Go To The Linkery

If you live in San Diego, go to The Linkery.  You owe it to yourself and your stomach.  I am on The Linkery's email list and last week email recipients were asked to take a survey, which I took.  The survey's tone, and follow-up conversations on The Linkery's blog, indicate that business has slowed and The Linkery's owners are exploring their options, which of course is not an encouraging euphemism. 

This blog has noted its disdain for phony gastropubs.  The Linkery is a gastropub that gets it right, maybe nearly perfect.  (Maureen Clancy wrote a weak article on gastropubs in Wednesday's San Diego Union Tribune, and unfortunately omitted a number of gastropubs, including The Linkery.)  The Linkery serves awesome food you can feel good about eating in a casual environment.   It is not an inexpensive restaurant, but you can eat sensibly for a reasonable price.  In addition to the quality food - The Linkery was a pioneer in the farm-to-table movement - the beer and wine are outstanding and well thought out.   You won't get a better meal anywhere in San Diego.  It would be a shame to see The Linkery close.

I visit The Linkery several times a year, but if I lived closer I'd be there once or twice a month.  I plan to make it a point to return soon, and to also visit its sister restaurant, El Take It Easy.   For beer drinkers The Linkery is just over two, easy-walking blocks from Toronado, so make a trip to North Park, you won't regret it.

(I wrote up my first trip to The Linkery here.  Since that first visit I figured out The Linkery's inclusive tip policy, which made my bill higher than it should have been.)

New The Bruery Releases

Where are the posts?  I have been swamped with work, blah, blah blah.  I have to play some beer drinking catching-up.  There are two Stone Vertical Epic 10.10.10s in my fridge, one I bought a week that I've unbelievably let sit, and last week I had a fantastic Port Brewing High Tide Fresh Hop IPA on which I need to post.   Then today I received an email from The Bruery announcing its newest beers.  Here are the descriptions of The Bruery's latest installment of its Twelve Days (Beers) of Christmas and its homage to Orange County:

3 French Hens
The third in our collection of Winter seasonal ales, 3 French Hens is getting ready to hit shelves in early November and we couldn’t be more excited. For those who had the opportunity to try Partridge in a Pear Tree or Two Turtle Doves you know that we don’t go light on our 12 Days Of Christmas beer series. While this year’s batch doesn’t include the toasted pecans and cocoa of last year, it’s equally complex and possibly even more delicious, if that is really possible.

A Belgian dark strong ale, 3 French Hens was partially aged in – you guessed it – French oak barrels. Chocolate and pumpernickel come through instantly as well as a fragrant spice character from our house yeast strain. While only 25% is aged in French oak, a lovely Cabernet-like character comes through as the beer warms. Perfect for a cold winter night and ideal for cellaring until 12 Drummers Drumming is released. 10% ABV

Loakal Red

Our tribute to the growing Orange County beer scene. We brewed up this oak-aged hoppy red ale that will be released only in our home, Orange County. A hoppy red ale at heart, we, like many other SoCal brewers, chose the citrus & floral notes of the Centennial hop to balance the light caramel sweetness of the malt.  But, of course, we couldn’t leave well enough alone.  So a portion of an older batch, left to mature in new American oak barrels, is blended with the fresh dry-hopped batch.  The resulting blend has notes of toffee, orange peel, crushed herbs, vanilla & freshly sawn oak, for a beer that is intricate yet unassuming.
6.9% ABV

These two beers sound really good.  I like hoppy red ales as compared to malty Irish or Scottish red ales, so Loakal Red should be a treat.  (Is it irony or subversion, random or coincidence that The Bruery's tribute to Orange County is a "red" ale, when Orange County was the cradle of the virulent anti-communist John Birch Society in the mid-twentieth century?  I'd like to think it is subversive.)

The Bruery's copy for Loakal Red is ridiculous.  This "unassuming" beer "chose the citrus & floral notes of Centennial hops" to balance the "light caramel sweetness of the malt," and a portion was aged in oak barrels and a portion was dry-hopped, resulting in a beer that tastes of "toffee, orange peel, crushed herbs & freshly sawn oak."  Freshly sawn oak?  Is "sawn" even a word, and who knows what sawn oak smells like, let alone tastes like?  There is no way this beer will be "unassuming," even if half the mumbo-jumbo above is true.  Of course, I am just poking fun at The Bruery, because most breweries are now writing similar nonsense about their beers.  The blame for over-the-top beer descriptions lays at the feet of Stone's Greg Koch who's narratives get more hyperbolic with each new Stone beer.   Here is a portion of Koch's label description for Arrogant Bastard, the label that spawned hundreds of unworthy imitators.  

