San Diego trip, any do not miss beer bars or breweries to visit?

Hey everyone,

Headed to San Diego in the fall for one week. I plan to hit as many awesome restaurants I've seen on TV while I am there, and also wanted to put together a list of all the cool beer bars to visit, and possibly bottle shops to hit up, and any brewery tours to plan.

Thanks!

So far I'm planning to visit the following restaurants, hodad's, el Indio, possibly blue water seafood marina, craze burger, pizzeria Bruno Napoletano.

TD

I've lived in San Diego all my life. I agree on Hodad's and el indio. The other ones, I've never been to and have to desire to visit. There not places the locals go to, so I'm sure they are good, just not great.

I'm sure you know the normal brewery list. Alpine, Societe, Hess, Alesmith, Ballast Point, Stone (check Liberty Station) Mission, Green Flash, Rip Current, Pizza Port (3 Locations in SD)

As for other bars, Hamiltons and Obriens are great places.

lewybrewing said:

I've lived in San Diego all my life. I agree on Hodad's and el indio. The other ones, I've never been to and have to desire to visit. There not places the locals go to, so I'm sure they are good, just not great.

I'm sure you know the normal brewery list. Alpine, Societe, Hess, Alesmith, Ballast Point, Stone (check Liberty Station) Mission, Green Flash, Rip Current, Pizza Port (3 Locations in SD)

As for other bars, Hamiltons and Obriens are great places.

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Thanks!

The restaurants were featured on diners drive ins and dives TV show. The pizza place I know they make very good traditional Neapolitan style pizzas in a wood fired brick oven and are reputed to have a good beer selection. I am currently trying to learn to bake this type of pizza in my own wood fired brick oven, so that is more of a must see place for me.

I really had not heard much about the San Diego breweries, except for Stone. I thought green flash was further north, but have had their beer out here in FL. The others I only hear about, but have never tasted. So let me pose this question: if you could only visit two brew pubs or bars, which two?

Also, which beers are the breweries you mentioned best known for? I'm a fan of stone, so I'd like to try to arrange a tour, and am already familiar with their beer. I doubt ill get time to do more than one tour while I'm there. I'd at least like to try the brews that each brewery is best known for though.
I've seen pizza port entered contests and wins some awards for its beers, so I'm excited to try some of their brews. Green flash I can get in FL. The others are not available locally.
Do they all operate brew pubs or tasting rooms? With only 7 days, I may not be able to hit all these spots!

Thanks!

TD

A lot of questions. For a tour of Stone you need to go to the Escondido location. It is 45 mins north of SD downtown. Beautiful place. Pizza Port and Alpine have some of the best beers in San Diego hands down. Most people here arent big fans of Ballast Point or Green Flash but they are close to each other. They are also next to White Labs, which has a whole tasting room that that brew beers for to compare yeast strains. It is awesome BTW. Then down the road from that is Alesmith and Hess. So you could do a whole loop in one swing.

Alpine is far...but has mindblowing beer. About 40 mins from Downtown.

If you need to get to one or 2 bars, I would still look at Hamiltons or Obriens. They have great beer selections. Obriens almost always has Pliny, Alpine or Societe on draft. Toronado is really good also.

If the family is around, take them to Coronado Brewing on the island. They have the pub in the middle and a very nice restaurant down the street from the Hotel Del. You can take a boat from downtown or use the bridge.

Where are you staying?

As a homebrewer, the two places you absolutely want to go to are:

1. White Labs (Check out one of the coolest taprooms in the country)
2. Societe Brewing (Not well known but making awesome beer)

Brewbien said:

As a homebrewer, the two places you absolutely want to go to are:

1. White Labs (Check out one of the coolest taprooms in the country)
2. Societe Brewing (Not well known but making awesome beer)

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Firmly agree.

Glad I posted!

I am not going until End of October.

Looking forward to it..

Its for a conference, the primary reason for my trip. For ongoing education for my occupation (OK its a CME conference already!)

I'm staying at the conference center in Coronado at the coronado hotel place. Be nice if I could have my wife join me, but she probably won't be able to join on account of our two kids in school.
I've been looking at the schedule, and there are definitely some topics that are going to be useless for me. It seems the 31st is the best time to skip the afternoon session. That would be when I would plan to tour Stone.

Also the evening of my arrival the 27th, I'd have time to catch some other places. White labs sounds like a really cool place to visit. What is the other place mentioned, societe brewing? a microbrewery I assume.

the coronado brewing sounds like it'll be a definite destination due to the location to the conference. We get about 60-90 minutes for lunch most days. I plan to hit some famous diners drive ins and dives while I am there too! Plus a pizza joint I mentioned is a can't miss. Pizza port is on the list.

