San Diego Brewed: Mission Brewery Dark Seas

Tags

Dark Seas, Dark Seas Imperial Stout, Mission Brewing Dark Seas

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.

Mission Brewery produces a solid line up of core beers, their Hefeweizen is quite good, and all of their other beers can hold their own fairly well in my opinion. But when a brewery only makes the same five beers us beer geeks can get a little bored. Because of that I was pretty excited when they announced Dark Seas a Russian Imperial Stout a few months back. Unfortunately after trying it I think I’ll opt for a Hefeweizen next time I’m at Mission.

Dark Seas isn’t a bad beer, it’s just not for me. And when there are so many amazing Imperial Stouts we have access to here in San Diego, why drink one you’re not blown away by? My biggest complaint about Dark Seas was the sweetness, it just didn’t feel like there was much hop bitterness to balance out the sweeter malts. Caramel, toffee and a sweet roastiness all came to mind as I drank it. There’s a long and lingering roasted, almost burnt tasting bitterness from the roasted malt that leaves a bad impression after every sip. It felt low bodied and thin, fairly lacking for what I thought would be a fairly robust drinking stout.

I will say that I typically like my Imperial Stouts with a big hop kick, so if you don’t you may want to give Dark Seas a chance. I just couldn’t get over the sweet roastiness of it.

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San Diego Brewed: Mission Hefeweizen

Tags

American Hefeweizen, craft beer hefeweizen, mission hefeweizen

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.

Mission Brewery’s Hefeweizen, one of the five year round beers, is an incredibly easy to drink, yet full flavored hefeweizen. I realize that could be ad copy from the label, I don’t intend it to be, but hear me out. Shortly after I drank this Mission Hefeweizen, I had another hefeweizen from an old German brewery, I won’t name it, but I’ll just say it’s considered one of the classics. I expected to be blown away with how much better the German classic was, but to my surprise I found it lacking, a bit boring and bland. That’s not to say the German hefeweizen, one of the pillar’s of the style for many years is a bad beer. It’s just that Mission Hefeweizen hit’s the sweet spot for this beer drinker raised on American craft beer.

Mission Hefeweizen has a sweet smell too it, reminding me of banana and bubblegum. There’s also some spice in there, but the sweetness dominates the aroma.

The taste is just the opposite, there’s a hint of banana but spices stand out more. Flavors of clove and maybe even something similar to black pepper mix well with the subtle sweetness. It’s well carbonated and has a good mouthfeel and isn’t too thin or watery.

Just to be clear the spices don’t dominate. You won’t mistake this for a Saison or a spiced beer, but they’re there.

I’m not saying it’s better than the classic German hefeweizen’s, but it might be better suited to the palate of someone used to American craft beer.

As you can see from the photo this 22oz bottle was $4.50 (at Bottlecraft). Photo by Chris Hammett

San Diego Weekend Beer Events Thursday 9/22 – Sunday 9/25

Tags

2007 Stone Imperial Russian Stout, adams avenue beer taste, Ballast Point Behind the Brewery, beer for boobs, Beer for Boobs fundraiser, Dark Seas Russian Imperial Stout, Dorado DIPA, miho gastrotruck, San Diego County Beer Fair, Schooner Fresh Hop Ale, Stone Imperial Russian Stout

I’m hoping to get back into the habit of regularly posting beer events. I won’t be posting all events, and just because an event isn’t listed doesn’t mean it isn’t worth going to. I’ll just pick one or two a day. I try to keep the Events Calendar up to date, so check it for the full list of things going on around down. If you know of a beer event that isn’t listed send me an email, events@sandiegobeerblog.com

I’m also testing out a new format, instead of posting a weeks worth of events at once, I’ll be posting the weekend events on Wednesday night or Thursday and then posting on Sunday or Monday if there’s anything noteworthy going on Monday-Wednesday of a given week.

Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011:

The “Behind the Brewery” beer dinner’s at Ballast Point Linda Vista/Home Brew Mart are always fun. MIHO Gastrotruck pulls up behind the brewery and pairs their food with some of Ballast Point’s beers. It’s also the last day to get growler fills of Dorado DIPA and the first day to get your growlers filled with Schooner Fresh Hop Ale.

New Mission Brewery release - Dark Seas Russian Imperial Stout

Down at Mission Brewery they’ll be unveiling Dark Seas Russian Imperial Stout at 5pm with a cask tapped at 6pm. We hope that this is the first of many new and seasonal beers to come out of their new space. They’ll also have a food truck on site.

