What’s Happening

Happy New Year Beer Lovers!
 
January, 2009 is O’Brien’s Pub 15th Anniversary!  San Diego’s original beer bar was openend in January, 1994 by Jim O’Brien and served as the first account for many of San Diego’s local breweries.  It was already my favorite place to drink beer by 1997, and in 2003, I liked it so much I bought the place when Jim said he was bowing out.  Now Lindsey and I have owned it for 6 fun filled years and we are looking forward to another great year.  It is not just the beer that makes O’Brien’s special.  It is a community of pub patrons who no matter how different they are all share a common love of good beer and good cheer when at the pub.  It is the people that make the place truly special and that makes working there very rewarding for all of us.  There is no other place quite like O’Brien’s in town – and we promise to keep it that way.
 
So you might expect that I would have some crazy week of events planned of the 15th Anniversary – well you would be wrong.  I did plan a bunch of crazy events, but they were just too big for a single week, so I had to go and make it a whole anniversary month.  We have an event every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday until the end of the month involving some of our favorite breweries – Alpine, Lost Abbey, Green Flash, Pizza Port, Ballast Point and Russian River.  I will start with what is going on for the next few days and then preview the rest of the month.
 
This Week
 
Tonight, Wednesday the 7th, we have a 5 gallon cask of Craftsman Holiday Beer.  If you like the Anchor Christmas or the Alaskan Winter, both of which use spruce, you will like the Craftsman Holiday Beer.  I could smell the fresh spruce when I vented the cask.  We’ll tap it around 5:30 pm and I expect it to last all night.  We also have a selection of new Cantillion and Fantome beers for your drinking pleasure – Fantome Noel and Fantome Hiver, both very different from last year, and Cantillion Kriek and Cantillion Grand Cru.  The Grand Cru is unblended 3 year old lambic served with very low carbonation, which is the traditional way to serve straight lambic in Belgium.  Geuze is the sparkling version of lambic.
 
Thursday the 8th we have double dose of cask goodness for you.  At 5 pm we will tap a cask of Green Flash West Coast IPA and a cask of Alpine Bad Boy double IPA.  And all of our local beers will be on special from 4 to 8 pm.  Look for Lindsey’s incredible Rosemary Tomato soup, which will warm you inside out, along with the great spicy steak sandwich.  Thursday is also the night of the NCAA football national championship game between Florida and Oklahoma (guess who Micaela is rooting for) at 5 pm as well.  If you find yourself no where near the pub on Thursday in norht county, stop by Pizza Port Carlsbad where brewer Jeff Bagby will have at least a dozen beers left from the Strong Ale festival on tap and on special.
 
Friday the 9th we host our first big draft party with Green Flash Brewing Company and brewer Chuck Silva.  We should have 11 beers on tap including – West Coast IPA, Imperial IPA, Bourbon Barrel Double Stout, Brandy Barrel Barleywine, Grand Cru, Le Freak, Trippel, 30th Street Pale, Hop Head Red and 2004 Vintage Barleywine.  Right now, the Grand Cru, Trippel and non-barrel aged Double Stout are on tap.  Green Flash has become one of San Diego’s top breweries under Chuck’s guidance and this will be a great opportunity to taste some of the specialty beers that he has made.  We will have 5 and 10 ounce glasses available in addition to pints.  Check out our Corned Beef Sandwiches from the kitchen.
 
Over the weekend it is time for Charger Fever as the Bolts take on the Steelers at 1:45 pm on Sunday the 11th.  I have a keg of Pizza Port San Clemente’s Warrior Black IPA to put on tap for the game.  In the morning game, hopefully McNabb and the Eagles can do us a favor and knock cry baby Eli Manning.  We’ll have our normal Sunday food specials – Fish and Chips, Fish Tacos and Chipotle Fish Sandwiches for the game.  Saturday’s games feature Titans v. Ravens at 1:45 pm and Carolina v. Arizona at 5:15 pm.
 
Next Week and Beyond
 
For the month, we are tapping a cask every Wednesday, an Alpine cask every week, and then doing cask-draft nights back to back every Thursday and Friday featuring a great brewery.  We had to change the date on the Lost Abbey night, so here is the line up of events:
Jan 9 – Green Flash Draft Night
Jan 16 – Lost Abbey Draft Night
Jan 23 – Pizza Port Draft Night
Jan 30 – Russian River TION Night
Each Thursday before the big draft night we will have casks from the featured brewery.  The draft nights are just on Friday, and the casks are just on Thursday.  This also means that every Saturday, there will be a ton of great beer still on tap.  Also new this month, starting Wednesday the 14th, every Wednesday we are going to do a rotating Beer Cheese Appetizer along with selling small containers of the Beer Cheese to-go.  Every week the beer cheese will feature a different beer.  So here is what I am expecting for the coming weeks.
 
Next Wednesday, the 14th, we tap a cask of Alpine Nelson IPA at 5:30 pm.  Thursday the 15th we have casks of Port Brewing Hop 15 and Lost Abbey Serpent Stout.  Friday the 16th is our massive Lost Abbey night with at least 10 beers on tap and another half dozen in the bottle.  Tomme is making us a special double cherry blend of Red Poppy just for this night.  We will also have Angel’s Share Barleywine on tap along with Devotion, Red Barn, Judgment Day, Hop 15, Shark Attack, Gift of the Magi and much more.  Lindsey will be making her epic Beer Onion soup (like French Onion but better because it will be made with Lost Abbey beeer).  Football gods willing, we will be watching the Chargers in the AFC Championship game on the 18th at 3:30 pm.
 
The following week we start off with Alpine O’Brien’s IPA on tap.  The Wednesday cask on the 21st will be Ballast Point Sculpin at 5:30 pm.  I tried to drink as much of the draft that had as I could, but I didn’t get that much since it only lasted a day.  On the 22nd we tap casks of Pizza Port Poor Man’s IPA and Alpine Nelson IPA.  On the 23rd we should have at least a dozen Pizza Port beers on tap from Carlsbad, Solana Beach and San Clemente.  Expect lots of hops and lots of great dark beers.  There will be no football that weekend, the 24th and 25th.  However, the US Men’s Soccer team will play at 5:30 pm on Saturday against Sweden.
 
And in the final week, our Wednesday cask will Alpine O’Brien’s IPA on the 28th at 5:30 pm.  Thursday we will have two casks from Russian River – yet to be determined but expect either Blind Pig or Pliny.  And Friday the 30th is southern California’s first TION Night with brewer Vinnie Cilurzo coming down for the event.  I expect to have nearly a dozen Belgian-styled TION beers on tap that night including Damnation, Temptation, Supplication, Salvation and Redemption.  Vinnie and I haven’t set the full tap list yet, so I will have more details in future emails.  I can tease you with the fact that there will also be the debut of the 2009 Pliny the Younger on tap.  We’ll have some special bottles, including vintage TION beers and 3 liter bottles of Damnation.  Look for some new beer cheese spreads for the TION night.  And Sunday the 1st of Febrewary is the Super Bowl, and I know what we all want to be doing on that day!
 
So there is the condensed version of this month’s events.  I will have a full schedule posted up at the pub in the next few days.  And I will likely send out an email each week as I nail down the tap lists for each event.  We’ll see you soon to raise a toast to 15 years of good beer and good cheer!  Cheers, Tom