Tag Archives: Craft Beer

32 North Brewing Revisited Again, Second Change of Brewers

October 12, 2016 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Covering breweries can require a lot of attention paid because brewers don’t always stay with the brewery for various reasons. I can’t speak to many of the reasons behind many of the notorious local shifts of brewers and I wouldn’t want to share the details even if I could. For 32 North, this meant they started with a brewer who came out of the gate with some excellent beer and then after a few months went on to open a different brewery, which is the quite-popular Bitter Brothers. Then another brewer was brought in to replace him and didn’t last as long as many expected. Some say he went back to the East Coast because he wasn’t a fit for the local scene. I could see this as a plausible explanation considering his version of the Best Coast IPA was too malty for local tastes.

Now with their 2nd anniversary coming up, I visited 32 North again, giving their new brewer, Nick Ceniceros, formerly the head brewer for Fall Brewing, a chance to dial in the recipes on the different system. The changes from a year ago to now are drastic and show a clearer understanding of the local brew scene as one would expect from someone who has been a major part of the scene for a while. Of the beers I tried, all were well-made but four stood out as quite excellent. I can safely say that if Ceniceros stays on for a while, he will help cement 32 North as a powerful player in the crowded Miramar brewery scene.

Look and feel wise, the brewery hasn’t changed all that much since it opened. They have always had the beautiful wood-dominated look that helps you quickly forget that you are in the middle of an industrial park. The design of their tasting board has changed quite a bit over time and the design they have now is pleasing and easy to read from a distance.

I had two separate flights on my recent visit, trying seven beers and a cask variant of their house IPA to finish things off. I started with a flight of Pennant pale ale, Blancdonkadonk hoppy wheat, Mighty Mouse session rye IPA, and Landfall berliner weisse (without syrup). The second flight I had the Best Coast IPA, Far East IPA, Hello Darkness oatmeal stout on nitro, and Best Coast IPA cask with mosaic hops.

First flight with pale ales and Berliner Weisse.

Penant pale ale is a smooth dry pale ale with a great balance of citrus, pine, and resinous hops. It has some malts backing it up but nothing that overpowers the hops as the traditional style tends to do. This was the first standout for me. The blancdonkadonk is a strange beer and a bit hard to describe. At first I got a lot of apricot from what I assumed were English hops over some fruity wheat malts. Then later on I got more passionfruit and other tropical fruit notes. I found the hops were a bit too much but mostly because the flavors weren’t for me. The Mighty Mouse session IPA was clean and dry with a great mix of dank resinous hops, some fruity hops, and as it warms up some floral/herbal hops all supported by a solid rye kick. I liked it more at the beginning but once I got to the herbal hops I lost interest. This is another beer where it mostly isn’t my preferred hops but is done well.

The Landfall Berliner Weisse, without syrup, was excellent. It had a great medium body and some subtle fruit and citrus notes. They offer three flavors of syrup for this if you want to experiment though I prefer it on its own. Though they will be soon canning their blond ale, I hope this one day gets canned because it is quite excellent. The Best Coast IPA is a great mix of dank pine and resin hops and some tropical fruit towards the end. Though pine on its own is not a flavor I love, it is delicious when properly balanced as here. The beer also has a nice supporting malt backbone that is just enough to give it a good medium body without calling too much attention to itself.

The cask version of Best Coast was super smooth with tons of mango, guava, and melon bursting from the beer. Surprisingly most of the dank flavors of the tap version were gone. The Far East IPA had tons of over ripe tropical fruit and a sticky sweet fruity finish. I couldn’t identify specific fruits but I really did not care for this one. I finished with the Hello Darkness oatmeal stout on nitro. The beer had a complex mix of roast, coffee, and chocolate notes all supported by a smooth caramel base. This would probably be the first beer for me to order in a pint when I return. It is an excellent oatmeal stout and I’m sure the coffee version is quite nice as well.

It is a great sign that two of the stand-out beers for me were part of their core lineup and soon to be canned. Even if you have been disappointed in the past with what you had at 32 North, you should absolutely return to try these delicious new batches. Their upcoming 2nd anniversary on October 21st.

Top 4:
Hello Darkness oatmeal stout
Landfall berliner weisse
Pennant Pale
Best Coast 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

Longship Brewing, Mira Mesa, San Diego

October 8, 2016 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

longship-brewing-03 — This is the shorter tap list they had when I first visited.