Friday, Sept. 23, 2011:

Up in North County Lost Abbey/Port Brewing Company is hosting a Beer for Boobs fundraiser. $10 gets you a commemorative pint glass and two pints of anything on tap.

Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011:

Some people say that the San Diego beer festival market is getting saturated, and that could be the case, but don’t let it stop you from checking out one of the two festivals happening today. The San Diego County Beer Fair is happening at Liberty Station. Prices range from $35-50 for 12 4oz pours.

Over at the Adams Avenue Street Fair they’re having the Adams Avenue Beer Taste and billing it as the cheapest beer tasting event in San Diego. $20 gets you 12 4oz tasters.

Sunday, Sept. 25, 2011:

Stone Brewing Co.’s Imperial Russian Stout gets better with age, stop by the Stone Company Store in Escondido to pick up bottles that Stone has properly cellared since 2007 starting at 11am when the store opens.

San Diego Beer Events June 16th– June 22nd

Tags

blind IPA challenge, blue bridge coffee stout, frogs breath ipa, Green Flash Imperial IPA, palate wrecker, Tanzanian Devil

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.

The National Homebrewer’s Conference is in town this weekend, so in addition to the events listed on the calendar a lot of bars have some extra special beers on tap and in bottles.

Thursday June 16th:

Pizza Port Ocean Beach will be featuring Coronado Brewing Company for a Keep the Glass night with plenty of pint specials. They’ll have Blue Bridge Coffee Stout, Frogs Breath IPA and more.

Friday June 17th:

Friday’s seem to be the day most bars serve cask beer so they can ensure it all gets drank before oxidizing. As always Hamilton’s Tavern will have their Frikin Friday, this week with Green Flash Brewing Co.’s Imperial IPA.

Over at Blind Lady Ale House their Progressive Cask (they put it on at 11:30 for $2 a glass and the price goes up by a dollar each hour after 2pm until it runs out) will be Automatic Brewing Co.’s Tanzanian Devil. It’s a dark English mild with Tanzanian Peaberry coffee. It’s only about 3.8% but it’s mighty tasty.

Saturday June 18th:

Mission Brewery’s Grand Opening is officially sold out. So head on over to Bottlecraft’s Grand Opening in Little Italy. I’m not sure exactly what they’ll be doing but it will be a good time to check out the new bottle shop if you haven’t been. Bottlecraft is both a retail store and tasting room. Look for more on them in next month’s West Coaster.

Sunday June 19th:

Test your beer tasting and identifying skills at Blind Lady’s Blind IPA Challenge. They’ll give you a flight of IPAs and you have to identify which is which. It’s hard. Very hard. But even if you can’t pinpoint what’s what, you still get to drink some great beer.

Monday June 20th:

CityBeat Beer Club’s 3 Year Anniversary is happening at Blind Lady, read more about it here.

And as always Toronado has $3 local beers because it’s Monday.

Tuesday June 21st:

Wreck You Palate with Green Flash at Small Bar. $5 pints and $3.50 refills. Plenty of great hoppy beers from Green Flash including Palate Wrecker and more.

Wednesday June 22nd:

Stone Brewing Co.’s South Park Store officially opened last Wednesday, but they’re having a grand opening party which includes events at many local bars and liquor stores this evening. Mayor Jerry Sanders will be in attendance as well. Check out what’s going on here.

Mission Brewery Tasting Room Soft Opening, Tuesday April 5th

Mission Brewery recently moved into the Wonder Bread Factory building downtown near Petco Park and Tuesday, April 5th they’re celebrating with a soft opening of their tasting room to coincide with the Padres home opener.

They’ll open up around 1pm and stay open until about 8pm both Tuesday and Wednesday. No word on what their regular tasting room hours will be after those two days, but I’ll post them when I hear.

Confusingly, it should be noted that Mission Brewery isn’t located in the Mission Brewery building on Hancock Street near the airport. It will be nice to have another centrally located urban brewery in town, hopefully Mission gets some growlers and opens their tasting room a few times a week at least.

UPDATE: The folks at Mission Brewery told me that until they finish work on their tasting room they’ll only be open during Padres games. I’m told they’ll open about three hours before the game and stay up about two hours after the game. This post on Twitter says they’ll be open weekend afternoons as well.

