San Diego Brewed: Iron Fist Velvet Glove

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Velvet Glove

San Diego Brewed is sponsored by Bottlecraft.

Bottlecraft is a retail shop and tasting room in Little Italy showcasing local, domestic and international craft beers. They offer hundreds of beers for your enjoyment in their onsite tasting room or to-go, as well as daily beer flights, events, glassware, merchandise, and gifts. Open Noon-10pm seven days a week. 2161 India Street, San Diego, CA 92101.

Velvet Glove is probably my favorite beer in Iron Fist’s small but growing lineup. It’s a 9% Imperial Stout that differentiates itself fairly well from the competition.

It smells just like you’d expect: roasty, reminiscent of dark chocolate, vanilla with a bit of strong booziness in there as well. But it’s the taste that sets it apart. I’m a big fan of Imperial Stouts, and I often pick up on the roasted flavors, which typically reminds me of coffee. But Velvet Glove doesn’t have that so much.

There’s a bit of roast in there, but it reminds me much more of good dark chocolate, maybe with just a bit of creamy espresso. It’s a touch on the sweet side, which also helps cause me to associate it with chocolate. There was a bit of fruitiness here, think dark pitted fruits, like a date.

The carbonation was spot on but the mouthfeel felt a little weak. It was thin, not really watery, but not what I expected from a beer with velvet in the name. Not a huge complaint, but I’d prefer a bit more body there.

Overall a nice beer. It’s certainly not the best Imperial Stout being made in San Diego, but it holds it’s own pretty well.

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Get Your Homebrew Ready: Competitions and Homebrew Share

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san diego homebrew, san diego homebrew competition

Homebrewers: get your best beers ready, a few local beer businesses are hosting homebrew competitions and beer and recipe swaps in the coming weeks.

First up is Escondido’s Holiday Wine Cellar’s 3rd Annual Homebrew Competition. You might remember last year’s winner, Indra Kunindra Curry Export Stout, which was brewed by Ballast Point and led to homebrewer Alex Tweet landing a job at the brewery. For this year’s winner will be brewedin collaboration with Iron Fist Brewing Company. There’s no entry fee, homebrewers are limited to three entries each and entries must be in by January 30th. So if you’ve got something good ready to go, read all the details here.

Next up is Bottlecraft’s homebrew share and recipe swap. This one isn’t a formal competition, just a friendly bottle share and recipe swap. There’s no charge, just bring some homebrew and recipes to share. It’s happening Wednesday February 15th at 7pm. Check Bottlecraft’s Facebook page for more info as the date nears.

Last but not least, Monkey Paw is hosting their first ever homebrew competition in February. Monkey Paw’s head brewer Derek Freese got his start as a homebrewer (in fact Monkey Paw is his first pro brewing gig). Entries are free and each brewer can enter two different beers. Beers must be delivered to Monkey Paw by February 24th. The winning entry will be brewed at Monkey Paw, check here for all the details.

Sublime Ale House Opens in San Marcos

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north county beer bars, sublime ale house san marcos

Even though there are a ton of great breweries and a handful of great bars and restaurants up there,  I don’t make it up to North County to drink much. It’s so easy for me to have a beer within a short distance of my house at Toronado, Blind Lady, Hamilton’s or any number of other beer places that driving up to North County to drink beer just doesn’t make sense.

That said I do find myself drinking up north every once in a while, and last night I got to check out one of the newer beer-centric restaurants, Sublime Ale House during a media preview night.

Located in San Marcos’s Restaurant Row, Sublime Ale House isn’t far from Churchill’s Pub & Grille and while it’s certainly an oversimplification on one level Sublime Ale House felt like Blind Lady to Churchill’s Toronado. There is no judgement in that statement at all, I love both BLAH and Toronado quite a bit and my more limited experiences at Churchill’s and now Sublime have been great as well. But they do have a different feel from one another.

