Growler & Foam

The Chronicles of One Man's San Diego Beer Quest

[growler-and-foam]

Coronado Brewing Company (Linda Vista)

I've never been to Coronado's Coronado or IB locations. I had originally planned to use this project as an excuse to visit one of those two, and I still might, but I was on the way home from work and decided to swing by the Linda Vista CBC, which I've visited several times.

I was never super impressed by Coronado before visiting the brewery. Orange Avenue Wit is pretty tasty (my wife loves it), and their coffee stout's not bad. But, for the most part, the beers they put out in the world are nothing special. But, they've got significantly more extensive and interesting tap lists at their actual breweries/tasting rooms.

The LV location is in a nice warehouse location not too far off the 5. Easy to get to, and parking is not bad at all. I've always been able to easily park on the street, although there is lot parking available.

This location is a production facility, so most of the warehouse is devoted to the brewing floor. The brewing space looks good: well-maintained, plenty of room to expand, and a good number of barrels for their aged beers. However, the integration of the tasting room into the overall facility is pretty poorly done. The corner of the space closest to the entrance is partitioned off to be the tasting room, but there's a lot of wasted space around it, and the tasting area itself is just poorly laid out. Small number of tables, mostly bar/rail seating. Lots of empty standing room. Long and skinny dimensions. No designated service (i.e., "don't sit here") area at the bar. All of which results in a bar that gets crowded way too easily.

But, the beer is worth it.

They've got a well-designed specials board that always has a bunch of well-made and interesting beers. On this trip, I got the Cherry Saison, the Nuttin' Butta Porter, and the Jurata Baltic Porter (a collaboration with Tampa's Cigar City Brewing) aged in Port barrels.

Cherry Saison If you're scared off by the "cherry" aspect of this, don't worry. If you're intrigued by the "cherry," you'll probably be disappointed. The color is almost identical to the Silver Strand Saison, a slightly golden warm yellow. The cherry flavor is very delicate, although it comes out a bit more on the back-end. A little thin, very dry, nice and refreshing. Very drinkable; I liked it, but I was hoping for a bit more tartness and sweetness from the cherry. As is, it's enjoyable but simple.

Nuttin' Butta Porter (Nitro) If it's dark and on nitro, I'll drink it. I was not disappointed in this one. It pours a nice dark brown, with just a touch of light coming through the beer. The head was especially beautiful, thick and creamy, with a slight tan tint to it. Sometimes nitro imparts a slight sourness to the beer, but not here. As for the flavor, they did a good job. Like I said in a previous post, peanut butter beers typically fail to impress me. They're either overly sweet and artificial-tasting, or the flavor is so underwhelming that I'm left wondering why they bothered. This is no Belching Beaver, but it is a good peanut butter beer. It's definitely on the thinner end of the flavor spectrum, with a somewhat subtle peanut butter aroma and flavor, but it comes out nicely, with some good roasted notes, and never gets too sweet.

Port Barrel-Aged Jurata Baltic Porter I've had this one before, and it is delicious. They only do small pours of it, but it's no slouch in the ABV or the flavor departments, so the thought of a full pint is actually a little intimidating. Port was a great pairing for this beer. Baltic porters definitely have some dark fruit flavors lurking in there, so the barrel brought all of that roaring to the surface. The aroma is nice and tart, with a bit of that fruitiness, but once you sip it, the port flavors really dominate. Nice and dark and boozy and fruity. Not a light beer in any way. Great for a nice rainy evening.

Staff at Coronado is something of a mixed-bag. There are a couple guys on staff who are great. Helpful and knowledgeable and super-nice. Then, there are a couple guys who... aren't. When they're good, they're great. When they're bad, they're assholes. On this trip, I had one of each.

Next fall, definitely keep an eye out for Punk'in Drublic, their seasonal Imperial Pumpkin Ale. I am normally not a fan of pumpkin beers, but this one is genuinely a very good beer. It's complex and interesting, which are not normally things one would say about a pumpkin beer. They did a brandy barrel-aged bottling run, which you can still find; the aged version is good, but it really just tastes like barrel. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the pumpkin and spice flavors of the beer were really washed out after coming out of the barrel, so it lost some of its distinctiveness, despite still being a delicious beer.

I've talked to plenty of people who share my "eh" feelings about Coronado's core line-up. But, a trip to the tasting room is worth it: they're willing to take risks with their draft selections that result in interesting and delicious beer.

[growler-and-foam]

First "review": White Labs

Before the meat of this post, I want to digress for a moment first, and explain why "review" is in quotation marks. So, first first, I'll just cut to the chase and give you the capsule: White Labs doesn't make great beer, but that's okay, and they blew my mind.

