What’s Happening

Hello Hoppy Beer Fans!

2010 is almost upon us as 2009 fades into memory.  It has certainly been a year of ups and downs and hopefully 2010 will bring some much needed stability.  At least all is well on the beer front with San Diego’s talented brewers making more good beer than ever.  We are lucky to live in a great city with a wonderfully dynamic beer scene.  Thank god the rest of the country is terrified of earthquakes or else they might all want to live here.

New Year’s

Tonight, Wednesday the 30th, we celebrate our annual New Year’s Eve-Eve party.  Since we always close down on the 31st and the 1st, we have to celebrate a day early.  We will have plenty of Roederer Estate Champagne by the glass along with a fantastic selection of beer including the return of Pliny the Elder and Ballast Point Sculpin IPA on tap tonight.  I will also have Dupont Avec les bon Vouex (with best wishes) on tap, which is an 8% alcohol saison.  And we still have a few Christmas beers on tap including Affligem Noel and later today, N’ice Chouffe.  The last day of the year that the pub is open is always a fun evening – I hope to see you there.

As mentioned, we will be CLOSED on Thursday the 31st and Friday, January 1st.  We are a true family run business and we value the few days of the year that the pub closes down so that we and our employees may spend time with friends and family (hopefully in that order!).  If you are looking to spend some quality time at a local pub on one of those two days, try the huge Pizza Port night at Toronado in North Park all day on the 31st.  Or check out the San Diego Brewers Guild website at: www.sandiegobrewersguild.org and find a great beer bar in the allied members area.  You will also find every single San Diego County brewery and brew pub listed there.

Saturday the 2nd we will resume normal hours (11:30 am to Midnight) and not close down again until Easter Sunday.  Sunday the 3rd is the final day of the NFL regular season.  The playoff bound Chargers host the hapless Redskins at 1:15 pm.  No matter how long the starters play, I want to win the last game of the season.  I don’t think it is ever a good idea to interrupt a good winning streak.  There will be no Monday night football, however, the playoffs will start the second weekend in January – when the Chargers have a bye.

Pub Crawl to Europe

There are still some spaces left on our annual European beer adventure across Belgium, Netherlands and Germany.  Ciao! Travel, which is owned by pub patron and friend Bill Snider, has run the Great Belgium Beer Tour with us for six years now (although Bill’s company has been organizing jazz and music tours to Europe for over two decades).  This year’s trip leaves at the end of February or in early March depending on which of the 4 different itineraries you sign up for.  Right now there is a deal on hotels in Amsterdam where if you add a second night, you get a third night free.  Already, folks from several local breweries are joining us and I am really excited about the trip.

There are flyers at the pub with details on the trip.  The nice thing about the tour is that most of it is self-guided so you rarely feel like a cattle herd.  And trust me, in most of these cities, it is very easy to find yourself near a good pub.  You can also find info at www.ciaotravel.com – though the pub flyers have a coupon for a discount off the web posted prices.

Number 16

January marks O’Brien’s Pub 16th Anniversary and mine and Lindsey’s 7th Anniversary of owning it.  O’Brien’s was opened in 1994 before many of San Diego’s great breweries started making beer.  While I was the head brewer for the Oggi’s Pizza chain, Lindsey and I bought the pub in 2003.  We have great fun running the pub and enjoying a beer (or champagne) with its diverse patrons.  We also are very thankful for our wonderful staff – Micaela, Michele, Kat, Tiff and May out front and Humberto, Cesar, Jose, Said and Luis in the kitchen.  They all help make the pub the special place that it is – much more than just a place to get a beer.  So as we close out the year, I would like to offer a heartfelt thank you to all of you who help make O’Brien’s such an incredible place.  Thank you for sharing good beer with great friends all throughout the year.

No anniversary would be complete without a few special events and of course I probably have a few lined up.  We will have a big Alpine Beer Bash in the middle of the month on Friday the 15th.  I will also have an evening of Northern California beers that will include Drake’s and Triple Rock among others.  And I have a few great kegs just stashed away for such an event and a few events in the works that I will let you know about when I have some details to pass on.  I hope that you have a very happy (and hoppy) and prosperous 2010.  Cheers, Tom

PS – Try to make sure you keep all 10 fingers in 2010, or in Corbin’s case, the remaining 9.

Hello Holiday Beer Fans!