They didn’t have a firm date on when the grand opening would be, but said eventually they’ll be open most if not all days of the week and longer hours. I’m told they’ll probably stay open until midnight some nights and that their license allows for to go beer sales between 12-10pm.

UPDATE 2: Mission Brewery’s hours for the time being are: M-W closed, TH-FRI 3-8 PM, SAT-SUN 12-8 PM, Padres Days: 2 hrs pre-game – 8 PM. I’ve also heard that they are thinking about selling plastic growlers, which would be perfect for tailgating.

The picture below posted to Mission’s Facebook page shows the entrance to their tasting room near the corner of 14th St and L St.

New English Brewing Co. Coming to Bottles and Casks

Tags

explorer esb, mission brewery building, new english bottles, new english cask, new english tasting room, pizza port real ale festival, troppers tipple ipa, Why?Not American Wheat Beer

New English Brewing Co. has been around for a couple of years now on draft at various bars and restaurants around town, but it seems like they might be stepping things up hoping to become more visible in San Diego’s ever growing craft beer landscape. New English’s current lineup of four year round offerings don’t put them atop the list of beer geeks looking for rare, barrel aged, high alcohol beers but it is a solid lineup of easy to drink flavorful beers.

New English recently purchased some firkins and pins to get their cask program under way. They had a cask of their Why?Not American Wheat Beer at The Linkery last month and they’ll be at the Real Ale Festival at Pizza Port in April. New English’s Explorer ESB and Troopers Tipple IPA seem like a perfect fit for cask conditioning.

In addition to casks, New English’s beers will be coming to bottles soon and will quite possibly be available in a bottle shop near you. They’re working on label approval for all four of their beers. Simon Lacey owner and brewer at New English tells me he recently took delivery of a bottle filler and labeler last week and already has bottle distribution lined up. His hope is that the bottles will start showing up at local bottle shops around the first of May.

And one more bit of news. New English’s lineup might not be limited their four standard beers for long, a picture they posted to their Facebook page of a new tap handle suggests that seasonal and special releases might be coming in the future.

New English Brewing Co. is located in the Mission Brewery building on Hancock Street near Washington. Confusingly, New English shares this building with 5 Points Brewing Co. but not with Mission Brewery who just opened their new brewery downtown.

New English’s tasting room is open Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons and they just might have the best growler fill prices in town. Check out their website for more info.

A Nano Amount of News from Hess Brewing Co.

Tags

alternating proprietorship, hess brewing expension, hess brewing kegs, hess brewing st patrick's day, hess brewing taps, michael skubic, mike hess

I haven’t been to Hess Brewing Co., the nanobrewery located just off Miramar Rd for a few months, but I ran into Mike Hess and Michael Skubic last night at The South Park Abbey for West Coaster’s launch party and got to chat with them a bit. Last night was the first time their beer had been on tap outside of their own tasting room and aside from a few minor issues with too much foam, things were tasting great.

Skubic told me that Hess is looking into knocking down a wall and expanding into some neighboring space. If I recall correctly he told me this would nearly triple their fermentation space. He also mentioned that the next big event at the brewery would be for Saint Patrick’s day and they’re thinking about brewing a coffee stout for the occasion. They’ll use all organic ingredients including coffee beans from a new roaster in town, this will be their “green” beer. They’re still working out all of the details but plan to brew it soon.

Mike Hess also mentioned that they were looking into an alternating proprietorship agreement with Bay Bridge Brewing in Chula Vista that would allow them to brew more beer. In simple terms, alternating proprietorships are a way for different brewers to share space and equipment but still retain creative control of their beer. Bay Bridge Brewing is where Mission Brewery brewed until recently (they moved into the Wonder Bread Factory building downtown) and I believe The Brew House at Eastlake’s beers are also made at Bay Bridge. This would allow Hess to pump out quite a bit more beer, I think he said Bay Bridge has a 15bbl system compared to Hess’s much smaller 1.6bbl system. If this ends up happening we may start seeing Hess tap handles around town.

Beer this Week(end) in San Diego September 15-19

Tags

2005 Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine, 2010 Stone Imperial Russian Stout, 90 minute ipa, BLAH, blind IPA challenge, Burton Baton IPA, Festina Peche, gabf, ghidorah, great american beer festival, lee chase, Midas Touch, mission amber ale, mission blonde ale, mission hefeweizen, mission ipa, Palo Santo Marron, pints for prostates, Punkin Ale, Shipwrecked Imperial IPA, Shuffleboard for Charity, Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Beans, Theobrama, union jack ipa, vegetarian beer dinner, worldwide stout

The Great American Beer Festival is set to get under way in Denver tomorrow (September 16th). Beer geeks and industry folks from around the world travel to Denver for the event, including many from San Diego. But fret not if you’re stuck in San Diego this weekend with no travel plans for Denver, because even though the biggest beer event in the country is going on a few states away, there are still plenty of great beer to be drank right here in San Diego.

