Tag Archives: Featured

Booze Brothers Brewing Vista CA

July 18, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Less than a mile from Barrel Harbor Brewing is Booze Brothers, another brewery that has been open for less than two years. It is hard to believe that the breweries are of different ages because Booze Brothers has a much more polished look inside and did a great job pulling off their theme of old west imagery. I had heard some great things about Booze Brothers before visiting and I was quite glad to see them showcasing some less common styles including a biere de garde and a brett farmhouse.

I tried quite a few more tasters at Booze Brothers and thankfully my husband was with me to help me with the stouts and drive back. Otherwise I would have had to limit myself to a small number. I started with four tasters, the Old Crow IPA, High Horse brett saison, Green Eyed Amber, and Easy Rider Brown. I later tried the Ol’ Grandaddy’s IIPA, Sundown Stout, Lights out Lupus biere de garde, and Pick up Porter.

The Old Crow IPA was an OK IPA with a medium amount of citrus and lightly bitter. It didn’t have much that made it stick out though. The High Horse brett saison was a very nice refreshing saison with just the right amount of funk and a good amount of fruit from the brett. The Green Eyed Amber was an interesting fruit forward amber beer with a light amount of honey. It was also quite smooth. The Easy Rider Brown was good and sweet and nutty with a light chocolate flavor. The higher alcohol here made it a little more my style.

The Ol’ Grandaddy’s IIPA was good and dank with a medium amount of bitterness and not too sweet. Still, like the other IPA it didn’t really do much to stick out. The Sundown Stout was a nice blend of chocolate, roasted malts, and a bit of dark fruits. The fruits blended nicely with the rest of it so as not to overpower the rest. Lights out Lupus was my favorite of the evening. This delicious Biere De Garde was bursting with dark apricot and some smooth yeasty saison flavors. This one should absolutely be made a regular at some point. Finally the Pick up Porter was a nice intense coffee flavored stout that got the flavors just right.

Good and roomy tasting room with a few couches.

I was impressed by the variety of beers offered at Booze Brothers and especially by the two saisons they had on tap. The IPAs could use some improvement though, as the Nugget IPA at Barrel Harbor was much better than anything hoppy at booze brothers. It certainly seems like the brewery is growing nicely and should be one to watch in the coming years.

Tap handles appear to be made from antlers of some sort.

Top 3:
Lights out Lupus, Biere de Garde
High Horse, brett saison
Pick Up 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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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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Tasting Room

Monkish Brewing Company – Orange County CA

April 10, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Monkish was my second stop in the Torrance area. After visiting Smog City I felt a craving for something different. I quite enjoyed the Belgian style beers at Monkish that offered plenty of heavy carbonation as comes with the styles. Rather than giving you all four beers in the flight at the same time, Monkish gives you a glass and some tokens so that you give them a new token each time you are ready for the next beer. This way people can enjoy the beers in a proper glass and focus on them one at a time. In the flight I tasted the Sepia Belgian brown, Brown Habit brown farmhouse, Anomaly dark Belgian and Funky Habit brown saison with brett. I returned the next day and had a taste of the Hem & Haw wild ale also with brett.

From the first sip of the Sepia I was hooked. It had plenty of delicious Belgian spice mixed nicely with the roasted malts flavors and a little bit of bitter chocolate. After the Sepia I went for the Brown Habit which was poured from a bottle. It had a very smooth finish and a nice dark fruit flavor that mixed nicely with a little bit of caramel flavor. Adding in the mild sweetness I thought this was perfectly balanced. I ended up taking home a growler of the Sepia and two bottles of the Brown Habit when I stopped by the next day on my way home.

The Anomaly dark Belgian had a nice dark fruit flavor with a light coffee flavor. The heavy spice and carbonation were good but it did not live up to the other beers in the list. I ended with the Funky Habit, a brett version of a brown saison. It had a nice flavor of stone fruit and a light amount of tartness. This was also quite good.

I would have liked to have tried more beers while at Monkish but with one more brewery to go for the day I didn’t want to overdo it. I did have a taste of the Hem & Haw dark saison with brett yeast when I returned for some bottles on my way home. It had an interesting light smoke that combined with some roasted malts and dark fruits. However, the beer was quite light in body and didn’t have the full flavor that I got from the other beers I tried the previous day.