The Chargers are 10-3, Old Rasputin XII is back in stock, Beer Chili is on the way and we’ll have Belgian Christmas ales on tap this weekend – it really is a time for joy!  As of tonight (12/16), we will start tapping some of our many winter warmers including Coronado Belgian Winter Red, Craftsman Holiday Ale, Avery Old Jubilation and Full Sail Wrecks the Halls.  We will keep tapping holiday beers through the end of the year as well.  Friday the 18th we will have a bunch on tap including some great Belgian ales – Delirium Noel, N’ice Chouffe, Scaldis Noel, Gouden Carolous Noel, St. Bernardus Christmas and Affligem Noel.  It will be a great weekend of winter beer at the pub.  Look for some new beer cheeses, Lindsey’s epic Beer Chili and even some special cheese for sale to go from the kitchen this weekend.

Tap and Bottle

Tomorrow night, Thursday the 17th we will tap a cask of Stone Ruination, which is always excellent on cask, at 5 pm.  All of our local beers will be on special from 4-8 pm.  Blind Pig IPA is back on tap and we still have some tasty Avery beers on tap – Salvation Belgian-style Golden Strong, Hog Heaven and Piglet Purgatory Session IPA.  The Boon Marriage Parfait Oude Lambic is being poured on our nitrogen faucet – it is a 3 year old unblended and nearly still lambic beer that is pleasantly sour and delicious.  Craftsman Honesty from Pasadena is a malty brown ale made with sour cherries.  And Sierra Nevada Celebration and Alpine O’Brien’s IPA are both on tap.

New on the bottle front, you will find Ballast Point Victory at Sea and Sculpin IPA in 22 oz bottles.  We just got in some Lost Abbey Red Barn Saison.  And we have a bunch of the aforementioned Old Rasputin XII.  It is a Bourbon barrel aged version of the Old Rasputin to celebrate the beer’s 12th anniversary and it is fantastic.  Easily one of my favorite new beers of the year.  Look for more Christmas and Winter beers in the bottle this weekend including Fantome Hiver (Winter), Affligem Noel and Goose Island Christmas.  We also have some large format bottles available for sale – 3 liters of Chimay, Samichlaus and Duvel and 6 liters of Duvel and St. Bernardus Abt 12.

The San Diego Super Chargers play the Bengals this Sunday at 1:15 pm.  I have never forgiven the Bengals for the AFC Championship loss in 1981 played in weather that reached -59 with wind chill.  Beating them is a particular pleasure that I hope to experience this weekend.  The next Chargers game will be Christmas day and we will be closed.  But the game will be on channel in addition to the NFL network at 4:30 pm.  The team closes out the season on Sunday, January 3rd against the Redskins at 1:15 pm.

Next Week

The pub will be CLOSED December 24th, 25th and 26th.  We will be open normal hours on Wednesday the 23rd and Sunday the 27th.  The pub will also be closed December 31st and January 1st, 2010 for New Year’s.  There will be normal hours on Wednesday, December 30th and Saturday, January 2nd.  Due to the closures, we will not be tapping any additional casks after the 17th.

Wednesday, December 30th will be our annual New Year’s Eve-Eve party.  We will have a keg of Ballast Point Sculpin on tap at 6 pm along with another of my all-time favorite beers – Dupont Avec les bon Voeux.  It is the brewery’s new year’s beer and translates to “with best wishes”.  It is an 8% alcohol saison that is far too easy to drink.  We will also have plenty of Roderer Estate Champagne on hand to help close out another year at O’Brien’s and to ring in 2010 a day early.  If you would like to spend your actual New Year’s Eve at a great beer event on the 31st, try the Toronado’s massive Pizza Port night starting at 6 pm in North Park.

USA Soccer in LA

The US Men’s National Team will be playing a January friendly at the Home Depot Center in Carson on Saturday, January 23rd at 6 pm against Honduras.  We will be taking a bus from the pub full of American Outlaws members to the game.  Tickets range from $26-$55 and the bus will likely be around $20-$25 with beer on board.  If you are interested please email me and let me know.  We will likely be making a group ticket purchase for Midfield seats on Friday the 18th – those tickets should be $55 with no ticket charges since we are making a group purchase.  Again, if you are interested, please email me back ASAP so that you can be included in the group rate.  This will be a great chance to see some of the younger players in the USA squad looking to make the trip to South Africa in 2010.

We are only a few dozen signatures from taking over Jacksonville in the Support Your City petition for San Diego’s bid to become a World Cup host city.  Please visit the city’s website at www.sandiego.gov and click on the World Cup link or go to our website at www.obrienspub.net and sign the petition. San Diego is one of 27 cities vying to be one of the 18 finalists included in the USA’s World Cup bid presented next May.  The petition ends December 30th, so please sign it soon.