Sublime Ale House is bright without being too bright and feels like it has plenty of space. There’s a bar in the middle of the restaurant, with different types of tables spread throughout, some long picnic style tables and other smaller more intimate.

I’m told they have 56 taps (I didn’t count) and the draft list was good, a lot of local stuff, plenty of craft beer from the rest of the country, a handful of Belgian’s and a few other beers from Europe and Canada. Not a macro beer in sight on the draft list. They also have bottled beer but I didn’t look to closely at the list. I had beers from Pizza Port Carlsbad, Coronado Brewing and Iron Fist.

The food is upscale pub grub (Gastropub?), with salads, pizza, macaroni and cheese, burgers, sandwiches and more. The salad and pizza I tried were both good. You can see the full menu here.

With San Diego Beer Week events already showing up on their website Sublime Ale House is a great addition to ever growing craft beer scene in North County. There might not be enough to draw folks from central San Diego up just for food and beer, but if you find yourself up there, or better yet if you live nearby, check it out.

Fiery Mac & Cheese

Mac & Cheese photo by Kinsee Morlan

San Diego Beer Events July 7th – July 13th

If you know of anything that isn’t on the events calendar, please email events@sandiegobeerblog.com to get it added.  Not all of the beer events happening in a given week make it on the list below, I pick one or two per day to avoid information overload. Make sure to check out the Events page or the calendar below this post for all the week’s events. As always, events are subject to change, check with the venue putting on the event before hand for more details.

Friday is the beginning of the grand opening weekend at Local Habit, a new farm to table restaurant Hillcrest. They have a heavy emphasis on craft beer and will be doing beer stuff  all weekend. To kick things off they’ll be pouring  Grazias Vienna Cream Ale on cask starting at noon, which is the first ever cask beer from Hess Brewing Company. Saturday will see Stone Brewing Co. employees on hand at noon to tap a cask of Double Dry Hopped Stone Levitation Ale and Sunday they’ll be finishing off the weekend by highlighting beers from Iron Fist Brewing Co.

There’s a whole lot going on Saturday, but two standout events are Second Saturday at Hamilton’s Tavern with Green Flash Brewing Co. and Best Damn Beer Shop’s 2 Year Anniversary tasting at The Tipsy Crow. Click on the entries on the calendar below for more details on each event.

It’s not often that one gets to dine on the roof of Pizza Port Ocean Beach, but this Sunday they’re giving people the chance with a six course rooftop beer and champagne brunch. Check out more details on Facebook.

Farmhouse Friday: Iron Fist Brewing Co. Hired Hand

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hired hand, hired hand saison, iron fist hired hand, iron fist saison, san diego saison

I first had Iron Fist Brewing Co.’s beers during their opening weekend last October. I sampled all five beers in their initial lineup on draft and took home a bottle of what was my favorite, their Saison called Hired Hand. When I opened the bottle a few days later at home to say there were problems with it would be an understatement. I emailed the brewery and they were very nice about it, acknowledging there may have been a problem with their capper (it’s understandable, they had only been open for three days at that point) and offering to exchange it. I never got around to taking them up on that offer and continued to enjoy their beers on draft, but hadn’t had Hired Hand since they first opened. Seven months later I decided to give a fresh bottle of Hired Hand another chance. I picked it up at Bottlecraft in Little Italy $9.

Thankfully it appears as if their early bottling problems have been fixed as the beer in this bottle tasted just as great as when I had it on draft.

Hired Hand is a bit darker than many other Saisons with a slight reddish hue but it’s not necessarily out of the ordinary looking. The smell is more floral than I expected, but that isn’t a bad thing. There isn’t much floralness to the taste, it’s earthy, just a little sweet and reminiscent of spices that I can’t identify (but not peppery). As with most Saison’s the finish is dry. It does feel a little slick and oily in your mouth, but not so much so to distract from the beer.

I can see myself drinking quite a bit of Hired Hand as the weather warms up this summer, but thankfully it’s a year round beer, available fresh for those warm winter days we get here in San Diego as well.

