Tag: San Diego

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Ignited Brewery # 2 – Rouleur Brewing


Our second ignited stop is in Carlsbad for the European cycling themed Rouleur Brewing. Here are the San Diego beers with a Belgian twist that I would check out….

The Domestique Blonde Ale – “This beer is designed to be approachable yet memorable with a soft malt backbone and delicate Noble hop bitterness, keeping it from being too heavy or sweet. The aroma is slightly grainy, yet not astringent, and the forward palate is reminiscent of malted milkshake, grain and honey. The finish is dry and crisp with just the slightest hop bitterness. Well rounded, smooth and reliable.”

The Sprinteur Red Ale – “displays a rich and brilliant ruby red hue. The flavor and mouthfeel offer a chewy malt complexity reminiscent of dark caramel and dark fruits. The body forward beer is balanced with a dose of fresh fruity-citrusy hops. Visually pleasing, full-bodied and inspirational.”

The Puncheur Pale Ale – “This is the go-to beer of the pack, offering something for everyone. This beer has a brilliant gold color with warm hints of red in its hue. The malt and hop bills, as well as yeast character, lend it an overall fruity character. This beer is a perfect balance of malt and hops in both aroma and flavor. Resilient, fruity, and reliable.”

The Clydesdale India Pale Ale – “Rouleur takes the “Italian cooking” approach to IPAs: Few ingredients that are of high-quality yet not necessarily uncommon; balanced perfectly with a twist. ROULEUR’s India Pale Ale is “hoppy” in flavor and aroma, but not bracingly bitter, sessionable-ish in terms of alcohol content, and different enough to be memorable and go the full distance. Clean, purposeful and without pretense.”

The Grimpeur Dark Ale – “is very dark…nearly black. This beer is malt heavy yet balanced with a chocolatey and dark-caramelly flavor and aroma with a very faint roast character. With just enough hop character for balance, this is an all dark-malt-forward beer with a Belgian finish. Thick, creamy and focused on reaching the top.”

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Be Logical


If I had been given the following True/False question, I would have gotten it wrong.

Have AleSmith and Pizza Port collaborated on a beer?

Now they have, which means that trick questions are now more logical. And of course it is hoppy, we aren’t living in a bizarro world.

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Ignited Brewery # 1 – Pariah Brewing


Our first “Ignited” stop is at Pariah Brewing. Helmed by Brian Mitchell who most recently was at Stone in their R&D section.

Mitchell, another home brewer gone pro, has six core beers for Pariah….
Off White Wit – a Belgian wheat inspired by boba tea. Brewed with honey, green tea, lemongrass, orange slices, and ginger
Uni Stout – a milk stout featuring sea urchin and fresh sea urchin gonads.
Dorcha – a stout brewed with molasses, cacao nibs and a proprietary blend of coffee from local Bird Rock Coffee Roasters
Dank Drank IPA – a West Coast IPA fortified with Amarillo and Mosaic hops
Drupe – a fruit IPA interpretation, made with hemp oil, peach, and mango
Erotic City – a beer brewed with Muscat grapes, honey and grains of paradise.

Now that I have your interest heightened, you can read more about the H.G. Fenton brewery igniter where Pariah has started brewing, right HERE.

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…and a Bottle of Rum


I recently selected a Rum accented barleywine for a “hypothetical” taster tray from Le Castor and now, one a little closer to home is on the horizon from AleSmith. I love seeing anything barrel-aged that isn’t whiskey or bourbon. + love the pun name.

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Bill is Wild

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A second large departure from Stone Brewing will leave an ambassador sized hole as “Dr.” Bill Sysak has left to prepare a new brewery in San Marcos, California.

2017 will see the debut of the Wild Barrel Brewing Company The 15 barrel brewhouse “will be known for its “San Diego Weisse” sours implementing a variety of fruit additions, along with a constantly rotating selection of San Diego style IPA’s to satisfy the most extreme lupo-maniacs. Rounding out the core lineup is an American stout with coffee additions changing seasonally from local roasters, and a “crushable” Belgian Wit.”

A couple of points ring weird to me from that paragraph. One would think with the years at Stone that more marketing panache would have gone into the name and logo. Wild Barrel is a rather pedestrian name in my book. And the certainty in which they declare that they “will be known for” their San Diego Weisse and that their Wit will be “crushable” is a little cart ahead of the horse. Flagships aren’t declared. The people buying will make it so.

Time will tell how Wild Barrel fares in a tough San Diego market.

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Lagunitas Day – Cross Country Buying Spree

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It must be a helluva big plate that Lagunitas has because they have added a lot to it recently. Lagunitas – Azusa is in progress with a 2017 spring target and now they have 5! more projects of varying scope across the country and up and down the West Coast. Or as the press release names them, “intense local alliances with very special local brewers whose work we admire and are proud to partner with.”