Though there are quite a few Miramar breweries now they have been growing in clusters. I found it refreshing when I saw where Longship opened because they are close enough to the others though far enough away to attract a different crowd and much easier to find than Wet and Reckless was in a similar area (before they re-opened in a different location as Reckless Brewing). Longship has a viking theme to their brewery and I find their logo to be very nice as well as the various shields on the walls around the tasting room. They just opened so they have a very small tap list at the moment and only four beers. I tried the IPA, golden ale, Belgian style wit, and San Diego style dark ale.

The IPA is closer to a session IPA with low alcohol and also fairly low bitterness. It showcases fruity hop notes and is a pretty standard session IPA. The golden ale is a very interesting take on the style. A hefty 7% alcohol it is sticky sweet and showcases tons of spice from the yeast and various tropical fruit notes from the hops including guava sometimes. The Belgian style wit was super cloudy pale yellow. It drinks ridiculously smooth with lots of banana, vanilla, mild citrus, and even notes of tapioca pudding in the sweet finish. With so many breweries making wits to style I very much enjoyed this variation that stood out as delightfully unique. The dark ale was quite bitter and very hoppy. It reminded me of a style common in Portland where they call it a Cascadian Dark Ale. It has a caramel malt backbone and a mildly sweet finish that balances with the strong hop notes.

My first visit to Longship was on June 30, 2016 just before their grand opening. To give a more accurate picture of their quality, I visited them a second time on October 6, 2016. In October they had added a chocolate stout, brown ale, and dopplebock. Based on recommendations from the beertender I got a fresh taster of the Hoppy Belgian to compare to the previous time.

The Hoppy Belgian golden presented tons of spice with some mild fruity hops and a bitter finish. Gone are the tropical notes that made it so interesting originally but this is what happens when they change the hops. I also didn’t notice as much sticky sweetness to this new batch. I ordered the chocolate stout on nitro. It presented tons of bitter chocolate and roast with a dry finish and super thin body. There is very little sweetness in the beer at all. Though it wasn’t my style the beer was well made. The brown ale presented tons of dark fruits that linger on the finish with some mild caramel in the back. I wasn’t a big fan of this beer. The dopplebock was thick and sticky with molasses and chocolate notes and mild dark fruit. This was one of the most impressive of the bunch because so few breweries locally have managed to make interesting dopplebocks. This is the first one I could actually consider drinking.

Longship gets far with their unique theme and overall solid lineup of beers. They clearly have a following from locals who work around the area and want a place to stop in after work. It is worth stopping by especially if you are interested in trying a few styles that aren’t as common locally.

Top 2:
Dopplebock
Belgian style Wit

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

Resident Brewing, Downtown San Diego

October 1, 2016 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Resident Brewing hasn’t gotten a ton of buzz that I have seen around town in part because of their location in the heart of downtown. They are located inside The Local, a bar that recently had a face lift to modernize its previously dark dive bar style interior. They have a solid lineup of beers and are a great addition to the downtown brewery scene. Keep in mind though that later in the evenings the connected bar tends to have very loud music so if that is not your thing, you should try to visit it closer to when they open.

The gose was crisp, dry, refreshing, and not too salty. Though I have had more complex gose, this one is very enjoyable. The saison was fruity and dry with hints of white wine, a solid beer. The oatmeal stout was smooth with notes of chocolate, mild roast and smoke on a medium body. This is a very solid oatmeal stout. The loud mouth hoppy amber was intensely piney and floral with a strong bitter finish. I was given beer from the end of the keg so it may have been better when first tapped. It is quite a malty beer so I would not recommend this compared to the IPAs on tap.

Pio Pico Pale was fruity and exploding with grapefruit over a light malt bill with a nice dry finish. It is one of the more flavorful pale ales I have had in San Diego. The Chasing Galaxy was a delicious hazy IPA with tons of juice and a dry finish. I haven’t yet had a lot of the local hazy beers but this one comes close to many of the excellent ones I have had from elsewhere. The Citra IPA was nice and crisp though seemed to be lacking in the aroma department. It may have simply been on tap for a bit too long and lost its strong aromas.

For a brewery that I hadn’t heard any buzz about prior to visiting, I was quite impressed by the beers at Resident. They had many other beers on tap as well that I didn’t try because I wanted to stick to the styles that sounded interesting to me. You can see some barrels in the brew house so expect to see some barrel aged beers in the future. I wasn’t told what is aging in them.

My additional pour of the delicious Chasing Galaxy IPA.

