Any good brewpubs in San Diego? I'm heading out there next week and was wondering if anyone has any recommendations.
San Diego brewpubs?
- Thread starter mobly99
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There was a lot of good suggestions very recently in this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/good-beer-san-diego-216215/
In general: Stone's Beer Garden (in Escondido, just north of SD), Hamilton's Tavern, Blind Lady Ale House, O'Brien's are some of the not to be missed pubs.
In general: Stone's Beer Garden (in Escondido, just north of SD), Hamilton's Tavern, Blind Lady Ale House, O'Brien's are some of the not to be missed pubs.
Blender
Well-Known Member
San Diego is great. There are several threads on the forum about places in the area.
Here are a couple: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/good-beer-san-diego-216215/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/san-diego-breweries-193756/
Here are a couple: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/good-beer-san-diego-216215/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/san-diego-breweries-193756/
JSomps6
Well-Known Member
I went to Stone - it was cool to see. I also brought back a suitcase full of beer to Michigan. Ziplocks and paper towel are your friends when packing beer in a suitcase. Not a single broken bottle!
Make sure you go to:
Stone, at least for the building/tour. Beautiful.
If you have a car, goto Alpine Brewing Company to their pub! It is far, about 45min each way, but totally worth it!!!!! AWESOME beer. My favorites here. IPA Duet is amazing. Bad boy, Pure Hoppiness, jesus, my IPA mecca. If you are an IPA guy, go HERE. Food is also great.
La Jolla Brewing Company. They have a new brewer, who brewed with Vinnie Cilurzo. Fantastic WC IPA, and a great DIPA to boot. Food is fantastic here also.
Alesmith. You can't come to this town and not stop by Alesmith for a tasting. It isn't a brew pub, but some of the best beers around.
Ballast Point. I live less than 2 miles from here, and there is always something new on tap. Won best small micro-brew and IPA at World Beer Cup 2010. Home of the India Pale Lager (no longer on tap), and an amazing Session IPA that was 3.5%. Also not on tap. Just recently had a Chiptole Choco Porter (I didn't like it, but others love it! Then again it was 11am in the morning and I was hungover and buying brewing supplies. It is also a home brew store) Goto the home on Linda Vista Rd. Stupid not to come to this city and go here. Also not a brew pub.
San Diego Brewing Company has decent microbrews, but have a great selection of other local microbrews and microbrews US wide. GREAT food BTW.
As for beerpubs, there are some great ones, I love Small Bar and Hamiltons. Hamiltons has a hop sausauge, but I think it sucks. Not enough hop flavor. I had a Pliny the Elder with it expecting a double slam, but all I got was the Pliny. The grilled cheese sandwiches here are the best in the city though
O'Brains is also awesome. I live/work/band practice right by this place. I am here all the time and it is dog friendly. The owner is good friends with the owner of Alpine, so they always have Alpine on tap if you can't make it out to the mecca. FOOD IS AWESOME. They sometimes have an O'Brians IPA which is brewed by Alpine and also fantastic.
Hope this helps. Cheers
Stone, at least for the building/tour. Beautiful.
If you have a car, goto Alpine Brewing Company to their pub! It is far, about 45min each way, but totally worth it!!!!! AWESOME beer. My favorites here. IPA Duet is amazing. Bad boy, Pure Hoppiness, jesus, my IPA mecca. If you are an IPA guy, go HERE. Food is also great.
La Jolla Brewing Company. They have a new brewer, who brewed with Vinnie Cilurzo. Fantastic WC IPA, and a great DIPA to boot. Food is fantastic here also.
Alesmith. You can't come to this town and not stop by Alesmith for a tasting. It isn't a brew pub, but some of the best beers around.
Ballast Point. I live less than 2 miles from here, and there is always something new on tap. Won best small micro-brew and IPA at World Beer Cup 2010. Home of the India Pale Lager (no longer on tap), and an amazing Session IPA that was 3.5%. Also not on tap. Just recently had a Chiptole Choco Porter (I didn't like it, but others love it! Then again it was 11am in the morning and I was hungover and buying brewing supplies. It is also a home brew store) Goto the home on Linda Vista Rd. Stupid not to come to this city and go here. Also not a brew pub.
San Diego Brewing Company has decent microbrews, but have a great selection of other local microbrews and microbrews US wide. GREAT food BTW.
