What’s Happening

Hello Beer Fans!
 
I still feel as though I have not completely recoverd from the insanity that was the Craft Brewers Conference and World Beer Cup two weeks ago.  It was a fantastic week of beer and brewers – a big thanks to everyone who helped make it happen: the WBC volunteers, the brewers who brought beer, the importers and distributors who helped set up events, our staff who worked brilliantly under stressful conditions (and Jami for coming back) and of course you for helping to drink all of that great beer and making O’Brien’s the place to be that week.  The good news is that much of the great beer is still here, but without the crowds.  We will continue to have some great specials for the next few weeks as we use up some beers that never made it on tap during the conference, and kegs that we had ample back ups for as well.
 
San Diego did extremely well in the World Beer Cup.  There were nearly 3000 entries in 91 categories from 644 breweries in 58 countries and nearly every state in the union.  It now stands as the largest commercial beer competition in the world – it truly is the Olympics of beer.  The World Beer Cup is held every other year and started in 1996 – San Diego is the only city to host the competition twice, a real testament to our local beer culture.  The big winner was Tomme Arthur and Port Brewing/Lost Abbey which was named Small Brewing Company of the Year for its four medals.  Here is the rundown of the locals.
 
Gold: Alpine Ichabod, Lost Abbey Cuvee de Tomme, AleSmith Old Numbskull and Decadence, San Diego Brewing Hopnotic IPA and Green Flash Hop Head Red.  Just over the county line, Oggi’s Pizza won a gold medal for McGarvey’s Scottish Ale in San Clemente.
 
Silver: Lost Abbey Red Poppy, Alpine McIllhenney’s Irish Red, Pizza Port Carlsbad Poor Man’s IPA
 
Bronze: Lost Abbey Veritas 002, Stone Pale Ale (for the ESB category again – is it time to rename it Stone ESB?), Pizza Port Carlsbad Sticky Stout and Night rider Imperial Stout, Lost Abbey Brouwer’s Imagination Series Saison.
 
The good news – three of these beers will be on tap Wednesday night at the pub and many more are readily available!
The bad news – there is not one of the Lost Abbey beers that won a medal that you can go out and buy right now (but try the 2nd anniversary party this weekend – Saturday, May 3rd from 11 am to 9 pm – see www.lostabbey.com for more info)
The good news – we have the new Lost Abbey Angel’s Share Barleywine aged in Bourbon barrels in bottles on sale this Saturday, May 3rd!
Congratulations to all of the brewers and breweries that were awarded medals!  For a complete list of winners by brewery or category, visit www.beertown.org. 
 
Speaking of great beer on tap at the pub, we have some fantastic new beers on tap right now including: New Belgium Le Fleur Missuer, which is the brewery’s tribute to Orval Trappist ale, Coronado Idiot IPA, Pizza Port Carlsbad’s Poor Man’s IPA and Sticky Stout and Green Flash Tripel.  Tonight, Wednesday the 30th we will also tap a 5 gallon cask of Alpine McIllhenney’s Irish Red at 5:30 pm.  For soccer fans, there will be a replay of the Champions League semi-final between Chelsea and Liverpool at 6 pm.  We also have some glassware specials right now at the pub.  We just got a new shipment of our O’Brien’s pint glasses – “I didn’t come here to save money or lose weight” in blue and our new “Fine beer may be judged with a single sip, but it is better to be thoroughly sure” in black.  We also have some Belgian-style glassware for sale from Koningshoeven and Urthel right now.  Look for more glassware specials all week and over the weekend.
 
We also have a new wine at the pub – Tres Barcos from the Toro region in Spain.  It is a really nice, easy drinking red that is a great value at $6 a glass.  We also sell Roederer Estate NV Brut by the glass along with Cypress Chardonnay and Cabernet.  We are going to start rotating a second red wine to provide a little variety to our wine selections.
 