Top 2:
Pio Pico Pale
Chasing Galaxy

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

Portland Maine Breweries, Oxbow, Bissel Brothers, Foundation, and Maine Beer Company

September 17, 2016 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

The astute reader may want to jump right to the comments section to note that Maine Beer Company is not in Portland Maine. While this is true, the beers are widely enough available in Portland that a review of what I had at the tasting room can be useful for someone planning a trip out to Portland Maine. Oxbow is also not in Portland, the brewery itself is further north, but they have a tasting room available that you can visit where you can buy bottles and try tasters. Sadly, like many trips the number of breweries i could visit was limited by both time and the day of the week when I visited so certain other breweries were not an option either.

Oxbow Blending and Bottling

Oxbow has a tasting room in Portland Maine where they have a good number of beers on tap and offer flights. They also have some guest beers on tap and in bottles that you can drink while you are there. I stuck with the house beers. The basic farmhouse ale was earthy with a nice mix of fruit and funk and some mild hop flavor coming through. Both this and the Loretta are quite low alcohol and yet manage to deliver plenty of flavor. Loretta is also quite subtle but it has some tasty earthy hops, mild fruit notes, and a dry finish. Freestyle 37 is a tasty farmhouse pale that blends the earthy farmhouse malts with fruity hops quite nicely though you might want to skip this and the Domestic Farmhouse IPA if you don’t care for hops.

Domestic Farmhouse IPA is a flagship of theirs and sadly wasn’t availble in bottles when I visited because it was delicious. The beer blended really nicely with the subtle earthy farmhouse malts and delicious juiciy hop character the area is known for. The Biere de Garde was quite complex with notes of dark fruit and caramel and some mild bitterness from the hops.

Top 2:
Domestic Farmhouse IPA
Freestyle 37

Maine Beer Company

Though not in Portland Maine directly, it is a short 30 minute drive or less to Maine Beer Company where you can order flights, buy bottles, or do some full pours. I stuck to the hoppy options because they are most hyped for them. The Beer II Session IPA was quite nice for a session and not too bitter with lots of hop character. The Mo Pale was slightly stronger than the session and added on some fruit notes but was otherwise not drastically different than the session.

Another One IPA was smooth and low on bitterness though I didn’t detect any specific hop flavors. Lunch was a little smoother and has a nice balance of malt character and citrus and resin hops. Lunch would fit right in with the various San Diego IPAs and is quite a tasty beer. I chose to not leave with any bottles, despite their high trade value, because I thought a few of San Diego’s IPA offerings are better and I prefer to only buy individual bottles of hoppy beers if they are quite exceptional especially on a trip where I brought back quite a bit of hoppy beer in cans.

Though Maine Beer Company does brew a stout, it was not available on tap at the time so I am glad we stopped in Vermont and picked up a bottle to taste. It was quite a nice stout with notes of vanilla, tons of roast, and mild smoke character.

What to drink:
If you are going out to Maine Beerc Company, look for Lunch and Dinner, their two most popular IPAs. If you don’t value the tasting room experience you can usually find their beers around Portland Maine quite easily to bring back with you.

Bissel Brothers

I only tried two beers at Bissel Brothers because they were not selling any cans. I found out the hard way that they don’t sell cans on Sundays. The two beers I had were quite good and both made me wish I could buy a few cans. The Rye Pale was super juicy and cloudy with some herbal notes, very impressive. The IPA I tried, their flagship, was juicy with tons of grapefruit and some mild spice. I thought overall the beers at Bissel Brothers and Foundation were more impressive than Maine Beer Company. The tasting room is also quite noisy and tends to get loud even with a small number of people.

What to drink:
Come to Bissel Brothers for IPAs and to try the signature North East style juicy IPAs.

Foundation Brewing

I almost didn’t visit Foundation but since the tap list was limited at Bissel Brothers I wanted to hit another brewery. I tried their Afterglow IPA, Epiphany Double IPA, and imperial stout. The Afterglow was smooth and juicy and not too bitter with some nice orange notes, like drinking orange juice. Epiphany was extra juicy and fruity with lots of citrus character and super smooth, also not very bitter. I thought Epiphany was the best beer I had on tap for the trip and was up there with the Trillium Double IPA cans I brought back with me. They also had an imperial stout on tap, a first for the area, and it was fruity with notes of bitter coffee and a bitter finish, quite a nice stout. My husband ended up having two tasters worth because he liked it so much.

