly ready to open when the For Lease sign went up around Labor Day.  The State or City owe Little Miss a full explanation and repayment for its costs, especially since this decision was made at least four months ago.  Little Miss should not have to pay for cowardly actions.

I said in my previous post that tasting rooms have improved Newport Avenue.  Since Culture opened in November 2014, I have never seen anyone sloppy drunk in any of the tasting rooms I have visited.  For comparison, I have been in Newport Pizza after 10:00 pm, and it routinely has some properly smashed patrons.  The scene at the western end of Newport Avenue, which no tasting rooms, only the OB Brewery, is much wilder than the eastern end of Newport Avenue where the tasting rooms are located.  There is more to this story, and something foul is behind it.   All breweries in San Diego need to view this decision as an immediate threat to their businesses.