Tomorrow, Thursday the 1st we tap a cask of Ballast Point’s Even Keel San Diego Session Ale.  This is a highly hopped, but low alcohol beer that tastes great.  Imagine an IPA-light.  Very easy to drink on tap, this beer should be great on cask.  Friday the 2nd we feature a night of specialty beer from Green Flash and brewer Chuck Silva.  We will have the Tripel, Imperial IPA, West Coast IPA, Symposium IPA, and 5th Anniversary Double IPA all on tap.  If room allows, I have a few other GFBC to put on as well.  This is our last 5 gallons of the great Symposium IPA brewed as the official beer of the Craft Brewers Conference – if you haven’t tried it yet, don’t miss it.  As mentioned above we will have the Angel’s Share available all day Saturday the 3rd along with our 10% off all bottles every Saturday and Sunday.  I will also have some special Allagash bottles out on Saturday.  And we have the Dogfish Head Palo Santo, Unibroue Edition 2005 and Urthel Samaranth available in bottles as well along with a few cans of the Maui Big Swell IPA (yes cans!).
 
Over the weekend, we host our third and final Beer and Cheese Pairing at the pub at 6:30 pm on Sunday, May 4th.  This is a “Best Of” class featuring 5 pairings from our previous 4 rounds of tastings with Taste Artisan Cheese and gourmet Shop in Hillcrest and 3 new pairings including peppers stuffed with herbed goat cheese paired with Unibroue La Fin Du Monde.  In all the class features 8 beers and 8 cheeses.  Cost is $40 and you can sign up at the pub (cash only please) or pay with a credit card by calling Taste at 619-683-2306.  As of this writing Wednesday morning there are only about 15 seats left, so sign up soon.
 
Next week we also have a full docket of events for you to enjoy.  Monday is our weekly pitcher special with $9 pitchers of local and craft beers and $13 pitchers of select Strong Ales.  Wednesday the 7th is Alpine Beer Company night at the pub.  We will have 5 beers on tap, 2 in the bottle and 1 on cask!  The line up on tap is: Pure Hoppiness, O’Brien’s IPA, Duet IPA, Captain Stout – nitro and Exponential Hoppiness.  In the bottle we will have Mandarin Nectar and the new kriek lambic Chez Monieux (one of the best domestic lambics I have ever had).  And the cask will be a well hopped Alpine Ale at 5:30 pm.  All of the draft beers should be on by 5 pm.  And looking further ahead at Alpine events, mark down Friday, May 30th for our Exponential Hoppiness vertical tasting!
 
Thursday the 8th we have a cask of Firestone’s 100% oak fermented Double Barrel Ale.  This is a rare treat from the brewery to taste the Double Barrel Ale only fermented in the oak barrels.  We’ll tap it at 5 pm and we’ll have all of our local draft beers on special.
 
Looking ahead into June, I am tentatively looking at Sunday, June 1st for a mead tasting.  The San Diego Real Ale Festival at Pizza Port Carlsbad will be the 13th and 14th.  VIP session tickets should be on sale in the next few weeks – I will let you know when I know and post it on the website.  And the San Diego County Fair Craft Beer Festival will be Saturday, June 21st from Noon to 8 pm.  This year’s event will be in a larger location, feature more than 250 beers and there will be a bratwurst tasting and cook off!  This promises to be one of the biggest beer festivals this side of the GABF!
 
That is it for now.  Congratulations again to all of the award winning beer from San Diego!  We’ll see you soon for some great local beer!  Cheers, Tom

Hello Soccer Fans,
I know it has been a while since I have written an email with upcoming games, but that doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been some great football.  This week we get the return legs of the Champions League and UEFA Cup Semi Finals.  All of the games are up for grabs and the next three days will be decisive.  In addition, there are some great derbys coming up – Milan this weekend and the La Liga Superclassico next weekend between Barca and Real Madrid.  The EPL still has two games to go and the top and bottom slots are still being decided.  Finally, we are just over a month away from EURO 2008 – June 7th to 29th – and we will have all of the games on TV.