The tasting room at Foundation was a bit small but had a good sized outdoor area open where you could enjoy the beers. Some locals I saw indicated that there is usually more room inside for you to drink. Foundation is also in an area where you will find a bunch of other breweries including Allagash, which happened to be closed the day I was in town. If you make a trip to visit Allagash, keep in mind that doing tours is the best way to taste the most beers.

After some noisy indoor breweries, I was glad to have some outdoor seating options.

What to Drink:
Like Bissel Brothers, this is a brewrery you visit for cloudy juicy North East style IPAs.

Towards the end of my time in Maine I visited Trillium and picked up some cans in Boston. It is easy to add on a visit to pick up cans at the end of a trip if you are returning your rental car at the Boston airport. The store Trillium has in Boston doesn’t get very crowded and so you can quickly buy cans and get on your way.

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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Brewery Without Tasting Room

A Hard Look at Vermont Brewery Legends, Hill Farmstead and The Alchemist

September 10, 2016 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

World class breweres are understandably put on a pedistal because after a while average beer doesn’t satisfy you the same way it once did. But among world class breweries some, for various reasons, don’t allow you to drink much when you visit. Some people prefer to simply show up and buy legendary cans to enjoy at home. I generally travel and visit breweries to both buy their beer and try it first while I am there. At Hill Farmstead you do not have a chance to try their saisons before buying bottles. That isn’t to say that I doubt the quality of the beer but even among beers at world class breweries, individuals differ in their palate preferences. I may have chosen to buy a $30 bottle of the aged saison at Hill Farmstead for example if I had tasted it first.

I happened to visit Hill Farmstead and The Alchemist in the same trip as I visited the world class Montreal Canada brewery Dieu du Ciel and of the two I would sooner return to Dieu du Ciel because I really enjoyed hanging out there. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that I visited both of these breweries and will be enjoying the beers that I purchased from them but the experience of hanging out at a brewery and having a beer before I buy beer to go is something I generally value. And while Trillium’s boston location has similar limitations, one could also quickly stop for beer on the way through with much more ease because they are located in central Boston.

It can be hard for someone who lives in California to conceptualize just how far apart breweries in Vermont are or even just how spread out Vermont is in general. In parts of the North East United States you don’t have cities so much as you have towns. And these cities are sometimes 20 or 30 miles apart. So the drive from The Alchemist to Hill Farmstead takes 50 minutes not so much because the distance is so great but because the roads in between have such low speed limits that you can’t possibly drive that distance in what you would be used to in San Diego or Los Angeles. The closest thing to the roads in Vermont is some smaller roads in the rural outskirts of San Diego. To get out to Valley center you drive through a number of small two lane roads that by nature you can’t drive through very fast. Add to that an hour or so wait in line at The Alchemist at least when I visited and it is an experience I would prefer to not repeat again for a while despite really enjoying the beers I brought back.

The Alchemist

I was excited to visit the new brewery for The Alchemist once it opened because it is the first time that they have made available beers other than heady topper after their two years or so of brewing just the one beer. From what they indicated they have no plans to serve beer on site so if you want to buy the beers other than heady topper you must visit the brewery in Stowe and potentially wait in line for an hour for the opportunity to buy cans of their beer. The beers are fantastic. I enjoyed what I tasted. But I also value the experience of sitting around at a brewery chatting with the other people who made the same pilgrimidge and would rather not have those conversations only in line.

Massive line of people waiting in the sun to buy cans.

You get a few very small tastes of the beer while you are waiting in line, once they let you inside but before you get to purchase the beers. Right now they limit you to purchasing two four packs of each of the double IPAs per person per day. The amount they allow people to buy may fluctuate over time so check their web site to see what is for sale. Though I waited an hour in line it wasn’t a bad experience because I had a lot of great conversations with people I met in line. I would like it much better if they also added a room next door where you can stay and have some full size tasters and even potentially drink some beer on site and relax. Treehouse, in Massachusets, I am told has similar lines and waits for their cans and also doesn’t do tastings, if that is a consideration for you.

Taps from which you get your small tasters.

I wasn’t able to get any cans of Crusher, their other double IPA so I can’t comment on how it tastes. However, cans of Heady Topper and Focal Banger were all quite delicious. I prefer Focal Banger just slightly because you get to taste the English yeast a bit more prominently. Once you notice the flavor in Focal Banger, it becomes more apparent in Heady Topper. I did some experimentation to see if the beers really did taste better straight from the can and found that the bitter hop resins that sink to the bottom are best left in the can until the very end because they can overpower the rest of the beer. As with any beer, some cans in the four packs I got were better than others. Some showcased more prominently the hop aromas and others were more heavily bitter.