In all I was very impressed by the beers I was able to taste at Monkish especially the Sepia and Brown Habit. I hope to return the next time I am in the area to have a taste of some of their other many offerings. Monkish has a very nice tasting room with plenty of places to sit. This was the first time I encountered sacks of grain used as chairs. Monkish is close enough to Smog City that you can easily walk between the two. Check back next week for my coverage of the grand opening of Phantom Carriage featuring some delicious dark sours.

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/Restaurant

Beachwood BBQ – Long Beach California

March 21, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

I visited Beachwood bbq for the first time on Sunday March 1st after driving 30 minutes north of John Wayne Airport where I landed coming back from a trip. I had heard such good things both about the food and the beers that I had to make the trip. What I found was some very tasty food and a great selection of house beers that were quite flavorful. There are actually two locations, one in Long Beach and one in Seal Beach. I’m told that the Long Beach location is easier to park and that the Seal Beach location has better guest taps.

I tasted a lot of IPAs there because they have a good reputation for getting the flavors right. I also tasted a few saisons and a really delicious stout. From what I have been told very few of these beers are regularly available because they like to experiment with new things regularly. However, with such good beers in the range I tasted that day I have no doubt that future beers will be delicious as well.

My first flight started with the Alpha Bomb pale ale, the Thrill Seeker IPA, the FV8 IPA and the American stout. The alpha bomb pale was very tasty showcasing the typical West Coast style flavors perfectly. The beer had lots of citrus and kept the malt lower than the typical pale. Then I moved on to the thrill seeker that was a very enjoyable IPA showcasing some really bright mandarin orange flavor. I might have ordered a pint if I wasn’t tasting so many beers.

Next came the FV8 IPA. Though this one was tasty, the floral hops just couldn’t stand up to the previous delicious citrus beers. Still it was very smooth and well made. According to the description these beers starting with FV are the first batch to come out of various fermentation tanks. This one being the first brew out of tank number 8. To end the flight I had the American stout. It was good and smoky with a nice thick body showcasing plenty of good caramel and toffee flavors. My husband was with me and ordered a pint of this stout. Stouts and porters are all he likes.

Beachwood Brewing 10 — My second flight of the day. Two saisons are the lighter colored beers.

For the second flight I added a few saisons and went for the stronger IPAs. I tasted the Rose Royce saison, Un Atout saison, Ultra Hop 2000, and Hop Ninja. The Rose Royce saison was a flavorful saison with good amount of pepper and spice sticking to the traditional flavors. In comparison the Un Atout saison had much more citrus. I enjoyed the departure from the traditional style here because the citrus went nicely with the beer.

The Ultra hop 2000 was a perfectly balanced and delicious west coast style ipa with plenty of grapefruit and citrus. It had a solid amount of bitterness as well. This one as well I would have ordered a pint if I wasn’t doing so many tasters. I really savored every sip of this taster. In comparison the Hop Ninja was a bit disappointing. Without the sweetness I wouldn’t know it was stronger than ultra hop. While not as bitter it had many flavors reminiscent of the Enjoy By IPA from stone but didn’t quite make it. I would almost suggest placing this one before the hop 2000 on the flight. I was also not a fan of the malts used and thought the hops didn’t balance out the malts enough.

Overall, this is a brewery that hop heads in the area should absolutely visit. Besides their stellar collection of house beers, they have plenty of guest beers as well. Food wise, I was very impressed by the smokehouse burger, though at half a pound you should split it with someone else. My husband really enjoyed his kale side and the sweet potato fries. The brisket was OK but I have had better elsewhere including San Diego bbq joints.

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

Toolbox Brewing Company – Vista – The Brewery That Showed Me How Delicious Brett Can Be.

February 27, 2015 Paul McGuire 1 Comment

POST UPDATE: This post was written almost a year ago now and there was a big change towards the end of 2015 that resulted in a change of brewers at Toolbox. More updated information is available on my new post Toolbox Revisited.