For us in Southern California, the big news is that Brian Hunt’s much lauded Moonlight Brewing Company will become part of Lagunitas while still retaining their brand and beers. This is huge because this is one of those small, passion businesses that may have been lost when the visionary behind it decided to call it a retirement. Now, Death & Taxes and other beers from the Moonlight stable will continue on and maybe in greater numbers.

Independence Brewing Company of Austin, Texas will also retain their name and brewing team but will have the resources of Lagunitas to work with. In Charleston, Southend Brewery & Smokehouse will be re-branded as the East Coast Lagunitas Taproom and Beer Sanctuary. This will give a small 10-barrel system to Lagunitas to create special beers just for South Carolinians.

And that is still not all! Two brand new “Community Rooms” will be opened up in Portland and San Diego. Not taprooms and not for the general public but instead these spaces are strictly for Non-Profit fundraising efforts. Expanded from what is already done in Petaluma and Chicago into stand-alone outposts. A Lagunitas team will be there to help with the event and the live music. This is the most exciting news to me because it shows that charity and smart promotion can easily co-exist. Lagunitas could have opened satellite taprooms and crowds would gather but instead they are becoming part of the community from a different angle.

Another nugget from founder Tony Magee’s statement, “ I believe that we will find more partners in other parts of the country that we can also share with and cultivate regional relationships through. If we can get this first step right then it is just the beginning for all of us.” So if things are humming along in 2017, expect more breweries to join up.

You can read more coverage on this news HERE and HERE.

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Man(zanita) Down – Toolbox Heading North

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Good News and Bad News for San Diego. (I mean other than the 10 Barrel expansion into town.)

Bad – Manzanita or Twisted Manzanita has fallen and will be no more. I had a couple of their beers and was impressed enough by them but the crowded market had me tasting other breweries from the area and that must have happened on a larger scale and they were squeezed out. They had gone through multiple names and contract brewed but anytime that a head brewer leaves and isn’t replaced, is not a good sign.

Good – But, Toolbox Brewing seems to be moving forward and expanding into Los Angeles where they will be distributed now so we can get Bog Sauce and Purple Drink.

What do these two pieces of news mean? To San Diego it will have one set of ramifications but to those of us in L.A. it means that more beer is headed our way and that we need to be incrementally more judgemental. Not in a “you’re not fit for our town way” but more discerning. Taste the beers and find out which ones make the beers that you like. Maybe SD Brewery # 1 makes sours that you like and # 2 makes Session beers that you prefer. Find the strengths and notice the weaknesses.

L.A. beer needs to improve not just for the sake of improvement and not just in the beer quality sense. Our beer will need to stand up in San Francisco and San Diego and any other San ____ around. But business sense needs to improve too. That means money and distribution and marketing need to be managed.

As time passes the lessons from both of these San Diego breweries will need to be first bullet-pointed and then learned. We don’t hear too much news of closings but we should listen to that news along with the good of expanded distribution.

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Featured Review – Mango Beatitude from Council Brewing

I have only vaguely heard about Council Brewing but the yellow of the label and the promise of mango lured me to try Beatitude Tart Saison.
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Tart this one is. My first beer from Council pours a very light yellow saison looks more like a fruit soda than a beer. That sour nose is strong on this one. You can almost smell the acid on this one. There is a wheat taste underneath the tart that adds a dimension to a beer that could become one note because the mango, though present, doesn’t wrest control of the beer from the tart. At the back end the beer ends with a watery note plus a nutmeg/cinnamon hit that is there and gone very quickly.

Here is the brewery description, “Beatitude is the French word for bliss which is what we float away on whenever we enjoy this specially brewed beer. Although this Tart Saison is brewed in the historical Wallonian tradition of other low gravity, tart farmhouse ales, the magic happens when our house blend of Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus and Saison yeast throw an out-of-this-world party in our fermenters. Aged  on various fruits and bottled with precision and care – this yields a beer with a lacto forward nose, an intensely tart fruit flavor, a doughy complexity from our no-boil process, and takes the word “refreshing” to a whole new level.”

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Off to Idaho?

If someone told me that a California brewery was building a second out-of-state brewery, I would say, “Where in North Carolina?”

But the state in question is Idaho and it is San Diego based Mother Earth Brew Co. that is planning a brewery and tasting room in Nampa, ID, outside of Boise, for later in 2016.

The new brewery will allow Mother Earth to drastically increase the amount of barrels produced per year plus it will give them closer access to both the Pacific NW and the Midwest.
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Featured Review – Willow Wolves from Acoustic Ales

First off, the label & bottle cap for Willow Wolves from Acoustic Ales beer is super cool and must have cost a pretty penny to not only create but to get onto the bottle in the correct way.
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I wish the beer had been as good. WW pours a muddy orange brown with no head. It just did not look appealing in the glass at all. It was redeemed, somewhat by the aroma which is very earthy.

The beer has a dank flavor without balance with a very lingering bitterness that just sorts of sits there without popping. It is a very one note beer which is odd because I had tasted the blonde ale and found it to be very well done and complex.