So here are the upcoming games:

Tuesday, 4/29:
11:30 am Manchester United v. Barcelona – ESPN2
replays at 2 pm on ESPN Classic and at 6 pm on Setanta – I will also tape the game

Wednesday, 4/30:
11:30 am Chelsea v. Liverpool – ESPN2
replays at 2 pm on ESPN Classic and at 6 pm on Setanta – I will also tape the game

Thursday, 5/1:
11:30 am Fiorentina v. Rangers – FSC – also at 5 pm
8 pm – Zenit St. Petersburg v. Bayern Munich – FSC

Saturday, 5/3:
1:45 pm – Fulham v. Birmingham City – Setanta (also on tape)
3:30 pm – Aston Villa v. Wigan – Setanta (also on tape)
5:15 pm – Manchester United v. West Hame – Setanta (also on tape)

Sunday, 5/4:
On Tape – AC Milan v. Inter Milan and Liverpool v. Manchester City
4 pm – Arsenal v. Everton – Setanta (also on tape)

Monday, 5/5:
4 pm – Newcastle v. Chelsea – Setanta
 
None of the times/games for the following weekend are posted yet.  That is all for now.  We’ll see you soon for some great football.  Cheers, Tom

I just wanted to update everyone on our post-Craft Brewers Conference week line up.  We still have some great beer that didn’t get tapped and I plan to get to most of it this week.  I updated the tap list as well.  Here is a brief run down on the week:
Monday – Blind Pig IPA on tap (with O’Brien’s IPA to follow later in the week)

Tuesday – Cask of Alpine Duet IPA on at 5 pm

Wednesday – 5 gallon specialty kegs hooked up on the jockey box including the last of the Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron, Allgash Curieux and Black and the Ballast Point Bourbon Barrel Black Marlin Porter among many others!  New beers tapped throughout the night as the partial kegs blow!

Thursday – Cask of Green Flash Symposium IPA at 5 pm.  All locals on specials from 4:30 pm to 9 pm and if we have any 5 gallon specialty kegs left, I will hook them up on Thursday.

Friday – Full size kegs that did not get tapped including Green Flash Tripel, Rodenbach, Alpine O’Brien’s IPA, New Belgium Le Fleur Misseur and many more!

Also, due to popular demand, we have added a THIRD Beer and Cheese Pairing class for Sunday, May 4th at O’Brien’s at 6:30 pm.  The other two classes sold out in less than 10 days, so if you want to go, I suggest you sign up this week.  Cost is $40.  This class will feature some classic pairings from previous classes along with several new and very fun pairings.

Hello about to be happy Beer Fans!

Next week San Diego is hosting the Craft Brewers Conference and World Beer Cup.  More than 2000 industry professionals will be in town and it will mean insane beer events at every good beer bar in town all week long.  Many of the events are posted on the San Diego Brewers Guild website – www.sandiegobrewersguild.org.  If you don’t have it bookmarked yet, you should.  It is an excellent resource for finding out what is going on in the world of good beer around San Diego county.  I have some incredible events planned that will showcase some of the best beers in the world – of course many will be quite hoppy, but that is the way most of us like it!

Before I get to next week’s events, I should tell you about the next few days.  Thursday night we will tap into a cask of AleSmith X extra pale ale at 5 pm.  And Friday the 11th we will feature a Firestone night with Union Jack IPA (8% and it uses 4 pounds of hops per barrel!), unfiltered 100% oak fermented Double Barrel Ale (an amazing treat) and a very unique keg of blended barrel aged beer named Saucerful of Merkin.  It is a combination of a Belgian dark strong ale named Saucerful of Secrets (yes, it was named for the Pink Floyd album of the same name which I am listening to right now) and a bourbon barrel aged Oatmeal Stout named Velvet Merkin.  This is a kind of pre-party for the craft brewers conference week that will start on the 14th.  Saturday the 12th you can look forward to a keg of Stone Russian Imperial Stout on tap.

There are still plenty of bottles from our Belgian Beer Festival weekend.  We added more than 65 new bottles that were featured at the Belgian Beer Party at Pizza Port Carlsbad.  Only a few have run out so there are lots of great bottles to sample.  I expect to start running out of many of them over this weekend, so if you are interested please stop by in the next few days.  I have typed up a golden colored list for all of the new bottles and a few were added to our regular blue bottle – all of those bottles are marked with a NEW! next to the price.  As an added bonus, we are featuring 20% off any import bottle purchased to-go from the golden colored list of Belgian bottles.

