Tag Archives: Beer

Barrel Harbor Brewing – Vista CA

July 11, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

For a brewery that has been open for less than 2 years, Barrel Harbor is not doing much to distinguish themselves in a crowded market. These days brewing a good IPA is simply expected. I stopped by this past weekend and tried the brown ale, porter, Nugget IPA, black IPA, and double IPA. From all of these the single hop Nugget IPA was probably the most impressive. They were out of their regular IPA at the time.

The brown ale was typical of the style, smooth and flavorful yet not really standing out. The porter was available on nitro and was good and creamy with mild roasted flavors. The Nugget IPA, single hop IPA with the nugget hops, was the best of the bunch. It had a nice golden flavor while being very smooth and fruity. The hops were noticeably fresh and it jumped out at me. I would guess that these are the same hops used in Abita’s Wrought Iron IPA that I love so much.

My flight of beers with an extra for the double IPA.

The black IPA was interesting because it was pretty mellow and low in bitterness for a black IPA. The hops tasted pretty similar to the nugget, though I was told it is brewed with simcoe. The hops blended nicely with the roast, making it a solid beer. Finally, the double IPA was strongly bitter and had a bit of a soapy taste that combined with a cloying sweetness. I wasn’t able to get myself to finish the double IPA taster.

I first tasted an IPA from Barrel Harbor on tap at a bar in Rancho Bernardo. They certainly know how to brew a good IPA but in this market you need to do more than that to stick out, especially up in the “Hop Highway” region, off the 78 freeway. They do have a nice pirate/nautical theme going that makes their tasting room an interesting place to visit. If you do drive up to visit Barrel Harbor make sure you visit one of the other breweries in the area as well. They are very close to Booze Brothers, which will be the subject of my post next week.

Top 2:
Nugget IPA
Black IPA

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Tasting Room

Kilowatt Brewing Company – Kearny Mesa Area

June 27, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Walking distance from Council and quite close to Societe is a new brewery called Kilowatt that is focusing on adding flavors to their beers outside the traditional hop, malt, and yeast flavors. This means fruit added to some beers and other flavors added to stouts, including chocolate, nuts, and spices that you see on occasion. They have a fairly large space for a new place and are brewing some solid beers for a young brewery.

I tasted 10 different beers when I stopped by though I didn’t get to try everything because the IPA was not available (too many beers on tap to include) and some were better to just try the flavored versions (the blonde and brown ale were skipped in favor of the flavored ones). The photography was a bit difficult because they have an interesting light up bar that changes colors so I tried to get photos of the tasters while the color was white.

Kilowatt First Set of Tasters — First set of tasters

First set of tasters I tried the strawberry blonde (made with frozen strawberries added), the kilowatt pale, mango pale (with frozen mango added), and angry amber. Second set I went with the cinnamon hazelnut brown, coconut chai porter, chocolate macadamia stout, and one eyed willie stout. I ended with the Obliquity double IPA and Dr. Rudis double IPA.

The strawberry blonde was a nice subtle strawberry flavor with a mild amount of sweetness. I would have preferred it to be more intense like the mango pale. The Kilowatt Pale was quite mellow to me and didn’t really let the hops or the malts really shine through because of the lower alcohol content. It makes a nice background for the mango pale though, which was one of my favorites. The mango was so intense it was almost like mango juice with those delicious Mexican mangos. The angry amber was a solid amber ale with a lot of dark fruit flavor at the front and a nice balanced flavor with a pretty mild hop bite.

The cinnamon hazelnut brown had a lot of intense cinnamon at the beginning but it mellowed out over time and especially tasted mellow compared to the rest of the dark beers on tap. The coconut chai porter had a nice ginger bite at the front but later mellows out to a smooth coconut with mild spice. The chocolate macadamia stout has a smooth chocolate flavor that becomes creamy when you add the macadamia. I found it to be quite balanced and delicious. Comparatively, the one eyed willie stout was too acidic and dry and lacking in the roasty character I look for in a stout.

Finally I tried the double IPAs. The Obliquity seemed to be a bit too malty for my tastes though it could have also been the blend of hops that I wasn’t a huge fan of. It seemed to be more on the balanced side of things with lots of earthy, dank hops and a strong bitterness. The malts didn’t really seem to fit with the hops to me so much either. Comparatively, the Dr. Rudis double IPA was more on the tropical fruit/juicy melon side of things and much lighter on the malts, which was more what I prefer to have in a double IPA.

Kilowatt Brewing 07 — Love those hop lamps!

Overall, I thought Kilowatt was doing some great stuff when I stopped in. The addition of fruits and other things really gives them unique flavors in a crowded market and their tasting room is large enough to accommodate a good group. I will have to come back soon to try their single IPA but a lot of what I tasted was very nice and will likely bring me back to try some more at a future time.

Top 3
Mango Pale
Chocolate Macadamia Stout
Coconut Chai Porter

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Beer Reviews

Prairie Artisan Ales – Tulsa Oklahoma – Bottling Delicious Stouts and Sours

June 20, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Due to the various laws in place in Oklahoma I wasn’t able to visit Prairie and do tasters. So while I was in town in April of 2015 I stopped by to pick up a few bottles around Oklahoma City from one of the best known Oklahoma breweries. Prairie is known for its farmhouse ales and imperial stouts. I got to try a few examples of both. I tried the different beers listed here over the course of many days after I came back from Oklahoma.

