San Diego Area Brewery Tour # 1 – Hoponymous Brewing

Cribbing from the Winners column from the recent San Diego Beer News Awards, let’s travel to the greater San Diego area and sample some award winning beer, starting with Hoponymous Brewing.

Hoppin’ Pils NZ Pilsner – “a NZ Dry-Hopped Pilsner that leaps with lively hop character, blending New Zealand’s unique hop varieties into a crisp, refreshing pilsner with a twist of bold aromatics and a clean finish.”

Leaving Without Saying Goodbye – “an Irish Red Ale, combines a smooth, malty flavor with a hint of caramel for a quietly complex farewell.”

Gal Fawkes NZ West Coast IPA – “by the Hop Girls, is a revolutionary brew that ignites with vibrant New Zealand hops, offering a spark of tropical and citrus flavors against a backdrop of crisp, clean bitterness.”

What You Need West Coast IPA – “delivers a crisp, hop-forward journey, balancing piney bitterness with a clean, dry finish—the quintessential brew for those seeking the essence of the coast.”

San Diego Beer News Awards 2024

San Diego Beer News held their 2024 awards at Stone – Liberty Station a couple days ago with the theme of Celebrating the Next Generation.

Here are some takeaways from the event…

Burgeon, Pure Project and GOAL brewing won the most medals

I love that there are not only awards for beer but for customer service, expansion and interior

I was heartened to see that each medal was “presented by” a business which augurs well for an industry beset of late.

You can get the full recap HERE

WW

I have given shout outs to San Diego Beer News and Brandon Hernandez a few times on this blog and have used his brewery travel guides to help when visiting a beer inundated part of the country and now he has a new guide up appropriate for hop season, Walla Walla.

One of my beer bucket list items, climate change permitting, is to visit that major hop growing area during harvest, and I will book mark the Walla Walla via San Diego page for sure.

CoLab

San Diego Beer News wrote about an interesting project for Beer Paper LA about the recently opened CoLab.

Three breweries, a winery and a Baby’s Badass Burgers under on roof on the Hop Highway of Vista.

I have long advocated for something similar in L.A. Personally, Hollywood seems the right area since it is pretty devoid of breweries in comparison to downtown. I like the idea of three breweries as well with different aims. One new, one barrel aging and one a second taproom.

San Diego Beer News Awards

Time to look to the south of L.A. to see who won at the San Diego Beer News Awards last night…

Let’s do the numbers….(rather, summarize the winners)

Eppig won the most combined medals for first, second and third place finishes amongst the 26 beer style categories.

Burgeon won most votes for best brewery with regional winners including…

North – Pure Project

Central – Societe

East – Stone

South – North Park Beer

Finally, Tomme Arthur won the first ever Vanguard Brewer Award.