So, "review." I've been wrestling with what to call these posts I'll be making. Because, they're not reviews, in the sense that we usually use the word. I'm no authority; I'm very up front about the fact that I'm a fairly recent beer enthusiast. Especially in a city like San Diego, there are all sorts of people better equipped and educated than myself to provide proper critical reviews of beer and breweries. I won't be applying any sort of numerical score, or star rating, or even a "thumbs up" to these breweries. My posts are instead simply a way of recording and sharing my experience. I'll tell you what I encountered, what I drank, and what I thought about it all. I will share my own response and experiences, and if any of that helps you decide to go try one of these places yourself, Awesome. But, I'm no critic, and these are not reviews: simply records and musings.

With that said, my first brewery of 2015 was White Labs. (Well, technically, my first brewery of 2015 was Modern Times, since I was there on January 1st, but that doesn't really count since I'm there several times a week. They'll get their own post later.) I've been wanting to check out White Labs for a long time, and given its role as yeast supplier, it seemed like an appropriate way to begin this project.

In case you're unfamiliar with White Labs Inc, they've been around since 1995, when Dr. Chris White decided to improve the way yeast was developed, packaged, sold, and used. Now (according to this random article I found online), White Labs is the premiere supplier of yeast for American craft beer.

And that's the important thing to keep in mind when visiting White Labs: they're an actual lab. They're a lab first, and a brewery second. Don't take that to mean that they don't know what they're doing, or that they don't care about beer. They definitely care about beer. That's why the company exists. But, it's really all about the yeast.

I work part-time in UTC, so I figured I'd roll over to White Labs after work on Tuesday evening. It's down at the end of the Miramar strip of breweries, right before the 15, off Kearny Villa Road. They've got a parking lot of their own, plus there's street parking. I can imagine that during the day, or at a busy time, parking might be difficult, but I had no problems at all. Signage isn't great: it's not quite a "you have to know it's there," but I imagine they get very little random walk-in business. Access to the tasting room is via the parking lot.

So, walking in, I was the only customer. Got there a little before 6:00. During my time there (1.5-2 hours), one woman came in for a growler fill and left, and one other man (clearly a regular) came in. Now personally, I hate other people, so I had no complaints about this at all. They've got a really well-designed space, though, so even at capacity, I feel it wouldn't be too terrible. There's a large bar, with a mix of stools and tall chairs. A couple wall-rails around the room for standing customers, or additional stools. Several tables, both standard and high-top. Plus a good amount of standing room. I appreciate the mixture of seating options. The space was perfectly lit—not too dim, not too bright. Nice tall ceilings. Couple of TVs. A good space.

32 taps, plus 3 casks. There were no casks on while I was there.

Now, the meat of it. What makes White Labs stand out is that they split their wort (what beer is before it becomes beer, but after it's water and a bunch of grain) into 4 different batches before adding the yeast. They then add different strains of yeast to each batch of wort, so that they wind up with 4 iterations of, say, a milk stout. The 4 are identical, except for the type of yeast used to ferment the beer. The outcome of all of this is that the ideal way of drinking at White Labs is to get a full flight of the 4 different versions and see how big a difference the yeast makes in the final beer.

This is kind of what I was getting at when I said at the beginning that it's okay that their beer isn't great. It's not supposed to be great. Remember, they're trying to sell yeast. The beer is a vehicle for the yeast strain, and anything too interesting or assertive would obscure the unique qualities of the specific yeasts at play. So, when I sat down and asked the helpful bartender (seriously, all the staff I encountered were friendly and informative and all-around great) what he recommended, he responded, slightly frustratingly, by suggesting I should get a flight of whatever I was thinking about brewing, so I could see which yeast I might want to get. Now, I understand this response. Of course I do. But, when a customer asks for a suggestion, make a suggestion. I know you might not like the same thing I like. But, tell me what you like, what you stand behind, what you feel best-represents your establishment, what other people come to you for. If your suggestion doesn't interest me, then I can always order something else.

So, over the course of my time there, I got the Milk Stout flight, the Saison flight, one taster of the East Coast IPA, and one of the Imperial Stout. When he first suggested that I just try the style of beer I like, I told the bartender that I like the darker stuff, but I was skeptical of whether they were really the best vehicle to see the yeast variation that I wanted to get out of my visit. I said that with such heavy flavors, such strong malt flavors, surely the yeast couldn't do much there, and something lighter would be a better showcase for what made the brewery unique.

Holy crap was I wrong.

He started me with the Milk Stouts, and after my first sniff and sip of each, I apologized and shut my goddamn mouth. Well, obviously, I didn't literally shut my mouth. I needed to drink the beer, after all. But I definitely shut the hell up.