Tonight Wednesday, September 15th

• Blind Lady Ale House will be tapping a keg of Sierra Nevada’s Ghidorah at 5pm (which BLAH’s Lee Chase helped brew at Beer Camp)
• The September DrinkAbout is happening from 7pm-11pm. Click here for more details.

Thursday, September 16th

• The Linkery is holding a Vegetarian Cask Beer Pairing Night. Each plate with half a pour of beer is $9. They have some great casks and the food sounds delicious. See the full menu here.
• Toronado will be hosting a Dogfish Head Night. They’ll have Punkin Ale, Palo Santo Marron, Midas Touch, Theobrama and 90 Minute IPA on tap and bottles of Festina Peche, Burton Baton IPA, Worldwide Stout.

Friday, September 17th

• Hamilton’s Tavern Firkin Friday with Mission Brewery. They’ll have Mission IPA on cask and Shipwrecked Imperial IPA, Blonde Ale, Amber Ale, and Hefeweizen at 5pm.
• O’Brien’s Pub is hosting a night of beers from Manzanita Brewing Co. in Santee. (We stopped into Manzanita when they first opened, check out that post here)
• Make sure your Stone Brewing Co. growlers are clean as they have three excellent growler fills this weekend. Friday they’ll have Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Beans

Saturday, September 18th

• Blind Lady Ale House will have Firestone Walker’s Union Jack IPA on cask at 11:30am. Pints are only $3.50 until 3:50pm.
• More growler fills at Stone Brewing Co. today they’re offering Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Beans again, and if you go after 8pm they’ll have 2010 Stone Imperial Russian Stout available as well.
• Hamilton’s Tavern is hold a “Shuffleboard for Charity” event. We don’t have any more details, but you can’t go wrong with shuffleboard and good craft beer.

Sunday, September 19th

• Pints for Prostates Fundraiser (DrinkAbout Part 2) Check Facebook for more info.
• Blind Lady Ale House will hold a Blind IPA Challenge. 11.30am to Midnight. Judge six IPAs which out knowing which is which. Click here for more info.
• If you only get one growler fill from Stone Brewing Co. this weekend this is the day to do it. Starting at 11am they’ll be filling growlers with 2005 Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine

Mission Brewery IPA

Tags

mission brewery san diego, mission ipa

I don’t particularly like writing strict beer reviews, the type I’ve tried to write a few times in the past. Beer is so subjective and different people have different tastes that a strict objective review doesn’t make much sense to me. With that said I still plan on blogging about beer, I might even still refer to it as a review, but it won’t be too structured, and of course is just my opinion.

Mission Brewery in it’s current incarnation has been around since 2007, a relative newcomer in the San Diego craft beer scene, I haven’t had a chance to drink too many of their beers. I was excited when I first heard of them a couple years ago because the Mission Brewery building off of Washington St. and Kettner Blvd. always intrigued me, although Mission Brewery isn’t located in that building (but there are now some others brewing in that building). Mission Brewery is now occupying part of the old Wonderbread Factory downtown near Petco Park. Regardless of location, I think the name helps them out as many people in San Diego know the building.

I picked up a 22 oz bottle of Mission Brewery IPA at Pacific Liquor on El Cajon Blvd in North Park for the reasonable price of $5.49. Mission IPA won the Bronze medal in the IPA category at the 2007 Great American Beer Festival. It comes in at 6.8% ABV and 66 IBU. Using Cascade and Centennial hops it has a nice floral and citrus hop aroma and flavor. It’s not a hop bomb, well balanced with enough malts to make it easily drinkable. While I prefer my IPAs more “piney” than “citrusy” and “floral” this isn’t a bad beer at all. IPAs are probably one of the most competitive styles of beer around and Mission IPA holds its own.

My biggest complaint about it is that the bottle isn’t date stamped. I have no idea how old this beer is and when it was bottled. Fresh beer is almost always better than older beer (except when talking higher ABV beers meant for cellaring), and hoppy IPAs are one of the beers meant to be drank as fresh as possible.