The big 40 minutes out of town excursions are going to have to be limited due to the island locale for the conference, and cant forget the real reason I am there. however, I got to have a bit of fun too right?

Getting lots of great info here! Thanks!


TD

When you are at Stone you'll be very near the Port / Lost Abbey brewery and tap room. Port is great, Lost Abbey is one of a kind. And while you're in the neighborhood Mother Earth is worth a stop.

White Labs - a must see - us roughly in the center of cluster of tap rooms. Ballast Point & AleSmith are my two favorites is the group.

The problem you'll have is that you will be one Coronado Island. Stone etc are all north. Fortunately Coronado Brewing will be a great local.

Don't think I want to rent a car. How long do you think it takes by taxi to get from Coronado to stone?

You think that once I get out there finding cabs to take me around to various places will be difficult? I know that once you get away from the downtown areas it can take a good 20 minutes for a taxi to arrive just to pick you up. At least in some cities.

TD

My favorite in the city is Mission Brewery http://missionbrewery.com/ My other favorites are Stone and Pizza Port, but they would be very expensive cab rides from downtown.

Pappers_ said:

My favorite in the city is Mission Brewery http://missionbrewery.com/ My other favorites are Stone and Pizza Port, but they would be very expensive cab rides from downtown.

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Thanks! I'll have to do some homework before I go. I won't be able to visit them all for sure.

Main reason I'm going is for the conference. I get about 90 min lunch break most days to check out some places from diners drive ins and dives in the downtown area. Doesn't seem like I'll be able to make it to any of the breweries and back on a lunch break. I do have Saturday evening of my arrival and prior to my departure open. Plus I'm going to play "hookie" on Thursday afternoon but that's Halloween. So those three days ill have the afternoon and evening open.

Cab fare isn't going to be an issue and trip is work related so I can use expense account for the cabs.

I can probably sneak a Coronado brewery tour and tasting in on a lunch break if I wanted though.

Thanks!!

TD

Well, if money isn't an issue you are going to have a great time. Taxi would be over 100.00 each way to Stone. Coronado Brewing doesn't have tours but it is a brewpub and they brew behind the bar, so you see everything. It should be your daily lunch stop since you are in Coronado. Since you are close to downtown (across the bridge) I would also check Mission, they are on the other side of the bridge. Its a really cool place, nice and open. Once in downtown, hit up the BestDamnBeerShop, inside Krisp Market. They are a great bottle shop paired with a homebrew store. You have to ask for the Russian Rivers and the Alpines, they should have them. You will be able to fill your bag before you leave. Also Stone Liberty Station is a 5 mins cab ride to the airport, I might just go there, they do have a 10 barrel test system there. It is huge, outside games, water fountains etc.

Societe is a smaller production brewery. No bottles yet. But there beer is really good. It is in Clairmont. About a 20 min drive from downtown.

ohhh check out http://www.westcoastersd.com/ They are the local paper, they have brewery maps etc.

Thanks for the link!!

How's the weather this time of year? looks like I'm gonna miss the SD beer week....

I would also add Modern Times Beer Co. to your list. They're new as of this summer and making some great beers. Their place is in Point Loma.

So planned for this afternoon to hit up Stone in Escondido, white labs tasting room, Phil's BBQ, societe (any others near societe?) then head back to downtown and drop by buono forchette which is apparently very closeby to hamiltons tavern. Frankly many of the brewery's are too far to continue taking extended cab rides, and after these, I'll hit mission since its closeby. Visited pizza port yesterday, along with hodad's, the raglan, and the Newport pizza place (but no Pliny on tap, however I did nab a bottle of consecration!) TD

Ended up scrapping the downtown plans yesterday and stayed local

I ended up hitting societe, stone, acoustic, white labs tasting room, toronado, 57° near acoustic, and I scored a ticket to the kickoff of the guild member tasting on the pier tonight, which should be great. I hear there is a peanut butter cup stout that everyone loves, and that its one of the highlights of the year for beer events.

As far as brews, I tasted many, not counting the brews at tasting rooms visited above, including a few by modern times, lost abbey (yum yum), Russian River, ninkasi, mission, rip current, Karl Strauss, Coronado, hammersmtih(?), ale smith, and one or two others that I've forgotten.

San Diego has an incredible beer scene that I suspect is nearly unrivaled, though I've never been to Seattle or Portland. Denver and suburbs as well as Austin I think are also good beer cities. I'm told by friends that in my hometown, Grand Rapids, there is a lot of fun stuff happening as well.

Back in good old Florida, it's just nowhere close...

TD

Before any of the aforementioned were even around, there was O'Brien's brewpub. Surprised no one mentioned it.

roncruiser said:

Before any of the aforementioned were even around, there was O'Brien's brewpub. Surprised no one mentioned it.

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2nd post.