Each of the four was completely different. They weren't all great, but I really didn't care. As a learning experience, it was stunning. The two brewed with #028 (Edinburgh Scottish Ale) and #500 (Trappist Monastery Ale) were delicious. Unsurprisingly, #028 resulted in a very Scotch Ale-like flavor, while #500 almost tasted like a Hefe, giving off some definite banana whiffs. That's not to say that they weren't still Milk Stouts, because they were, but each of the four set up shop at a different spot along that stout spectrum, each with their own complex set of flavors and aromas. Knowing that that difference was just down to the yeast was mind-blowing.

None of the Saisons were as outstanding as #500 Milk Stout, but they still demonstrated a similar range of flavors. I was particularly struck by the variation in clarity and color with the Saisons. They were all in the pale yellow hue, but one of them was a little more coppery, one was a bit paler, etc. More importantly, they ranged from crystal clear to cloudy and impenetrable, and all because of the yeast. Flocculation. Science. Amazing.

The East Coast IPA was with #090, the "San Diego Super Yeast." It resulted in a good example of the style to compare with our more local IPAs: milder and maltier, less bitter, but still very hop-forward. It was nice and pine-y. Not my style, but solid and enjoyable.

The "Border Psycho Imperial Stout" was also made with the Super Yeast, and it was definitely tasty. Like everything I had at White Labs, it was not super distinctive or interesting; it was a textbook Imperial Stout, without anything to set it apart from the pack. A little sweet, nice and roasty, beautifully dark. Textbook. But it was a well-done example of the style, and I enjoyed it greatly.

Other notes I took: "foamy pours" (A couple of my tasters and at least one of the other customer's were about a third head. Not a huge problem, but a little irritating.) "window into lab" (One wall has a window allowing you to look into the actual lab on the other side. Nothing too interesting going on while I was there, what with it being 6:00 on a Tuesday night, but going during business hours might be rewarding. Either way, just having the reminder that this was a functional lab was a really interesting element.) "great music" (This is important. Especially when there aren't too many customers, you've got to have good music going.) "Dig the flask lighting fixtures" (Several chandeliers made out of Erlenmeyer flasks. Pretty cool looking.) "Pressure" (At a couple points, I felt a slightly uncomfortable pressure, akin to the feeling of being an inexperienced wine drinker at a fancy wine tasting. Probably more from myself than from the staff, but it was an odd sensation. The feeling that I had to see and identify the different flavors of the yeasts. Probably in part because I was planning on writing about it here? We'll see if that continues to be a thing with future visits.) "I learned something" (Natch.)

So, all in all, a good way to start this quest of mine. None of the beers blew me away, but they were good. The yeast-tasting aspect of the experience was amazing, and did in fact blow me away. White Labs is definitely a beer nerd kind of place, so I don't know that I'll make it a regular stop in my post-work-drink rotation, but I definitely have a couple friends I'd like to go back there with. Everybody with any interest in beer should definitely go at least once and learn a bit more about what goes into what you're drinking.

[growler-and-foam]

Current Favorites

As I said below, I like the sweeter side of the spectrum. So, porters and stouts are usually what I go for. Here's some specific things I like, in no particular order, as well as my favorite places in town.

Modern Times - I backed them on Kickstarter, they're in my neighborhood, they're good people with a great space and great beer. I'm in here at least once a week. Black House is one of my favorite beers, especially on nitro.

2Kids - Despite its small size, this might be the best brewery in San Diego. Definitely top 5. They do a wide range of styles, some of which are not very common, and they do them all really well.

Anything on nitro

Anything on cask

Automatic's Darkest Thing You Have. Special Barrel Aged release on cask at Tiger! Tiger! for Beer Week 2013. It was stunning. I just sat there smelling it for a minute or two before I even took the first sip.

Black Market Brewing Company in Temecula. We have a wine membership at Danza Del Sol, so we're out in Temecula every few months to get our wine. We always stop at Black Market while we're there. Worth the drive all on its own, as far as I'm concerned. Their Hefe is the best I've ever had.

Tiger! Tiger! - Blind Lady's great too, but Tiger! Tiger! is my go-to. Their beer board is a great example of how to do it: great selection, the critical data is all clear, and short descriptive blurbs so you have something to guide you on as you make up your mind. Sunday brunch here can't be beat.

Belching Beaver's Peanut Butter Milk Stout. It really does deserve its hype. Peanut butter beers tend to be either gross and artificial-tasting, or so weakly flavored that why did they bother? (Karl Strauss's Peanut Butter Cup Porter is a perfect example of the latter. Watery Bullshit Cup, more like it! Tasty burn, Naysan.) But Belching Beaver nailed it. It's delicious.

