Tag Archives: Brown Ale

Offbeat Brewing Company – Escondido CA

August 22, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Located just a stone’s throw from Stone Brewing Company’s main location in Escondido I wondered going in how Offbeat Brewing manages to compete with the giant brewery. After tasting things it was clear that they have a very different approach to their beers, especially the hoppy ones, and they fill a completely different niche than the aggressive hoppy beers from Stone. I’ve talked to people who normally don’t like West Coast style IPAs who like the beers here.

These guys are so off beat they have this bizarre yet awesome mural on the wall.

Though Offbeat has been open for nearly three years they don’t have the same level of experimentation you see at other breweries. Instead they have a core set of five beers that they typically have on tap that all have a similar mellow English hop flavor going. I tried the Session Pale, Brown, ESB, IPA, and Sagecat IPA while I was there.

Offbeat brewing company taster flight. — Taster flight when I visited.

The Session Pale was a light golden color beer with a good fruity flavor from the hops. This is an interesting comparison to the typical bitter citrus-forward San Diego session IPAs. The brown ale was a bit more dark and roasty than the average local brown. Both color wise and flavor wise it is closer to a porter than a brown. The roast flavors are balanced nicely by some mild earthy hops.

Offbeat brewing beer list. — Beer list when I visited.

The ESB was surprisingly flavorful for a 3.4% beer with lots of earthy and fruity flavors from the English hops. The IPA is 7.7% but isn’t very bitter and tends to be more apricot flavor with a smooth malt background. The flavors balance very nicely and there is very little of the signature west coast hop bitterness. Considering the mellow flavor, it was a perfect choice to add the peppercorns for the Sagecat IPA. Peppercorns add a nice mild spice kick and a sweetness in the aftertaste.

With a limited lineup and a very different selection than its neighbors it is easy to stop by Offbeat on your way to your favorite brewery in the area for a taster or two. If you haven’t yet explored the English style of IPA this is a great place to do it.

Top 2:
Brown Ale
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.

Follow Me:

Tasting Room

Abita Brewing Company – Abita Springs Louisiana

July 25, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

While out in New Orleans for the fourth of July weekend I went out to Abita for some beers. The main tasting room only does tours and serves people beer as part of the tour. They also have a brewpub if you want to order some food along with your beers. I was a little disappointed that they only use plastic cups for beers on the tour but it seems to be common in certain local bars to give people plastic cups.

Abita Brewing 01 — They were working on some renovations when I visited so the outdoor view was a little messy.

When you go on a tour, you are given a cup and allowed to pour your own beer from whatever they have available. They even pulled out a few bottles of the Bourbon Street bourbon barrel aged imperial stout and baltic porter for people to try. Though I didn’t get to try the bourbon barrel aged imperial stout while I was there I did bring a bottle home from another local bottle shop and my thoughts are included.

While I was there I tried a smaller sample than usual because you only had one cup to fill and pouring small taster sized pours of everything would not be very practical. I got to try the Jockamo IPA, Wrought Iron IPA (which I’ve previously written about when it showed up in San Diego soon after the brewery released it), Turbo Dog brown ale, bourbon barrel aged baltic porter, and bourbon barrel aged imperial stout.

I started with the Jockamo IPA. It was a solid IPA with good balanced caramel malt base and medium bitterness. Hop flavors mostly tended towards the classic English earthy variety. In comparison, the Wrought Iron IPA is closer to a West Coast style IPA. Hops give it a good golden flavor that sometimes tends towards citrus and mango. Malts are not as strong as the previous beer. This is the one to go for here if you like the West Coast style.

I then went for the Turbo Dog brown ale. It had a higher alcohol content than most browns I see in California with some solid roasty and nutty flavors. This was a solid beer. I skipped most of the other lighter options available and went straight for the bourbon barrel aged stuff.

The bourbon barrel aged Baltic porter has a smooth caramel flavor from the Bourbon barrels. It is a little on the sweet side but overall solid. The bourbon barrel aged imperial stout is fairly light bodied and the bourbon comes in strong. I opened this bottle recently after returning from my trip. It is a solid first beer to introduce someone to bourbon barrel aging but compared to many of the more well-known examples of the style it doesn’t hold up.

Overall, I was impressed by the tour offered of the brewing facility, especially that it was offered for free and included free beer. Though, with the way they don’t really limit your pouring, make sure you have someone coming along to drive you back. If you are mostly a hop head, you might be better off looking for the wrought iron on tap in the city of New Orleans because the Jockamo IPA will likely disappoint most who are not big fans of the English style

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.

Follow Me:

Tasting Room

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.