To the uninitiated you might think that having a bunch of brett beers (short for brettanomyces, a wild yeast that brings out some interesting flavors in beers) would mean pointlessly tart and funky brews. I certainly fell into that trap when I first heard that most of their beers were moving over into the brett family. Thankfully, as others have so nicely told me, my ignorance has proved incorrect and the resulting beers are delicious.

I don’t fully understand the things that make brett a favorite among certain sectors of the craft beer fans. But from what I got to taste today at Toolbox, they are doing a great job getting the right flavors from it for each beer such that it enhances the already delicious flavors. Yes there are some tart beers here and some of them might not be your thing right away but they are still very tasty and complex in just the right way. And they might be what turns you into a tart lover.

Toolbox isn’t the easiest brewery to find either, hidden away in a tech park that I happened to pull into just as I was beginning to wonder if I had passed it. Luckily for me I turned at the right time and Google informed me that it was in that very parking lot. Like most locations of breweries you wouldn’t guess when you pull in that this is the sort of place to encounter a brewery, but as soon as you see the food truck outside you know you are in the right place.

Tart and sour beers are becoming a bit of an obsession to a small portion of the craft beer community in San Diego where complexity and quality of flavor trumps bitter hop bombs. In San Diego these beers are mostly limited to Council Brewing, which has built up a following around its flavored varieties of the tart saison, Lost Abbey, with its sours and farmhouse ales, and more recently Toolbox and Latitude 33.

I split my tasting at Toolbox into two sets of 4 tasters. Sadly, they don’t have a discount for having multiple tasters so you can easily spend $18 before tip on 8 tasters. But after you taste the beers you aren’t going to mind because all of them are high quality even if some might not be for you. The first round included the IPA, pale ale, saison, and milk stout.

I started with the IPA and immediately I was overwhelmed with an intense grapefruit flavor that I assume was enhanced by the brett yeast. The beer was mildly tart and got close to being too mouth-puckering but it overall resembled a typical west coast style IPA and did so nicely. Next came the pale ale and it also had a mild tartness to it but combined with more of a pineapple flavor. This combined with a nice light sweetness made this a very solid pale ale. This didn’t have any of the typical dark malt colors or flavors you usually see from the style.

The saison was quite an impressive version boasting great amounts of spice and pepper with a good balance among everything. The addition of the brett made it a bit more harsh than the Lost Abbey saison but it still was nicely balanced and very tasty. The milk stout was so deliciously roasty that I would have sworn it had coffee added. Turns out it has none so I was all the more impressed. Despite being a milk stout it was not overly sweet as some can be and would satisfy those dark beer fans who accompany friends to toolbox.

My next flight included the Tart X, the sweet baby trey (a farmhouse ale with brett) and My Cousin Strawberry and Purple Drink, two fruit flavored beers. Purple drink was a boysenberry beer. Tart X took a while to get used to, being much more tart than anything I had in the first flight. After adjusting a little bit I found the lemon flavors to be quite nice and actually enjoyed it.

Next came sweet baby trey, which was my absolute favorite of the day. This famhouse ale mostly came at me with sweetness though nothing overpowering or cloying. It had a nice spice flavor that reminded me of Belgian yeast and overall was the most delicious of the bunch.

Next came my cousin strawberry, a beer that had just the right combination of strawberry and kiwi with a very mild tart flavor. The color of the beer was very interesting as well, almost a light pink. The purple drink was a nice dark purple color and was mildly tart as well. This one was based on the saison and had plenty of good berry flavor. Fruit beers being what they are most of these are smaller batch and so the flavors available might be different when you visit the brewery.

Some may have seen me call Toolbox bold for moving their beers to mostly brett. I can safely say that the beers were all very well-made and balanced. I was also glad to hear that there is another even more traditional west coast style IPA in the pipeline as well, which should satisfy some who don’t like what I got to try. Having now tried the beers available at Toolbox I can say that they made the right decision and the complexity of flavors helps them stand out.

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: Featured

Booze Brothers Brewing Vista CA

Paul McGuire

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

Paul McGuire

Monkish Brewing Company – Orange County CA

Paul McGuire

Beachwood BBQ – Long Beach California

Paul McGuire

Toolbox Brewing Company – Vista – The Brewery That Showed Me How Delicious Brett Can Be.

Paul McGuire

Exploring San Diego's Craft Breweries