Roadtrip

This past weekend a few of us Papagonians ventured out to visit our friends at Stone Brewing to help them celebrate at their 9th anniversary party. On the way there we hit every brewery between here and San Diego. So in other words our first stop was at Alpine Brewing just outside of San Diego. Alpine Brewing is a small brewery where you can buy 4 ounce samples of their beers and buy beer to go. Alpine is my kind of brewery. By being small they can put a little more time and effort into producing some great beers. Their best selling beer is called Pure Hoppiness and it is just as its name sounds. They occasionally make a really big Double IPA called Exponential Hoppiness that I would rank up there with Papago Hopfather.

After our stop in Alpine we headed to Stone to drop off our beer for the fest and of course to hit the tasting room. While we were there Greg Koch (one of the co-founders) came out to talk with us. Since a few of the people on the trip hadn't seen the brewery I asked him if he could do a little tour for us. He agreed and started to lead us on a tour. You should have seen the look on his eyes when he turned around to see that the other 20 or so people who had been in the tasting room all tagged along with us unexpectedly. This was at the old brewery in San Marcos. Stone is building a new brewery in Escondido that they hope to be brewing in by next month. The new brewery will also have a restaurant attached so it will be something to look forward to on future visits.

After Stone we decided to pop in at Green Flash in Vista. Unfortunately by the time we arrived there Mel was turning a little green herself so we were not able to stay long but as a result of our visit you can look forward to us receiving some cask conditioned ale in the future. Green Flash also makes the Reaper beers. The latest batch of Sleighor is really good.

The final stop for most of the group was at Pizza Port in Carlsbad. I had the Dopplebock that was made by the last brewer there that was excellent. They are between brewers right now until Jeff Bagby from Left Coast (Oggis) takes over in a month or so. Jeff is an excellent brewer so I am sure the beers will continue to be really good.

The fest was on Saturday. It was probably the most organized fest I have seen so far. They did an excellent job and had plenty of volunteers to pour beer. The alcohol and beverage control people went a little overboard and put the fear of god into the volunteers and they were told to card anyone under 30, even though they were carded and wrist banded at the door. They broke it up into two sessions so the crowds were manageable and it was pretty easy to get beers with very small lines.

There was plenty of good beer at the fest besides ours (although many people commented that they thought we had the best beer there). Too many to name them all but I thought the stout from La Jolla Brewing Company, The Hop Devil from Victory in Pennsylvania, the Triple White Sage from Craftsman in Pasadena and the cask conditioned Stone 9th anniversary were all excellent. A number of people said they liked a triple IPA from Coronado Brewing but I thought it was a little bit too sweet for me. The longest lines were for Russian River, the cask conditioned Stone and for the free onion rings that a food vendor had. Californians are crazy people IMHO to stand in line for 20 minutes just to get some free rings when there was so much good beer around.

After the fest we headed to O'Brien's in San Diego for dinner. O'Brien's is one of the better beer pubs in San Diego and is owned by Tom Nickel who used to brew at Oggi's. They have 20 taps and they were well stocked with no crap on tap. I was surprised because with 20 taps they didn't have any stouts, porters, hefeweizens, or pilsners on tap. I had the Alpine Exponential that helped wash down a tasty burger and their yummy garlic fries. After O'Brien's we dropped off some of the lighter weights at the hotel and we headed back to Pizza Port in Carlsbad to party with some of the other brewery guys from Stone and Ska. This is where some major damage was done by Frank (Pizza Ports Double IPA) that caused a couple of people to request a late check out the next day.

Sunday we returned to Phoenix but not before stopping at the Pizza Port in Solana Beach for a breakfast beer. I had their Hop 15 that was a good wake up beer with lots of hops to get the taste buds woken up. This was good because our last stop was at the Liars Club in Mission Beach where we had some excellent sandwiches and beers. I had Russian Rivers Pliney the Elder and a dry hopped Stone Ruination. Just enough hops to help me sleep most of the way home.

Prost, Ron