Follow Me:

Beer Reviews

Stone Brewing Side by Side Imperial Mutt Brown and Chai Imperial Russian Stout

April 24, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Stone brews so many different beers each year that sometimes it is better to review two at once. This time I happened to find the new Imperial Mutt Brown in the store at the same time as the 2015 Odd Year Chai Spiced Imperial Russian Stout so I thought I would review them together. Since I hadn’t tried any sort of imperial brown ale before I was interested to see what I would find.

Though I really enjoyed the bottle design I was pretty let down by the overall flavors presented. Overall I found it to be heavily boozy and not presenting a lot of roasty flavors. While it pours thick it doesn’t have any of the flavors of an imperial stout. Many of the mellow flavors that you get in a brown ale are still present here though slightly stronger. Overall it doesn’t have the strong amount of flavor that should be expected from a 9% beer. It does have a small amount of chocolate flavor that is revealed when it warms up. While I know this is not an imperial stout, the alcohol content and price are such that I think it is a fair point of comparison.

Next came the Chai Imperial Russian Stout. At first I was hesitant to give this a try but I heard good things so I picked up a bottle. Spices are good and mellow balancing nicely with the imperial stout flavors that are always enjoyable. I was very unsure if I would enjoy this but it really makes a great stout and stands out among the crowd. The tea flavors are mostly overpowered by the spices so I didn’t notice them very much here. This is a nice mellow beer that packs enough flavor to go up against the classic Stone Imperial Russian Stout.

If you have a choice between the two beers above, I would absolutely go with the Chai Stout over the Imperial Mutt Brown. If you had a different experience with the Mutt Brown I would love to hear about it in the comments.

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.

Follow Me:

Tasting Room

Culture Brewing Company – Solana Beach

March 14, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

The day after I visited Toolbox for the first time I stopped by Culture Brewing to see what they had available. Though there were a number of lovely specialty offerings available because they had an anniversary party the preceding two days I tried a few of their core beers as well because to me solid core beers are the most important to a brewery’s long term success. Sadly, the Mosaic IPA was out so I tasted a specialty version instead.

While I was there, I tried the Keyhole IPA, milk stout, brown, black IPA, coffee IPA, oaked saison, and triple IPA. Starting with the keyhole I thought it was a solid grapefruit/citrus IPA but it didn’t really blow me away or make me want to order a pint. Next came the black IPA, which I thought was too bitter for the malts. Mostly I got a ton of pine flavors from the hops but couldn’t taste much roasted malts or other flavors that I expect in the style.

My first flight. Yes, no taster glasses yet, but I'm not complaining. — My first flight. Yes, no taster glasses yet, but I’m not complaining.

The brown ale was an easy drinking beer with a nice light roast flavor and good caramel flavor. The light body makes this one you would want a few pints of. Then the milk stout was interesting because it had a light mint flavor that I wasn’t expecting. The mint combined nicely with the roast flavors that reminded me of coffee and the sweetness was not overpowering either.

Then I moved on to the coffee IPA on nitro made with coffee beans. It really had a strong coffee taste to it that reminded me of a fairly bitter cup of black coffee. This is one for the coffee drinkers for sure, and not those who feel the need to add sugar. The Oaked Saison was my favorite of the bunch, offering a delicious spice and mild pepper that was mellowed out by the oak. Later I learned that this batch was mixed with some of the regular saison to reduce the barrel aged flavors that were quite strong at first. I ended up having a bigger pour of this later and quite enjoyed sipping it.

Finally, I ended with the triple IPA, a sweet beer that had plenty of delicious tropical fruit, mango, and citrus flavors and wasn’t overly boozy despite a strong 11% alcohol. If I didn’t have to drive back I might have gotten a larger pour of this one instead.

My half pour of the oaked saison for more delicious beer.

Culture also had fairly loud music playing through a pair of studio monitors on the ceiling. It made it difficult to order a beer because the bartender couldn’t hear orders the first time. Also, being close to the beach be prepared for some cool sea breeze that might come in through various open doors and windows. They also have food trucks occasionally parked in the back where there is an enclosed outdoor area.

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.

Follow Me:

San Diego Hop Addict

Tag Archives: Brown Ale

Offbeat Brewing Company – Escondido CA

Paul McGuire

Abita Brewing Company – Abita Springs Louisiana

Paul McGuire

Barrel Harbor Brewing – Vista CA

Paul McGuire

Stone Brewing Side by Side Imperial Mutt Brown and Chai Imperial Russian Stout

Paul McGuire

Culture Brewing Company – Solana Beach

Paul McGuire

Exploring San Diego's Craft Breweries