San Diego Beer Week: Day Three

Tags

black lie, eleven food truck, fuego melt, hamilton's food truck, hamilton's tavern food truck, liar's brew ESB, liar's club redux, liars club, m.e.x., Mario Escovedo Experience, pizza port black lie

Hamilton's Tavern Food Truck

After two days of doing some serious beer drinking today had to be pretty mellow. We went down to Eleven for Liar’s Club Redux. I missed last year’s Liar’s Club Redux at Hamilton’s Tavern but I’ve been told it was one of the best nights of San Diego Beer Week last year. Friend’s raved on and on a few days ago about Black Lie, The Liar’s Club’s 7th Anniversary beer brewed by Pizza Port. Unfortunately we arrived at Eleven today and it was nowhere to be found.

The tap list was pretty standard for the bar, no complaints but most of the beers were things that you would expect to find on tap at Eleven any night of the week. The exception was Liar’s Brew ESB, a beer presumably contract brewed for Liar’s Club in the past or Liar’s Club Redux at Eleven. It was far darker and much more malty that I expected from an ESB, not bad but less bitter and more sweet than I would have preferred.

Liar's Club Food Menu

In addition to the beer one of the things people seemed to be excited about was the return of some of The Liar’s Club’s famed food. Since Eleven doesn’t have a kitchen we were a bit confused as to how they would pull this off. As we walked up to the door we saw the familiar logos of Hamilton’s Tavern, Small Bar and Eleven on the back of a food truck with the familiar Liar’s Club menu.

Escovedo Experience (M.E.X) was also there and they seriously rocked the place with their Mexican tinged country rock. There’s something about a drinking a pint of good beer and watching an accordion solo that I can get behind.

With seven more days of beer week we need to pace ourselves to avoid getting burnt out too soon, but we’ll be out drinking more great beer this week.

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Eleven: A New Bar from the Owners of Hamilton’s Tavern and Small Bar

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dennis borlek, eleven lager, eleven san diego, liars club, Louis Mello, radio room, scot blair, zombie lounge

Eleven, the new bar from Scot Blair and Dennis Borlek, the guys behind Hamilton’s Tavern and Small Bar is now open. The space where Eleven is was previously Radio Room, and before that The Zombie Lounge, but Blair, Borlek, and Co.  have done an impressive job of transforming the place. Located at 3519 El Cajon Blvd., the bar is dark inside, with few windows, a small stage in the back, this is a rock n’ roll bar with some nice touches. The bar top is all new, red velvet hangs from parts of the ceiling, record covers line some of the walls. Eleven has a full bar, and 16 taps of quality on what they’re calling their tap tower. They’ll also be doing beer events and pouring cask ale from time to time as well.

Eleven will have live music, but we’re told they won’t have live music every night. We’ve known for a while now that a new bar from Blair and Borlek was coming, but one pleasant surprise was to see Louis Mello behind the bar. Louis will be the general manager of Eleven, and if you don’t know Louis’s name, you might recognize him. He was the owner of the Liar’s Club and knows a thing or two about beer. And speaking of beer, one of the taps you’ll find at Eleven is “Eleven Lager” brewed locally by Gordon Biersch. At $3.25 a pint it might be one of the best deals around, the board lists it as an American Pale Lager, but we’re told it’s actually a Helles lager.

And why the name? Straight from the Hamilton’s newsletter: “Lastly, why Eleven?  Well, it’s “one more” isn’t it? If you don’t get the reference go to Netflix now and rent Spinal Tap. Nuff Said..”

Click below for a few more (dark and blurry pictures) as well as the tap list as of last night (which is sure to change,  but will give you an idea of the types of beer to expect).