USA Soccer in Holland

It also appears that the USA will be playing a soccer friendly against the Netherlands on March 3rd in Eindhoven, Netherlands.  Seem a bit far?  Well it will only be a train ride away from our hotels in Ghent on the Great Belgian Beer Tour.  Tickets for that game are not yet on sale, but we will be able to buy them from US Soccer when they are – there is always an allotment in an away fans section.  In addition to some great soccer against one of the world’s best teams, there will be brewery tours, pub crawls and an abundance of history during the GBBT organized by pub patron Bill Snider of Ciao! Travel.  Info is available at the pub on this incredible trip that will visit Amsterdam, La Trappe, Mechelen, Ghent, Bamberg and Munich and countless breweries.  I personally can not wait to visit Malheur for the first time.  You can also visit Ciao! Travel at www.ciaotravel.com.

That is your good beer news for now.  Look for some O’Brien’s 16th Anniversary events in January including a night with Alpine Beer Company and its new 14.1% alcohol barrel aged barleywine, Great (which will be released along with Exponential Hoppiness in bottles this Friday at the brewery).  And for those that are counting the days, I expect the Russian River Pliny the Younger to be here the first week of February.  Have a very safe and very fun holiday season.  Remember that New Year’s Eve is one of the most dangerous driving nights of the year.  We will see you soon for a great holiday beer.  Cheers, Tom

Hello Holiday Beer Fans!

The Strong Ale Festival this past weekend was a lot of fun.  Good crowds, great beer and we just missed the rain (though we did have to do some clean up in it).  There is quite a bit of beer left over and it will be going on tap at the Pizza Port brewpubs over the coming weeks.  You can find out when by following them on twitter @Pizzaportbeer.  The next fest will be the Belgian Beer Party in late March.

Cask Madness!

Back at the pub we have a mega night of casks planned for this Thursday, December 10th.  We will have casks of both Ballast Point Sculpin IPA and Victory at Sea on tap at 5 pm!  And as an added bonus for hop addicted selves, we will have a second cask of Sculpin IPA to tap when the first one blows!  So three Ballast Point casks in one evening!  And with two casks of Sculpin I really do believe that it will last all night.  On tap you can look for Alpine O’Brien’s IPA, Alpine Nelson IPA, Craftsman Honesty Ale – a sour cherry beer, and the St. Bernardus Christmas is back.

Friday the 11th is our big Avery Bash with owner/brewer Adam Avery.  We will have 11 Avery beers on tap including Voltron, Mephistopheles Stout from 2007, the new DuganA double IPA, uber dry hopped IPA, Piglet Purgatory, Hog Heaven, Czar Imperial Stout, Old Jubilation, White Rascal and Salvation.  It will be an amazing night of big beers from this Boulder, CO brewery.  I expect many of the beers to be on tap all weekend, so if you can’t make it by Friday, be sure to try some Avery beer over the weekend.

Our 9-3 Chargers take on former Charger coach Wade Phillips and the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday at 1:15 pm.  Let’s hope that they can keep the December win streak alive through the end of the year.  The Bengals will be the next opponent on Sunday the 20th also at 1:15 pm – it will not be moved to Sunday night football, I think they would rather show some 40 year old quarterback instead.

Next Week

Next week you can start off with Monday night football and our great pitcher special – $10 craft and local beer pitchers or $14 for strong ale pitchers from 4:30 pm to close.  And with our new patio heaters, you can stay nice and warm while watching the outside big screen tv.  We will tap a cask of Stone Ruination on Thursday the 17th at 5 pm.  Friday the 18th we will tap a bunch of Christmas and Holiday beers including several Belgians and a few local beers.  I should have a complete line up by next week.  And don’t forget about the Exponential Hoppiness and Great Barleywine release party at Alpine on the 18th – the brewery will be open from 12-6 pm.

The pub will be CLOSED for Christmas on December 24th, 25th and 26th and for New Year’s on December 31st and January 1st, 2010.  We will be open normal hours all other days.  Use the days off to try some great bottled beer or at home or visit one of the other great beer bars in town – Toronado is tapping 50 different Pizza Port beers for New Year’s Eve on December 31st!  Our annual New Year’s Eve-Eve party on Wednesday the 30th will feature a keg of Sculpin and lots of Champagne.