The first time I read the post on Loakal Red, I pretty much stopped after reading after seeing that The Bruery is making a red ale.   That was all I needed to know.

La Jolla Brew House - Who Knew?

I read last week on a Peter Rowe blog post that former The Bruery head brewer Travis Smith is now brewing at the La Jolla Brew House.  Smith also worked at Russian River Brewing.  I have never been to La Jolla Brew House or tried any of its beers.  This will change soon.  If Smith was at all instrumental in the beers listed on Rowe's post - Russian River's, Pliny the Elder, Blind Pig, and Supplicaiton, and The Bruery's Orchard White and Saison de Lente - La Jolla Brew House is going to be a new beer geek destination.

What a Pairing

I have been, am and will remain skeptical about beer and food pairings.  With all respect to Garret Oliver, I just have not found that many food and beer combinations that make both sides of the equation better.  But last night I discovered a great food/beer pairing.  I had Mexican mole (don't know how to put an accent over the "e") along side Stone's Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale.  Mole is not rare, but not that common either.  It is a mixture of chocolate, nuts, chilies and spices cooked over hours or days.  A proper mole is complex mixture of heat, spices, nuts and sweetness.  The hoppy, dark roasted richness of Sublimely Self-Righteous was the perfect match for the mole sauce.

Stone's Vertical Epic 10.10.10

This year's Vertical Epic had completely slipped my mind until I saw this post on the Stone blog.   It is less than two weeks until the release of 10/10/10.  Here is a description:

That said, Stone 10.10.10 Vertical Epic Ale is mighty tasty right out of the gate. Fermented with the legendary Ardennes strain of Belgian yeast, 10.10.10 is a Belgian Strong Pale Ale brewed with pale malt and triticale (a cross of wheat and rye), hopped with German Perle hops, and steeped with chamomile during the whirlpool stage. In secondary fermentation, we added a juice blend of Muscat, Gewurztraminer, and Sauvignon Blanc grape varieties.  

The juice and beer blend fermented with surprising vigor to produce a dry, complex, full-bodied beer brimming with floral, fruity aromas. The beer cannot be described as “grapey” or “herbal,” as neither the juice nor the chamomile overwhelm the Belgian yeast character; in fact, identifying the ingredients would be a challenge for even the most astute nose. The constituent parts instead impart layer upon layer of nuance and flavor, with the result being a highly drinkable and royally delicious Belgian-style beer.

Sounds interesting.

Alesmith Expands Tasting Room Hours

Finally!  I have missed Alesmith's tasting room more than once with its brief opening hours.  I just received an email stating that Alesmith's tasting room will now have some decent hours.  Here is the text from the email:

We're excited to announce longer hours of operation at our retail Tasting Bar! You can now visit us for beer samples, growler fills and bottle & keg sales on Thursday from 2:00pm-6:00pm, Friday from 2:00pm-6:00pm and Saturday from 12:00pm-6:00pm.  Please call us ahead of time if you are planning on bringing a group of ten (10) or more.  

A tour of the brewery is conducted on the last Saturday of each month, starting at 12:30pm by AleSmith owner Peter Zien.  You will see and learn how AleSmith beers are brewed and have an opportunity to sample AleSmith beers at the conclusion of the approximately 1 hour tour.  Please call (858.549.9888) or email (info@alesmith.com) to find out about our tour-only specials and to reserve your spot!

The email also announced that Alesmith's fall seasonal, Evil Dead Red, will be released next Thursday, September 23rd.  I am trying to remember whether I've had this beer before (I don't think so), because I get it confused with Alesmith's other red ale special release, My Bloody Valentine.

I Fart In Your General Direction

The Lost Abbey is suing Moylan's over tap handles. Peter Rowe's blog has a picture of the similar looking handles.  The tap handles in question look like medieval weapons.  Tomme Arthur and Brendan Moylan should ditch the lawyers, don their mail, grab their respective tap handle, and have a battle to decide who gets final claim to the Celtic cross.

Or maybe Arthur and Moylan could have a couple of beers together and then taunt each other:

Russian River Consecration

I used to think that brewers aging their beer in wine barrels was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, and that the brewers were suffering from wine envy.  Of course I reached those conclusions without actually trying a wine barrel-aged beer.  I have now had several barrel-aged beers and they were good.   In the case of Russian River's Consecration, it was sublime.  It is one of the best beers I have had this year.