And here is the Beer-laden Conference Week line up starting with Monday night:

Mon 4/14 – Ballast Point Specialty Beer night featuring Victory at Sea, Sextant Stout, Even Keel, Bourbon Barrel Aged Black Marlin, Three Sheets Barleywine (a blend of 5 month old and 5 year old 3 Sheets!) and of course Yellowtail.  As a special bonus, we will be tapping a keg of the Symposium Ale double IPA from Green Flash, a keg of Russian River Blind Pig IPA (at 8 pm) and a keg of New Belgium’s Eric’s Ale which is a sour barrel aged peach beer.  There will also be other treats on tap as we prepare for Pizza Port night on Tuesday.  We will be open until midnight on Monday.

Tues 4/15 – Pizza Port and Lost Abbey Night – we will have at least 10 Pizza Port and Lost Abbey beers on tap inlcuding Pipe’s IPA (nitro), Sticky Stout, Poor Man’s IPA, Black Lie IPA, Guru Double IPA, Cuvee de Tomme, Serpent Stout, Old Viscosity and El Camino IPA.  I am still working out the rest of the beers.  And we will tap another new barrel aged beer from Firestone – Parabola which is a bourbon barrel aged Imperial Oatmeal Stout.  We will be open until at least midnight on Tuesday.

Weds 4/16 – Artisinal Ales Night with Urthel, Meantime, Bosteels, St. Feuilllien and Koningshoeven – We will have Koningshoeven Quadrupel, Urthel Hop It, Bosteels Tripel Karmeliet and Meantime IPA all on tap as we feature the brewers from all 4 of these great breweries sometime around 9:30 pm.  The beers will be on tap earlier in the evening – likely around 6 pm.  There will be 3 liters and other beers available in the bottle – as of today, I am not sure which ones we will be getting in.  And there will be a cask of Alpine’s Irish Red at 7 pm as well.  Expect the Alpine O’Brien’s IPA to be on tap no later than Wednesday as well.  Tonight’s Firestone beer will be Abacus, a barleywine style ale that is a blend of three different barrel aged beers.  We will be open until 1 am on Wednesday.

Thurs 4/17 – Alpine Cask, Vintage Unibroue and Triple IPA Night – Yes, it really is 3 mega events rolled into one.  We will tap four different casks from Alpine staggered at 5, 7 and 9 pm that will include Nelson IPA (at 7 pm), Duet IPA (at 7 pm), Pure Hoppiness (at 5 pm) and Exponential Hoppiness (at 9 pm).  And from 7-9 we will be hosing the folks from Unibroue in Canada as we offer a 5 year vertical of the breweries anniversary ales going back to Edition 2004 and Trois Pistoles on tap.  And starting at 6 pm we will tap 4 triple IPAs – Russian River Pliny the Younger (6 pm), Avery Maharaja (7 pm), Moylan’s Hopsickle (8 pm) and Alpine Exponential Hoppiness(9 pm)!  And Thursday’s Firestone ale will be Saucerful of Secrets.  Did I mention the Schneider Aventinus Eisbock on tap?  Yes, Thursday will be crazy, but I can’t help that.  Come soak up the beer and the madness!  We will be open until 1 am on Thursday.

Fri 4/18 – Dogfish Head Release Party – Yep, Dogfish Head is back in Cali to stay this time and we host the official release party with brewer/owner Sam Calagione and his talented crew of off-centered brewers.  We will have 90 Minute IPA, Midas Touch and Palo Santo Marron all on tap at 5 pm.  We will have plenty of beer, so I expect the DFH products to last most of the night, but there can be no guarantees.  We will also have several specialty kegs from Allagash including Black and Curieux.  At 6 pm we will tap a CASK of Unfiltered Firestone Double Barrel Ale that is 100% oak fermented and there will be a keg of Firestone Velvet Merkin Oatmeal Stout.  We will be open until 1 am on Friday. I know that we will have a ton of other amazing beer on tap on Friday – I have listed some of the possible ones below, we’ll just have to wait and see what beer goes on tap what day!