Euro Pub Crawl

I am making my plans for the 2010 Great Belgian Beer Tour that will take us to Amsterdam, Mechelen, Ghent, Bamberg, Munich and more!  You can join us for all or just part of the tour.  The big focus is the Zythos 24 Hour Belgian Beer Festival on the 6th and 7th of March.  More than 150 Belgian beers all on tap (and served in way too large a sample size to stay sober) over two 12 hour festival days.  We’ll also visit La Trappe (aka Koningshoeven), Malheur, Cantillon, Westvleteren, Het Anker (makers of Gouden Carolous) and many other breweries along with a few cultural sites like Castles, museums and such that some seem to think as important as breweries. 

This is the 6th year that we have partnered with Ciao! Travel owner and good friend of the pub Bill Snider for the GBBT.  This will be my 5th time going on the trip and I can not wait.  For more information grab a flyer at the pub or visit the Ciao! website at www.ciaotravel.com.

It also appears that as an added bonus for the trip, there will be a USA-Netherlands soccer friendly in Eindhoven in the south of Holland on Wednesday, March 3rd.  We will be attending the game to cheer on the USA.  So beer, brewery tours and a USA soccer match – I really don’t think I could have planned a better vacation myself. 

And speaking of soccer – we need only 200 more signatures for the San Diego World Cup Bid to move past Jacksonville into 11th place out of the 27 bidding cities.  Please sign the petition by visiting www.sandiego.gov and clicking on the World Cup link or visit http://www.gousabid.com/city/local/san-diego-ca/.  Even if you are not a soccer fan, the World Cup would bring tourists from around the world and create jobs in San Diego.

That is your good beer news for now.  We’ll see you soon for a great Avery beer.  Cheers, Tom

Hello Strong Ale Fans!

This weekend is the San Diego Strong Ale Festival at Pizza Port Carlsbad. The fest will run Friday, December 4th from 4-11 pm and Saturday the 5th from 11 am to 11 pm. There will be more than 65 beers all over 8% on tap both days. You can buy tickets at the door for $30 which includes a festival tasting glass and 8 taster tickets. Additional tickets are just $1 each. This is one of the best festivals of the year in San Diego. I will be up there all weekend and I am sure that I will see lots of you there.

Festival Pre-Party

To get us in the strong ale mood, we will be hosting a special pre-party for the festival on Thursday the 3rd. I have two casks lined up – Pizza Port Carlsbad Poor Man’s IPA and AleSmith YuleSmith. There will also be some very special draft beers including: Sierra Nevada The Empire Strikes Black, Ballast Point Victory at Sea, Ballast Point Dorado double IPA and St. Bernardus Christmas. You can also look for Alpine Pure Hoppiness, O’Brien’s IPA and Nelson Rye-IPA all on tap for Thursday. And be sure to check out our new T-shirts and merchandise.

Friday the 4th we will be opening early at 9 am for the World Cup Draw to find out which group the USA will be drawn into. And if you have not yet signed the petition to support San Diego’s World Cup Bid at www.sandiego.gov – please do so. The petition drive will end on December 30th. The last Champions League games of the year will be December 8th and 9th.

We will continue the strong ale theme all weekend with special beers. Sunday the 6th the San Diego Super Chargers take on the hopefully hapless Cleveland Browns. Don’t think it is as good as a bye week. In a bye week, you don’t have to travel to Cleveland. At least we can all stay warm with our new mounted patio heaters outside. Our resident handy man, Fix It Paul installed them over Thanksgiving weekend and they are very nice. So next time you are sitting outside under the warmth of the new heaters, be sure to thank Paul.

Coming Soon

Lots of good stuff coming up. We have our Avery night with Adam Avery on Friday the 11th. We will tap a bunch of Christmas beers on Friday the 18th including several Belgians. Old Rasputin XII is coming back in the bottle soon – and if you liked that, try the new Nectar Black Xantus from the brewers at Firestone. And Alpine Beer Company is releasing its Great Barleywine again soon and for the first time ever, you will be able to buy Exponential Hoppiness! Yes, Exponential in a bottle. See, the world is not conspiring against you all of the time.

On the down side for those addicted to Pliny the Elder, we will be closed December 24th, 25th and 26th for Christmas and December 31st and January 1st for New Year’s. We will have our annual New Year’s Eve-Eve party on December 30th.

The pub trip to Europe is about half full now. We have flyers at the pub or you can check it out at www.ciaotravel.com. Jeff Bagby and I will be on 91X’s Beer 4 Breakfast on Thursday the 3rd around 8:15 am to discuss the Strong Ale Fest. Enjoy a great strong ale this weekend wherever you are. Hopefully we’ll see many of you up at the fest.

Cheers, Tom