Consecration, which is aged in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels, is wine-like in its aroma, but it's clearly not wine, and the first taste lets you know that the brewers were not trying to make it taste like wine.  It is in its own orbit at the outer limits of the beer universe.   The beer was in a corked, 375 ml bottle.  The beer poured with small, thin white foam that quickly disappeared, leaving a clear, deep orange colored beer.  It is a remarkably smooth beer, despite its complexity and forward sour presence.  The finish is hops and alcohol, with the alcohol becoming more prominent as the beer warms, but you'd still be hard pressed to guess the beer had a 10% abv. 


Consecration is delicious.  This is a grown-up, barrel-aged sour and if you have never had a sour, you may need time to let it grow on you.  It is worth the effort.  It is now my sour benchmark, and I'll judge all subsequent sours and barrel-aged beers against it.  For what it's worth, Consecration is ranked thirty-third on BeerAdocate's Top Beers on the Plant list.

Stone Brewing Tasting Room in South Park

San Diego Beer Blog and City Beat are reporting that Stone Brewing is opening a tasting room on 30th Street in South Park.  San Diego Beer Blog reprints a Stone email announcing the new store, which is expected to open before the end of 2010.  The announcement states that growler fills will be available along with other Stone merchandise (and I hope Sawyer's Triple).  This is good news, and I hope Stone keeps growler prices similar to those at its brewery, because a half gallon growler fill is only $9, and bigger beers like Ruination are only $14.  I will try to post updates on the Stone store as I find them.

Update: San Diego Union's beer columnist Peter Rowe blogs about the Stone shop, too.

Beer Hype

I just received an email from The Bruery about its super-hyped Black Tuesday, which I post below:

The response was not unprecedented. In fact, the precedent was set last year when hundreds of our beloved fans stood anxiously around our building for hours on end, trying to get themselves a ticket into our Black Tuesday celebration. We hoped, and still believe, that online sales would be a far more convenient way for us to sell the tickets and for you to get them without having to waste an entire day in our parking lot without a promise of beer. Unfortunately, the company who runs our ecommerce server didn't seem to think the response would be so great. We did all we could and warned them numerous times in the past two weeks, even reminding them yesterday that this morning was going to be crazy, but you know how that story ends.

Clearly, things didn't end up going to plan. The server crashed before we could even update the page with the sales info due to constant refreshes in the minutes just before 9am. We're sorry. If there was something we could have done immediately to remedy this we would have, but along with the server, our internet also kicked the bucket. We couldn't even send an email to update everyone. In fact, this email isn't even being written from The Bruery offices.

On that note, here is your update.

BLACK TUESDAY TICKETS WILL BE ONSALE TOMORROW AT 9AM. We are setting up a new, dedicated server and we are told that it will work. All of the below info still remains true. If for some reason this changes, we will email you tonight or prior to 9am tomorrow.

We are extremely sorry for this hiccup in our planning and we hope it didn't ruin your mornings or your opinion of our beer.

Cheers,
The Bruery

The Bruery's website has details for those that want to buy Black Tuesday.  I will pass.  I just don't get worked up for the high alcohol imperial stouts.  That being said, I would like to try Black Tuesday at some point, I am just too lazy to jump through all the hoops that the demand for this beer requires.

My Oh Ryes

I recently had two excellent rye beers, Ladyface's Red Rye and Karl Strauss' Rye IPA.  I find rye malt approachable, imparting a sweetness that avoids the heaviness of some malts.  The Red Rye, like all good red ales, had plenty of hops, which provided an excellent complement to the malt.  The alcohol was around 7%, but you hardly tasted it. This is the third beer I have tried from Ladyface, and all have been superb.  (The picture is lame, I had the beer a third finished before I took the picture.)

Karl Strauss' Rye IPA is the best Karl Strauss beer I have ever tried, hands down.  I had it at Strauss' brewpub in La Jolla.  Strauss' website lists the beer as a tap-only June release, but it was still available in late August.  Karl Strauss should bottle this beer and make it its signature IPA and have it available year-round.  This is a hoppy ale that falls on the pine side of the IPA citrus / pine taste spectrum.  The rich, rye malt flavor balances the big hop bitterness.  The alcohol is 7.5% and is noticeable in the finish.  Rye IPA was served in a tulip glass, which was unfortunate because a pint would have been great.  

Tap Hunter

I just found the Tap Hunter beer toy.  It lists a bunch of craft beer bars and restaurants in San Diego.  Click on a particular restaurant or bar and see updated tap lists.  I am adding a permanent link to the blog.  In addition to San Diego, Tap Hunter has beer information for Vancouver, Denver / Boulder, Philadelphia, Portland and Seattle.