Update: This price of Hired Hand at Bottlecraft has been updated, I originally incorrectly listed the price as around $10.99 when in fact it is $9 a bottle.

San Diego Beer Events April 7th – April 13th

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2008 Stone Imperial Russian Stout, beer u: stouts, big sky brewing, citybeat festival of beers, hamilton's second saturday, progressive cask, rustic saison, sam adams perfect pint glass, samuel adams perfect pint, second saturday, sierra nevada second saturday, sierra nevada stout, sierra nevada torpedo ipa, silva stout, stone sunday funday, trumer pils, union jack ipa

If you know of anything that isn’t on the events calendar, please email events@sandiegobeerblog.com to get it added.

Thursday April 7th:

Pizza Port Ocean Beach will have some beers from Samuel Adams on tap, including Rustic Saison (which I haven’t tried yet, but hope it will be the subject of a Farmhouse Friday post in the near future). In addition to the beers from Sam Adams they’ll also have some Sam Adams Perfect Pint glasses available for purchase. There’s plenty of notes on what this glass does to accentuate the beer over on Sam Adams website. And they’re also pretty cool looking.

Friday April 8th:

Last week Blind Lady Ale House started opening up for lunch on Friday’s. And with their extended Friday hours came a “progressive cask” in which from the time they open at 11:30am until 2pm pints are only $2. Each hour after 2pm the price goes up a buck. So $2 until 2pm, $3 until 3pm, $4 until 4pm… you get the point. This week they’ll have a cask of Firestone Walker’s Union Jack IPA. They don’t expect it to last long, last week’s was gone before 2pm.

Saturday April 9th:

The CityBeat Festival of Beers is officially sold out, so if you don’t have a ticket already you’re not getting in. Lucky for you it just so happens to be Second Saturday at Hamilton’s Tavern. This month they’re hosting Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. They’ll have Sierra Nevada Stout and Torpedo IPA on cask as well as thirty other Sierra Nevada beers on draft. As always there will be complimentary food as well.

If you are headed to the CityBeat Festival of Beers (or just in the area) and want to drink beer before or after (or if the crowds become too much and you need to escape and grab a full pint of beer) Live Wire has you covered. Trumer Pils is hosting the after party, it might not be the beer geekiest of beers, but after four hours of unlimited beer drinking it might be just what you need to round out the evening. But if that’s just not your thing they’ll have happy hour pricing all day on all of their other taps.

Sunday April 10th:

Sunday’s tend to be one of the slower days for special craft beer events, luckily Stone Brewing Co. has been pulling out some great beers lately for their Sunday Funday growler fills. This week it’s 2008 Stone Imperial Russian Stout. Stone IRS is one of my favorite beers, especially aged a couple years.

Monday April 11th:

In addition to pint night at both Toronado and Eleven with $3 drafts in which Eleven offers all of their on-tap beers for $3 from open to close while Toronado offers locals for $3 from 6pm to close, Stone is also hosting the latest installment in their Beer U series. This month it’s Beer U: Stouts. $25 gets you a lesson in all things stout as well as tasters of eight different stouts, including the aforementioned 2008 Stone Imperial Russian Stout as well as one of my favorite beers to be released last year, Green Flash’s Silva Stout

Tuesday April 12th:

If you know of anything that isn’t on the events calendar, please email events@sandiegobeerblog.com to get it added.

Wednesday April 13th:

Small Bar will have a handful or beers from Montana’s Big Sky Brewing on tap. $5 gets you a glass to take home with your first beer in it, with subsequent refills only $3.50.

If you’re out in east county, El Cajon’s Main Tap Tavern will have Iron Fist’s Velvet Glove on cask with some glasses to take home. I’ve had Velvet Fist on draft and it’s delicious, I imagine it will be equally as good if not better on cask.

