Road Trip

Ales for ALS has been chugging along with special beers across the U.S. and now a RV will ply the highways and byways to spread the word even further and visit participating breweries along the way.  

You can read more HERE.

Another Capistrano Christmas – Beer

Last year, my wife and I spent Christmas at the wonderful Inn at the Mission in San Juan Capistrano. This year, I went back for a beer and cocktail trip just before the big holiday with my beer buddy Richard to see a different side and visit new places.

Starting in Oceanside where within a ten minute drive you can find SouthO, Heritage, and two or three others that I didn’t note but my stop was Bagby Beer Co. which was great on two counts.

First, the beer list is long and super diverse and as would be expected from multiple medal wins, supremely solid across the board. (plus they had a cool list of holiday cocktails and slushies). I had Apres Surf, a super low ABV coastal ale that had fragrant pear notes, Brugges Cruise an OK wintry Belgian Strong, Worker Bee a reliable honey ale and my winner, WEYEsbeer a hefe collaboration with Bierstadt Lagerhaus.

The second count is that there is only an alleyway separating you from the Oceanside Bottlecraft location with cans and bottles to go and an impressive beer list. If there was a hotel next door, it would be a trifecta.

Despite a pair of false starts due to out of date, straight up false hours of operation info, we also hit up Delahunt Brewing in Dana Point and another D brewery, Docent Brewing in south San Juan Capistrano.

I am partial to the latter because of their grilled cheese and tomato soup combo and excellent barrel-aged beers but the two half pours of IPAs that I got at Delahunt were quite good.

Praise the traffic gods who cleared the path and thanks to Pizza Port – San Clemente for being an excellent Plan B of pizza goodness.

Schwarz-mas

I have to hand it to Arts District Brewing for having the temerity to hold beer competitions for styles that just are not on tap at most breweries.  And they are back at it again with the 2023 Schwarz-mas.

On December 10th they will put on their annual Dark Lager celebration.

Here is the info: “We’ve gathered a ton of our favorite breweries and each will submit a craft Schwarzbier. We have an amazing panel of judges come through and we crown the best one. The best part is, YOU can come and try them all and vote for your favorite. Schwarzbier tends to be malty with chocolate and coffee notes, it averages around 5% ABV —so you can try a few! We’re so excited for all the amazing breweries joining us, and more to be announced soon. May the Schwarziest win!”