Set of Prairie Ales. — Selection of Prairie beers I brought back with me (along with another Oklahoma Imperial Stout I did not open yet)

The Prairie Cherry Funk was a nice highly carbonated and lightly tart cherry beer that tasted like carbonated juice. Given its 7.5% alcohol it was hidden very nicely. The Funky Gold Amarillo was a nice strong citrus tart that blended nicely with the inherent tart and the hops. It had a very interesting tart lemon flavor at the end. The Eliza5beth, a tart farmhouse was a nice beer that poured a cloudy lighit orange flavor with a lot of carbonation. The flavors were a mix of tart peach and belgian yeast. It was mildly tart but could have gone more tart from what I tasted.

Prairie Bomb is one of the most popular beers from the brewery. A strong imperial stout, this beer is sold in individual 12 oz bottles. At 13% it was strong yet not boozy and had a perfect balance of the coffee, chocolate, and chili peppers. It was lightly sweet with just enough hot pepper flavor and a nice mellow chocolate to make a world class beer. Compared to this, the Bible Belt, a collaboration brew with another brewery, was not as sweet and had a lot more prominent flavor from the peppers. It was almost acidic cherry and lacked the balance of the Bomb. As the beer warmed up, the coffee became more pronounced.

The final beer I tried from Prairie was called OK Si, a tequila aged imperial stout. I thought that the tequila added a nice bite to the overall beer though I still preferred the Prairie Bomb as the best of the three. Prairie is a highly rated brewery and it deserves the praise. The Bomb is still my favorite of all of them and is worth checking out if you are able to get it for a good price. Hopefully one day Oklahoma will change their beer laws to allow people to visit the brewery for a flight of tasters.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Tasting Room

Reckless Brewing Company continues to rebel in new location

June 6, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Reckless Brewing recently re-opened on Thursday, May 28, 2015, almost a year after its previous brewery, Wet N Reckless burned down. Dave is still here brewing many of the same beers he brewed before–he liked what he made before so why would he stop? The newly opened location is bigger and now located closer to the rest of the breweries along Miramar Road–right across the street from the new Ballast Point restaurant.

Wet N Reckless was not a very popular brewery when it was open before among the general San Diego beer community. Very few of the beers they brew are to style (made according to the styles that exist already in brewing) and so they don’t always taste like what you would expect. I dropped by two days after the grand opening to see how the beers are because it has been a long time since I visited them the last time. Now that they are newly opened they have taster glasses and no more plastic.

I tried all 12 of the beers that they had available on tap. I tried them in an order that I thought would generally save me from having my palate destroyed. Though after trying all of them I don’t think that is something you really need to worry about. The first flight I had was Honey Badger Don’t care, The Dude Abides Rye, Harmless Fun (hoppy imperial wheat) and Beowulf’s Mead. Second I tried the Oral Pleasure, Golden Boy (balanced IPA), More Cowbell (double balanced IPA), and Sultry Black (smoky black ale). Finally I tried the Genocide, Destroyer of Worlds, Down and Out Stout, and Merlout.

Reckless Brewing Flight 01 — First flight of tasters.

For the first flight I was surprised by the Honey Badger Don’t Care beer. It was darker than I remember and quite well balanced. It had a nice sweet dark fruit flavor that balanced well with the honey. The Dude Abides rye was mostly dominated by the flavors of the rye, which gave it a bit of a sweet and slightly spicy flavor while being mildly bitter. Harmless fun was a strange brew to me that didn’t have much of a distinctive flavor. The floral hops were hidden in the background of a strange strong wheat beer. The mead was a nice strong honey beer with a light color and body. It wasn’t really my thing but a few people there with me loved it.

Reckless Brewing Flight 02 — Second flight of tasters

The oral pleasure was quite floral and a bit sticky, and the lightest of the various IPAs on tap. Though it isn’t technically an IPA it is closes to the West Coast style. Golden Boy and More Cowbell were both very similar in the malt bill and the overall flavor. More Cowbell was the more balanced of the two beers, with the extra bitterness going better with the malt flavors. Both were dark amber color and the malts tended towards the dark fruits. The Sultry Black was an interesting black ale with a lot of smoky flavors and medium bitterness. This was the closest to a typical stout on the whole list.

Reckless Brewing Flight 03 — Last flight of tasters

Genocide was a strange amber colored beer with Columbus hops that was close to a balanced IPA more than anything else. The malts didn’t really go with the hops though. Destroyer of Worlds was a tasty dark fruit malty beer with a color almost black though still heavy amber. Down and Out Stout was too sweet and a bit strange tasting to me. I got a little caramel in the very end but I wasn’t a big fan. Finally, the Merlout was an attempt at getting to a red wine flavor while brewing a beer. The flavors were close to a sort of cheap grocery store red wine with some cloying sweet flavors and some intense cherry. I wasn’t a fan of this one and none of the friends I was with wanted to finish the taster.