San Diego Beer Events, January 27th- February 2nd

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22nd Anniversary Vanilla Imperial Stout, automatic coffee imperial brown ale, Belgica Belgian Ale, Bloody Larry, Chipotle-Cocoa Nib version of Black Marlin, Claymore Scotch Ale, Compunction, Consecration, Damnation, Dried Guajillo Calico, Espresso Yeti Imperial Stout, firkin friday, Fresh Hop Pale Ale, Habanero Sculpin, Hades Belgian Pale Ale, Hercules IIPA, Hibernation Old Ale, jolly pumpkin, jolly pumpkin flights, karl strauss 22nd anniversary vanilla imperial stout, karl strauss changing of the barrels, miho gastrotruck, Mortification, o'brien's russian river consumpTION, Oaked Yeti Imperial Stout, Old Ruffian Barleywine, Perdition, redemption, Rejection, Roasted Pasilla Yellowtail, salvation, samuel smith brewery, Sanctification, smoked baltic porter, Supplication, Temptation, titan ipa, toronado pint night, toronado san diego pint night, yeti imperial stout

If you know of anything that isn’t on our events calendar, please email events@sandiegobeerblog.com to get it added.

Thursday, Jan 27:

Homebrew Mart (Ballast Point’s Linda Vista operation) is teaming up with MIHO Gastrotruck for a casual beer pairing dinner with a focus on chili beers. Ballast Point has infused five of their beers with chili peppers: Chipotle-Cocoa Nib version of Black Marlin, Roasted Pasilla Yellowtail, Dried Guajillo Calico, Habanero Sculpin and Bloody Larry (BP Bloody Mary Mix and Abandon Ship Smoked Lager) and they’ll make recommendations for food to pair with it. Fiji Yogurt next door will have a Mango Lime Thai Chili yogurt with Ballast Point beer. Tasters will be $1 and food prices will vary.

Friday, Jan 28:

Iron Fist Brewing Company (I’m not sure, do they still hold the distinction of being San Diego County’s  newest brewery?) has come a long way in a few short months. They’ll be at Hamilton’s Tavern for Firkin Friday with a special cask of an IPA/Belgian-style brew aged in white wine barrels with Brett. They’ll also have plenty of their other beers on draft.

Saturday, Jan 29:

It’s Russian River ConsumpTION weekend at O’Brien’s. They’ll have 17 Russian River beers on tap including 11 Belgian-style “TION” beers. They’ll have: Damnation, Salvation, Supplication, Temptation, Consecration, Perdition, Sanctification, Mortification, Compunction, Redemption and Rejection along with all the hoppy beers Russian River is also known for. They have full kegs of all the beers so they expect them to last throughout the weekend.

KNB Wine Cellars is featuring Great Divide Brewing Co. Saturday night. They’ll have Yeti Imperial Stout, Oaked Yeti Imperial Stout, Espresso Yeti Imperial Stout, Old Ruffian Barleywine, Hades Belgian Pale Ale, Hibernation Old Ale, Smoked Baltic Porter, Titan IPA, Hercules IIPA, Fresh Hop Pale Ale, Claymore Scotch Ale and Belgica Belgian Ale all on tap.

Sunday, Jan 30:

Automatic Brewing Co. (the brewery housed at Blind Lady Ale House) will be unveiling their latest beer Sunday morning for BLAH’s 2nd Anniversary. This Coffee Imperial Brown Ale comes in around 8.3% and is damn good (I got a sneak peak last weekend). For the first time they will be offering a limited amount of growlers, which are being pre-sold through Brown Paper Tickets. They’ll also be doing Jolly Pumpkin tasting flights that afternoon. (BLAH is having special events throughout the weekend, click here for more info on the rest of the events).

Monday, Jan 31:

Monday again which means local pint night at Toronado. $3 pours on all local beers.

Tuesday, Feb 1:

Throughout the month of February Eleven, Hamilton’s Tavern and Small Bar will be showcasing the beers of Samuel Smith Brewery. And they’re kicking things off with some glass giveaways to the first 25 people to buy a bottle. They’ll have different bottles at each of the bars throughout the month for $5 for 18oz.

