My Epic brewery/beer vacation

Went down to San Diego with a couple buddies. 2 of them are HBT members as well (chads99svt and sirk0rebreg)

Just warning that there is alot of pics in here.. roughly 90. Gonna try to break them apart by all the different breweries and bars we went to.

Trip ended up being delayed for me by about 24hrs thanks to DIA closing from the massive amounts of snow we got within a few hours



Finally got to Vegas to meet up with some friends. From there, Chads99svt and I drove out to San Diego


Got to our hotel


Room view


Drinking and eating immediately started (some dessert they gave us after lunch)


Our 300 rental




Me, drunk, and looking at the bottom side of beer Hotel hooked us up with that mini fridge for our beer

off to AleSmith

from AleSmith we hit Ballast Point









Barrel's for BP distillery

Some old coworkers/friends drove down from Orange to meet up with us at Churchills Taphouse. Awesome place. Tons of great beer







Massive bottle list


Tap list. Gets updated daily i'm assuming

Up to Oceanside for the half-ironman race before our drive to Coronado Island

Thought this guys dog was pretty cool :rockin:












SMALL brewhouse

From Coronado Brewing Co we hit up Toronado Taphouse in SD. Huge bottle and tap list again. Great selection

Finished up the night at Pizza Port. Made sure to hit up their bottle shop first though




Behind you can open up your bottle to enjoy




Old location of Port Brewing Co


Amazing pizza and great beer by the pitchers






Part of our haul from the day

Last full day we had we started off at Green Flash Brewing Co.















Hops

Then to Port Brewing / Lost Abbey. This is also Stone Brewing Co's old location.









Barrel Room - these guys love the wild yeast. "In Brettanomyces, We Trust"

Final stop of the night... Stone Brewing Co. Got to meet Greg Koch while he was driving his Prius also :rockin:











Gettin my pose on




Fvckin awesome food

Stuffed mushrooms


Deep fried potatoes


On to the tour...












The Gardens

Took a limo back to the hotel :rockin:


Drove back to Vegas the next day and got my cheapy room at the Tropicana. Great room for the price.. huge with a huge patio and a decent view.



One of the final stops of the night, Yardhouse. Went to a local bar off the strip after this. Partied way to late.. ended up having to wake up about 2 hours later to take my flight back home :biglaugh:




The End

Grabbed some shirts, lots of glasses and a few bottles. Tried to limit the amount of bottles due to the weight and having to fly home.

L-R

Lagunitas Hairy Eyeball
Avery 15th Anniv
Stone Sawyer's Triple
Lightning Black Lightning Porter
Stone/Firestone Walker/21st Amendement collabo
Ballast Point Sculpin
Reinaert Wild Ale
Russian River Temptation
AleSmith X
(not pictured) Lost Abbey Cuvee de Tomme

That is freaking awesome

Sounds like it was a Great trip

wow, I am insanely jealous, did you take out a second mortgage for this trip?

humann_brewing said:

wow, I am insanely jealous, did you take out a second mortgage for this trip?

Click to expand...

as luck would have it, we got our room at the Four Seasons for free, BUT everything else we ofcourse paid for. still costed a pretty good amount for the 3.5 days we were there, but it was beyond worth it.

Even though I most definitely appreciated all that was available, I still think I took for granted how great a beer state CA was, and especially socal, while I lived there... you have got me excited for my trip there this summer to visit beer, uh, I mean family and friends!

Congrats on an awesome experience!

cyberbackpacker said:

Even though I most definitely appreciated all that was available, I still think I took for granted how great a beer state CA was, and especially socal, while I lived there... you have got me excited for my trip there this summer to visit beer, uh, I mean family and friends!

Congrats on an awesome experience!

Click to expand...

Kinda the same with me, moving from Las Vegas out here to Colorado. Great beer scene with great scenery... just wish it had the weather and beaches of San Diego

This is the only reason I love being in San Diego, such a great beer scene. Looks like you had an awesome time.

Thoroughly jealous man. Awesome.

Which tour/brewery was your favorite? My wife and I will be going out there in a month and I'm trying to decide where to go. Probably can't all of them...

That is an awesome trip. I am planning sometime to drive from Seattle down to California on a beer pilgrimage. This definitely gave me some inspiration!

Displaced MassHole said:

This is the only reason I love being in San Diego, such a great beer scene. Looks like you had an awesome time.

Click to expand...

The ONLY reason? I can pick a few more such as, it's summer almost year round, I can scuba diving or surf before/after work and it's got a good restaurant/beer scene.

HokieBrewer said:

Which tour/brewery was your favorite? My wife and I will be going out there in a month and I'm trying to decide where to go. Probably can't all of them...

Click to expand...

I've done the Stone one twice now, and it was still probably my favorite this time around. Great food, fun/big tour and some decent samples at the end.

Second favorite was probably Port/Lost Abbey tour.

damn, that is an epic trip! stone brewery looks really cool, thanks for sharing your pics.

Man i am glad you got a chance to check out San Diego. Its awesome to see a friendship build up from the forums and even going on trips with other members. Its good to see you saved the best brewery for last.

by the way did you participate in the half iron man?

BrewBuddy said:

Man i am glad you got a chance to check out San Diego. Its awesome to see a friendship build up from the forums and even going on trips with other members. Its good to see you saved the best brewery for last.

by the way did you participate in the half iron man?

Click to expand...

yea, we definitely wanted to do stone last and make it the big finale

and no, it was chads99svt mom that competed in the half iron man.

Awesome pics! Now I want to go to San Diego & drink beer.

Great pics! Your tour is similar to the one i want to take in August, coordinating with the Stone 14th Anniversary event.

How you ever left Vegas in the first place is beyond me, hahaha
But, a great trip was ahead of you so i get it

CenCalWorthog said:

Great pics! Your tour is similar to the one i want to take in August, coordinating with the Stone 14th Anniversary event.

How you ever left Vegas in the first place is beyond me, hahaha
But, a great trip was ahead of you so i get it

Click to expand...

Lived there for about 10 years before moving up here to Colorado. Definitely was easy to leave..lol

riored4v said:

Lived there for about 10 years before moving up here to Colorado. Definitely was easy to leave..lol

Click to expand...

ah, i see... makes sense

You could do a pretty sweet tour in Colorado also. More $$ for beer and less for hotels.
Start in Fort Collins at Odell and work south! I was just at Mountain Sun and their FYIPA was excellent!

I cant wait to move back to San Diego!!! Hopefully next summer!!!

Wow great thread. Im very jealous. I'm a big fan of Stone so I hope to make a trip out there and take in the brew scene.

Awesome

Looks like you had a great time. All the pictures were taken in my back yard pretty much.

merry freaking christmas.

Heading to Diego in two weeks...cannot wait!

Awesome!! Coronado Island's Islander IPA was one of my favs from my SD trip two years ago.