As for beerpubs, there are some great ones, I love Small Bar and Hamiltons. Hamiltons has a hop sausauge, but I think it sucks. Not enough hop flavor. I had a Pliny the Elder with it expecting a double slam, but all I got was the Pliny. The grilled cheese sandwiches here are the best in the city though
O'Brains is also awesome. I live/work/band practice right by this place. I am here all the time and it is dog friendly. The owner is good friends with the owner of Alpine, so they always have Alpine on tap if you can't make it out to the mecca. FOOD IS AWESOME. They sometimes have an O'Brians IPA which is brewed by Alpine and also fantastic.
Hope this helps. Cheers
arturo7
Well-Known Member
No one mentions Pizza Port? They took what, 9 medals at GABF?
I-Hop
Well-Known Member
If you're looking for brewpubs, you've hit the jackpot with San Diego! I've been there twice and loved it! Check out http://sandiegobrewersguild.org/brewery.php for a listing of all the local breweries out there.
Have fun.
Have fun.
Fuzzywumpers
Well-Known Member
Pizza Port
Coronado Brewing Company
Karl Strauss
Oggi's
The Main Tap- a bar in El Cajon that carries all of these brewery's beers and more.
Coronado Brewing Company
Karl Strauss
Oggi's
The Main Tap- a bar in El Cajon that carries all of these brewery's beers and more.
OP
OP
Looks like Oggi's is very close to where I am staying, so will definitely check it out. Not sure yet how much time I will have to go exploring as it is a working trip. Hopefully I can run down a Plinny the Elder while I am there too.
Coronado is *awesome* (it helped that it was walking distance from where I stayed when I visited, but even if I had to drive there I would still highly recommend!), and have to add a +1 to Pizza Port...I only visited the one in Solana Beach (very drivable from San Diego if you have a car)...a bit crowded (but this only speaks to the huge popularity of the place) and a hair on the dive side (but I like it that way). Great pizza, and great beer (both their own and others...ie, they had Pliney the Elder on tap when I was there...you can't go wrong with a place that has Pliney on tap, for Pete's sake!)
Stone is also worth the drive...when my wife and I went their facility was a little hard to find (I kind of blamed my outdated GPS), but it is a beautiful compound. The food was very, very good, and of course, the beer is Stone...I'd recommend going early so you can hopefully get in on a tour as well (they cap the tour, and it tends to fill up...we missed out on a spot by a few minutes, but the food and ambiance of the place is actually enough.)
Stone is also worth the drive...when my wife and I went their facility was a little hard to find (I kind of blamed my outdated GPS), but it is a beautiful compound. The food was very, very good, and of course, the beer is Stone...I'd recommend going early so you can hopefully get in on a tour as well (they cap the tour, and it tends to fill up...we missed out on a spot by a few minutes, but the food and ambiance of the place is actually enough.)
arturo7
Well-Known Member
Oggi's = waste of time
ddc
Member
All great suggestions. I'm sure this is on the other threads, but worth mentioning is NeighborhoodSD. Their servers are mostly all certified cicerones which is nice.
http://www.neighborhoodsd.com/
http://www.neighborhoodsd.com/
OP
OP
Well, didn't have much time to explore on my own, was with my coworkers the whole time. I did manage to talk them out of going to Gaslamp district last night and going instead to Stone up in Escondido.
What can I say but, wow. What a beautiful facility.
Had a Cask Stone IPA with Centenial (my favorite), a Stone Ruination IPA, Stone OAKED Arrogant Bastard Ale and a Stone Cali-Belgique IPA. Picked up a cool shirt and a Ruination tap handle at the store (which TSA was sure was a bomb and required a extra 5 minutes of backpack checking)
Also had several Stone Pale Ales on draft at my hotel bar - how awesome is that.
What can I say but, wow. What a beautiful facility.
Had a Cask Stone IPA with Centenial (my favorite), a Stone Ruination IPA, Stone OAKED Arrogant Bastard Ale and a Stone Cali-Belgique IPA. Picked up a cool shirt and a Ruination tap handle at the store (which TSA was sure was a bomb and required a extra 5 minutes of backpack checking)
Also had several Stone Pale Ales on draft at my hotel bar - how awesome is that.
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