Xocoveza. Stone's collaboration with Chris Banker and Tijuana's Cerveceria Insurgente. I'm hanging on to one last bottle of this stuff. It's so good. It's so good. Seriously, I will do hand stuff for some more of this beer.

Modern Times's Universal Friend. Saison with grape must. They've gone through several iterations of it, using different grapes, and they've all been delicious. I find it gets a little overly sweet on the backend, especially as it ages, but it is still super drinkable and super tasty. Light and fruity.

Alesmith's Speedway Stout. I hate coffee, but I love coffee beer. This is one of the best around. If you're in town for Beer Week, go to the Speedway Grand Prix. Not every variation is a winner, but I guarantee that there will be a few which will knock your socks off.

Saint Archer's White. Perfectly spiced. Just sweet enough, but really well balanced. Dangerously drinkable, especially in the summer.

[growler-and-foam]

Who the shit is this guy, anyway?

A bit of background on who I am, as a person and as a beer drinker.

My name's Naysan. I'm originally from New Orleans. I went to Minnesota for college and stayed there for a couple years, then I moved to San Diego in fall of 2008 for grad school at UCSD. I'm married, I live in Point Loma, I like comic books and beer.

However, beer is relatively a new thing for me. I didn't drink any alcohol at all until college. This was partially because I am a huge nerd, and partially a religious matter. As a result of this late blooming, peer pressure was less a factor in my alcohol choices: I drunk what tasted good, not what everyone else was drinking. So, basically, whiskey and girly drinks. (I drank a lot of Mike's in college.) I think that for a lot of people, their initial exposure to beer is a shitty keg or a case of Coors at Jimmy Flanagan's house party, that weekend his parents were in Orlando. And, yeah, the beer tastes like piss, but you don't want everybody else to think you're a pussy! I mean, Cindy Dupont is right over there! So, you chug that fizzy yellow piss and pretend you love it. And, like with anything, if you pretend long enough, eventually it becomes true.

All of which is to say, I never had that pressure to like beer. So, I didn't. I would drink it occasionally—getting a pitcher when you're out with friends is cheaper and easier, playing Beirut with shots is dangerous, etc.—but I didn't like it. I drank wine, I drank hard alcohol, I drank cocktails, I drank cider. I just didn't like beer.

Until...

My "Saul on the road to Damascus" moment came one night during Winter of 2012 at Porter's Pub on the UCSD campus. This is a pretty nice little pub in the middle of campus. Decent taps, standard bar-food, great outdoor patio area, occasional music venue. They usually have a cider or two on tap, and that's what I would get whenever I was there. So, one night, I swing by Porter's to get dinner before rehearsal. And, they are tapped out of cider.

Oh no! What am I going to drink with my chicken strip basket? This was a disaster on par with the Hindenburg. I stood there for literally 5 minutes trying to figure out what to drink instead. And that's when the scales fell from my eyes, and I realized: Life is easier when you drink beer. I don't mean that (necessarily) in an alcoholic sense, like "Life is easier to deal with when you drink." But, if you're going to drink, drinking beer is just easier. It's the default. You can get it anywhere, it's cheap, people typically have some on hand, it comes in its own individual container... People had always told me that beer was an acquired taste, but I had simply never had any reason to acquire it. Now, I realized, the time had come to do so.

I started with mild-flavored drinkable beers, mostly wheats. Then, I expanded to stouts and porters, staying on the sweeter end of the spectrum. I've now expanded to enjoy sour and funky flavors, but bitter still gives me trouble. If it's not too bitter, if it's well balanced, if there's other interesting flavors in there, I can appreciate it. But, San Diego's obsession with the IPA befuddles me. Stone & Green Flash make good beers, but so much of their lineup seems based on the idea of "hops till it hurts," making beer that is bitter for the sake of bitter. So, perhaps as part of this project, I'll be able to expand my palette a bit further in that direction. You can't live in San Diego and not like IPAs.

[growler-and-foam]

A New Year's resolution worth sticking to...

I've been to a lot of breweries since I started drinking beer. But, there's a LOT of breweries in San Diego (96, according to West Coaster, as of 12/27/14), so I've by no means been to all, or even most, of them.

I decided that it was time to do something about that in 2015. Other people vow to lose weight, or stop smoking, or stop drinking so much. I'm going to drink more in 2015.

By the end of this year, I will have gone to every single operational brewery in San Diego County. It's going to be a hard and unpleasant task, but the important things often are. I'll be using this space to keep track of the experience, discussing what I like and don't like, how my tastes change, reviewing beers and spaces.

I'm starting with a clean slate, so breweries that I love (Modern Times) will get a fresh visit and report, and places I went to a couple times and wrote off (Pacific Brewing Co) will get another chance to impress.

We'll see how it goes.