I also bought a few cans of their double wit beer while I was there and enjoyed one while I was still in Vermont. It was quite tasty and blended nicely the flavors of added spice usually found in a wit and the spice notes generally associated with Belgian yeast. At 7% alcohol, it was sweet without being cloying and is a nice alternative for someone who isn’t so much into hops.

Hill Farmstead

Hill Farmstead has been named the greatest brewery in the world on a number of occasions. They are a long 50 minute drive from where you can visit The Alchemist in Stowe. There is nothing else in the area and only a handfull of shops in the area sell their beers. This means people in surrounding areas must make the drive pretty regularly to refill their growlers if they want to drink Hill Farmstead IPAs. They have a small area where they serve half pours of a small number of their beers and sell bottles to take away with you, which are generally priced very reasonably, $10 for most bottles and more for barrel aged ones. They also have a main area where they fill growlers and offer half ounce tastes of the different beers on tap.

Also keep in mind that though I found the experience somewhat lacking, it is still much better than it used to be before they renovated the facility. Though admittedly if I had known I would end up just buying bottles there I would have driven myself out there two years ago when I was staying in Burlington rather than skipping it because my husband was busy with other things and unable to drive me as he usually does for the safety of myself and others on the road.

You are going to find the hop forward beers on tap and for growler fills while the farmhouse style ales are served in bottles either for on site consumption or take away. Though I could have tasted a bottle while I was there, I would have ended up sharing with strangers to avoid drinking a whole bottle myself, though it seemed most people there were stopping by for quick growler fills. Growler pricing is also reasonable with $3 for an empty 750ml growler. IPAs are served in growlers and not bottles for freshness reasons. I misread the price of empty growlers when I visited and didn’t realize that only the 2L empty growlers were $10.

For the full list of growlers they fill you can read their growler policy here. Otherwise if buying their growlers when you visit (much easier if you are flying in rather than driving) you can expect to pay a total price of $13 for 750ml of double IPA (factoring in the empty growler). I could tell many locals were coming by with multiple empty growlers to re-fill so they must love those hoppy beers.

I left the brewery with four bottles of their farmhouse ales and am quite looking forward to trying them but I did not buy the double IPA growlers I had considered buying because I misread the prices they charge for an empty growler. I didn’t find the hoppy beers that I sampled while I was there to be drastically different from anything else I have ever tasted in the same style. If anything the lighter hoppy pales were a bit light on the hops for my tastes. Considering that your only option for buying their beer is to drive out into the middle of no where in Vermont you are better off connecting with friends who can give you tastes of their beers. You may find some of the farmhouse ales at certain restaurants in the area but if you want a growler of IPA you have to go to the source. I have been quite impressed by the quality of the farmhouse ales I brought back with me after opening them and they were absolutely worth the cost for bottles.

If you do take the trip out to the brewery despite everything mentioned above I have a few suggestions for you. Take advantage of the area you are driving through and do some hiking or grab some local cheese and farm fresh vegetables around the area and enjoy the experience. We picked up a loaf of bread nearby, some local soft cheese, and some current jelly that we enjoyed really nicely together. Also consider borrowing a growler from a friend if you know someone who has made the trip and takes proper care of their growlers. In that case, the prices for the hoppy beers are quite reasonable. If you are there for farmhouse ales, consider buying in bulk if you have the space and interest in cellaring them.

Corrections:
9-11-16 – This post has been updated to correct an earlier version of the post which inaccurately indicated that empty 750ml growlers are $10 at Hill Farmstead. The post now correctly indicates that empty 750ml growlers are $3 and empty 2L growlers are $10.

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: Craft Beer

32 North Brewing Revisited Again, Second Change of Brewers

Paul McGuire

Longship Brewing, Mira Mesa, San Diego

Paul McGuire

Resident Brewing, Downtown San Diego

Paul McGuire

Portland Maine Breweries, Oxbow, Bissel Brothers, Foundation, and Maine Beer Company

Oxbow Blending and Bottling

Maine Beer Company

Bissel Brothers

Foundation Brewing

Paul McGuire

A Hard Look at Vermont Brewery Legends, Hill Farmstead and The Alchemist

The Alchemist

Hill Farmstead

Paul McGuire

Exploring San Diego's Craft Breweries