Wednesday, Feb 2:

Karl Strauss is celebrating their 22nd Anniversary with a party to show off their 22nd Anniversary Vanilla Imperial Stout in it’s full barrel-aged form. Tickets are $50 which gets you tasters of 100% barrel aged 22nd Anniversary (the regular release will be blended with fresh beer) as well as a taste of the 23rd Anniversary beer before it goes into barrels. They’ll have food, live music and send you home with a bottle of the 22nd Anniversary Vanilla Imperial Stout and a commemorative snifter. Buy tickets in advance at the Karl Strauss website. They’re only selling sixty so this will probably sell out.

San Diego Beer Events 10/14-10/20

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21st amendment brewing co., back in black ipa, ballast point brewing co. 14th anniversary, beer for boobs, black ipa festival, black ipa san diego, cascadian dark ale, cascadian dark ale san diego, grand teton brewing co., hamilton's tavern 4th anniversary, iron fist brewing co. grand opening, iron fist brewing company, jon maier, keep-a-breast benefit, ritual oktoberfest, rouge brewing co., san diego beer, san diego beer events, thank you mamm belgian white, trout hop ipa, weihenstephan

Since most beer events happen on the weekends, we thought we would post weekly beer event roundups on Thursdays. But we’re not just focusing on the weekends, listings will highlight beer events throughout the week. Make sure to see the full calendar below or click over to our Events page to see more beer events.

Got an event coming up you would like to see listed? Email us at events@sandiegobeerblog.com

Thursday, Oct 14:

Ritual Tavern Oktoberfest with Weihenstephan – Ritual Tavern is celebrating Oktoberfest with Weihenstephan. They’ll have keep the glass specials and plenty of German beer and food.

Friday, Oct 15:

Iron Fist Brewing Company Grand Opening – San Diego Counties newest brewery celebrates their grand opening in Vista. They’ll be serving Golden Age – Belgian Style Golden Strong Ale 9% ABV, Spice of Life – Belgian Style Spiced Ale 6.5% ABV, Renegade Blonde – Klosch Style Ale 5 % ABV, Dubbel Fisted – Belgian Style Dubbel (with a CA Twist) 8% ABV and Hired Hand – Belgian Style Saison 6.5% ABV

KNB Wine Cellars Black IPA Fest – Black IPAs seem to be all the rage these days. KNB will have at least 12 on tap. We’re looking forward to trying 21st Amendment Brewing Co.’s Back in Black and Grand Teton Brewing Co’s Trout Hop among others.

Saturday, Oct 16:

Ballast Point 14th Anniversary Festival – 45 Ballast Point beers on tap. 18 guest breweries and only $20 for 10 tasters. From 1-5pm at Liberty Station.

Hamilton’s Tavern 4th Anniversary Festival – It’s hard to believe Hamilton’s Tavern is only 4 years old but it’s true. They’re doing a second saturday like celebration with Rogue Brewing Co. Brewmaster Jon Maier will be on hand with plenty of great Rogue beers and some excellent sounding food.

Sunday, Oct 17:

Blind Lady Ale House Keep-a-Breast Benefit – The first of two breast cancer benefits. Blind Lady will have Automatic Brewing Co.’s latest beer, Thank You Mamm Belgian White (which is actually pink in color) on tap. Artist Pamela Jaeger will be painting a breast cast during the event.

Monday, Oct 18:

Toronado Local Pint Night – Every Monday night is local night at Toronado. All San Diego County beers are just $3.

Tuesday, Oct 19:

Beer for Boobs Fundraiser at Pizza Port Ocean Beach, Solana Beach and Carlsbad – Buy a Beer for Boobs pint glass for $10 and get two house beers.

Wednesday, Oct 20:

SD DrinkAbout – Get on the bus! A free shuttle runs between Hamilton’s, Station, Sea Rocket, Ritual Tavern, Blind Lady Ale House, Small Bar, Livewire and Toronado from 7-11pm.