Sat 4/19 – Northern California Brewers Day – I have some great kegs from Nor Cal lined up for the week and we will feature them on Saturday including Marin White Knuckle, Lagunitas Gnarleywine, Moylan’s Moylander, 21st Amendment, Sierra Nevada Chico IPA, Lost Coast, Russian River, Bear Republic and Rubicon IPA.  Beers will be on tap all day from Noon until they blow.  We will be open until 1 am on Saturday.

Sun 4/20 – The conference will be over and folks will be headed home, so O’Brien’s will be back to normal – except for a better than average tap list still around!

I will endeavor to post updates ASAP when we tap new beers on the website all week.

There will also be many specialty beers on tap and in the bottle all throughout the week.  We will have the new Chico IPA form Sierra Nevada, Green Flash Tripel, 5th Anniversary and Imperial IPA, more Blind Pig, more Symposium Ale, a keg of Cantillon Lou Pepe Framboise, cans from Maui Brewing, Rodenbach and Rodenbach Grand Cru, New Belgium La Folie and Le Fleur Misseur? and many more!  I will update the webpage as I confirm tapping times.  These lists are subject to change due to brewer’s whim, but I can tell you that the tap list will be amazing any day of the week.  Also keep an eye on the food specials board as Lindsey rolls out many of our pub favorites all week including her epic Duvel Mac n’ Cheese.  In addition to keeping the pub open late, we will have expanded kitchen hours as well – with late night Carne Asada Fries on special!

For those who are worried about crowds, I think that Thursday and Friday, April 17th and 18th between 6 pm and Midnight will be the busiest times.  The conference does not start in earnest until Thursday morning, so I am not expecting a lot of out of town people on Monday or Tuesday, or before 9 pm on Wednesday just FYI.  I also think Saturday will be reasonably normal as many people will start to go home on Saturday and there is a big awards banquet for the World Beer Cup that night.

In other pub business, our two Beer and Cheese tasting classes on the 23rd and 27th are completely SOLD OUT!  We are considering hosting a third class on Sunday, May 3rd at O’Brien’s at 6 pm.  If you are interested, please sign up on the waiting list or send me an email and let me know how many people would like to come.  This is our “Best Of” class featuring 4 of our favorite pairings from our previous classes plus 3 new pairings that are fantastic.  The cost for the class will be $40, but there is no need to pay now.  In all, 8 beers and 8 cheeses will be featured.  Please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in the third class.

Further off just so you can mark your calendars, the San Diego Real Ale Festival will be June 13th and 14th at Pizza Port Carlsbad.  There will be a VIP session on Friday and tickets will likely be available in mid-May.  The following weekend is the San Diego County Fair Craft Beer Festival that will feature some incredible beers.  The festival will run from Noon to 8 pm on Saturday, June 21st and feature a Bluegrass music competition and Bratwurst Cookoff.

That should be more than enough to keep you all busy for while.  We’ll see you soon for a great beer.  Cheers, Tom

Hello Beer Fans!

There is a too much good beer this week to fit into this email.  This weekend, April 5th and 6th we will have a very special Belgian Bottle Festival that will feature more than 85 different bottles from last weekend’s Belgian Beer Party at Pizza Port Carlsbad!  There are too many beers and breweries to name here, but it will include beers from Achilles, Allagash, Alvinne, Baladin, Cantillon, De Glazen Toren, De Graal, De Ranke, Drie Fonteinen, Dupont, Ellezelloise, Fantome, Jenlain, Jolly Pumpkin, Malheur, Rodenbach, Struise, ‘t Smisje, Thiriez, Urthel, Vapuer and many more!  Every bottle will also be 10% off all weekend.  This will be the biggest list of bottled beer we have ever offered.  So if you missed the festival, do not miss this weekend at the pub!  I have at least half of a case of every single brand, so I expect the bottles to last through the weekend.  Also, we will have the final four basketball games on tv on Saturday afternoon.  And if you can’t make it by this weekend, look for the bottles to make their way onto our special release bottle list – and if you are in Carlsbad, look for them at the Pizza Port bottle shop!