Reckless Brewing 03 — Reckless added a lot of indoor seating this time around.

Reckless added a lot of indoor seating this time around.

Overall, Reckless is not going to impress anyone who wasn’t already a fan of the previous brewery. Those who loved a beer or two they made will want to come back and see if their favorites are still the same. Aside from adding proper glassware they now have a lot more seating and tables so you can enjoy your beer away from the bar. They also have a popcorn machine that is constantly popping for those who love a nice light snack with the beer (no charge for the popcorn).

Top 3 beers:
Honey Badger Don’t Care (dark honey ale)
More Cowbell (balanced double iPA)
Destroyer of Worlds (dark malty ale)

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Tasting Room

Green Flash Cellar 3 Offers a Wide Range of Barrel Aged Beers

May 16, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Disclaimer: My brother recently got hired as a beer-tender at the new Green Flash Cellar 3 location so I got to taste the beers listed below during the friends and family preview day at which they did not charge us for the beers.

Cellar 3 is a new tasting room Green Flash opened in Poway (just a few blocks away from Lightning Brewing) where the majority of the beers on tap are barrel aged in some way or enhanced with the addition of fruit and/or brett yeast. They just had their grand opening on May 16, 2015. The indoor location has a very nice modern feel with various artwork on display and plenty of open space and barrels to rest your beers on. You can see many barrels in the background where beers are aging away. There is also an outdoor seating area where you can sip your beers outside or order food from the house food truck. Food available from the house truck here is slightly different from the food available at the main tasting room.

If you aren’t interested in the sours on tap (which make up a majority of the barrel aged beers) there are still some taps with core beers. Because I tasted a total of sixteen new beers (though one or two were available when they released Silva Stout at the tasting room earlier this year) I won’t go into the specific tasting notes of every single beer. Instead, I will focus on describing some of the more interesting beers they had available and some of the beers that I found most delicious.

One set of beers available that I found interesting was the Natura Morta flavors of mildly tart fruity beers. For the opening they had available a plum, strawberry, blueberry, and cranberry version of Natura Morta. I found the cranberry and blueberry versions a bit off with a wet blanket flavor that overpowered the fruit. Of all of these I enjoyed the strawberry the most because it had a nice sweetness that mixed well with the mild tart flavors. This was distinctly different in flavor from the strawberry beers that I had previously at Toolbox and Intergalactic, which both shared a more cloying sweet flavor. The flavor of the plum was not distinct enough to excite me.

First three flavors of Natura Morta that I tried. Plum, blueberry, and strawberry.

I was also glad to see the Flanders Drive flanders red return along with a cherry version. The version available during the opening was more on the sweet side but had a nice mix between the malts and the bourbon flavor from the barrel aging. I was not as much of a fan of the cherry because I thought that it clashed a bit too much with the bourbon barrel flavors. The Flanders Drive was one of my favorites of the new beers.

Flanders Drive and Flanders Drive with Cherry.

If you had Super Freak before they are now calling it Le Freak Barrique. This wine barrel aged beer with brett yeast added is a nice addition to the lineup though previous versions were much more tart. Those looking for something tart will enjoy the black currant version, which was quite tart, surpassed in tartness only by the Blanc Tarte, a unique sour blonde ale with a delicious balance of sweet and tart, and probably my favorite of the whole lineup.

Also available was a white IPA aged in Chardonnay barrels that was very much like drinking a glass of wine. I was surprised that this one was not tart at all compared to an intensely tart similar beer that was available at the main tasting room a few years back briefly. They also had available red wine barrel aged dark ale that was both quite smoky and mildly tart, an interesting flavor combination.

Chardonnay aged IPA (right) and Red Wine aged Black Ale (left)

There was also an interesting new Belgian Trippel with Brett yeast that was delicious and sweet on its own and served in a red wine barrel aged and bourbon barrel aged version. The red wine aged version was mildly tart and still quite rich. The bourbon barrel version was quite sweet, almost caramel-forward and very nice as well.

For those not interested in sours or Belgians they also had the Silva Stout on tap and available with plenty of bottles. This blended barrel aged imperial stout is quite delicious on its own and they had a fresh batch of the extra strong coffee added version that packs a whopping 13%.

Cellar 3 will also eventually see the return of the Rayon Vert with brett yeast and from the bottles on the wall we should see a bottle release of the Le Freak Barrique and Flanders Drive in the future. Though it is quite a bit out of the way and not particularly easy to reach during weekday rush hour traffic I expect it will become a regular for those in San Diego who crave sours or have come to love the wild yeast beers.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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San Diego Hop Addict

Tag Archives: Beer

Barrel Harbor Brewing – Vista CA

Paul McGuire

Kilowatt Brewing Company – Kearny Mesa Area

Paul McGuire

Prairie Artisan Ales – Tulsa Oklahoma – Bottling Delicious Stouts and Sours

Paul McGuire

Reckless Brewing Company continues to rebel in new location

Paul McGuire

Green Flash Cellar 3 Offers a Wide Range of Barrel Aged Beers

Paul McGuire

Exploring San Diego's Craft Breweries