There is a lot of great beer on tap right now.  We just tapped into the Ballast Point Fathom India Pale Lager.  It is like an IPA, but brewed with a lager yeast for a more crisp finish.  We also have the new Port Brewing Shark Attack, which is a double red ale and we have the Lost Abbey Carnevale, which is a dry-hopped saison.  Also new on tap is the Van Honsebrouck Bachus Flanders Red Ale and the Lost Coast Scotch Ale.  And we just restocked the very popular Danish Meads from Dansk including the Viking Blod and the Caraway Mead.  Both are very strong and have port/sherry-like flavors.

Coming up for the rest of this week, we will tap a cask of Ballast Point Sextant Stout on Thursday, April 3rd at 5 pm.  This was probably my favorite stout that we had on tap over St. Patrick’s Day and I think it will be great on cask.  Friday night, April 4th we will feature the beers of Coronado Brewing Company.  Coronado has started to brew a series of excellent Belgian inspired beers and we will have two of them on tap – Hoppy Daze, a Belgian-style IPA and Stoopid Stout, a Belgian-style Stout.  We will also have the brewery’s Island IPA on tap.  All 3 beers will be on special all night long.

Next week, Monday, April 7th is the 75th Anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition of beer.  We will have a few special beers on tap and have our regular pitcher special – $9 pitcher of crafts and locals and $13 pitchers of strong ales – from 4:30 pm until Closing time.  The prohibition of liquor was enacted later in the year, but President Roosevelt made sure that the ban on beer was lifted immediately.  Upon signing the legislation he was quoted as saying “I think that this is a good time for a beer.”

And coming up the following week we will be hosting a number of great events during the Craft Brewers Conference.  The conference is an industry-only event, but there will be tons of great beer on tap all over town the entire week starting April 14th.  O’Brien’s will be hosting a different event each night.  Right now the line up looks like this – Ballast Point night on Monday the 14th, Pizza Port/Lost Abbey on Tuesday the 15th featuring beers from all 3 brewpubs, Artisenal Imports night on Wednesday that will include Koningshoeven, Urthel, Meantime and Bosteels along with brewers from each of those coming by later at night, Thursday the 17th will be a big night with 4 casks from Alpine Beer Company including Exponential Hoppiness and Nelson IPA along with a vintage bottle night from Unibroue (with the brewers) and a triple dose of triple IPAs – Pliny the Younger, Exponential and Maharaja, and to top it all off we will feature 2 fantastic east coast breweries on Friday the 18th with Allagash and the return of Dogfish Head with 3 beers on tap including Midas Touch and 90 Minute IPA.  I will post up more specific details next week once everything is settled.

All during the week we will be featuring different beers including Bling Pig, O’Brien’s IPA, Sierra Nevada’s new Chico IPA, the official Syposium beer brewed by Green Flash, Maui, Firestone barrel aged beers, New Belgium and the return of O’Brien’s IPA from Alpine.  As you can tell, it will be a very crazy week.  To help fit in all of the madness, we will be open late each night including until 1 am Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  And don’t forget our new regular hours – we are now open until 11:30 pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and Midnight on Friday and Saturday.

Right after the conference we will be doing another round of our beer and cheese pairings with Taste Artisan Cheese and Gourmet Shop in Hillcrest.  The tastings will feature 4 of our favorite pairings from previous classes along with 3 new pairings that are incredible.  Some of the beers that we will use are Unibroue La Fin du Monde, Alpine Mandarin Nectar, Gouden Carloous Grand Cru and Schneider Aventinus.  In all there will be 8 beers and 8 cheeses.  The first tasting is in Hillcrest at Taste at 7 pm on Wedensday, April 23rd.  The second tasting will be held at O’Brien’s at 6 pm on Sunday the 27th.  The classes are filling up fast, so if you are interested, I would sign up within the next 10 days.  Cost is $40 per person and you can sign up at the pub (cash only please) or you can sign up at Taste in Hillcrest – you can find them through the link on our website.

In my last email I mentioned a beer mapping site at www.brewingnews.com and I was sent the following link: http://www.pubquest.com.  It is a great site that I had not been to before and I would recommend it highly as well.

That does it for this week’s news.  We’ll see you soon for a great beer.  Cheers, Tom