Tag Archives: Session IPA

Fall Brewing Company – Young San Diego Brewery that is Quite Impressive

February 27, 2016 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

There are a ton of breweries opening all the time and it can be hard for new ones to stick out among the crowd. That is unless they start out making beers as impressive as those from Fall. Fall is probably one of the most hyped up young breweries lately and I figured I would walk away disappointed but found myself really impressed by a lot of what I tasted. I tried two flights while I was there. My first full flight included the Interpretive Dance Session IPA, Jazz Hands Berliner Weisse, English Pale, Spirit of 77 IPA, and Green Hat IPA. I ended with three dark beers including the ever popular 2AM Bike Ride, Apocalypse Pony, and Fall & Oats.

The Interpretive Dance session IPA was surprisingly potent with tons of hop flavor and high bitterness despite a seriously low 3.5% alcohol. It was a solid mix of tropical fruit and citrus with a seriously bitter finish. The Jazz Hands berliner weisse was crisp and delicious with a mild fruity/tart flavor. It also was surprisingly flavorful for a low 3.5% alcohol. This was one of the more flavorful local versions of the style I have had. The English Pale primarily has a lot of apricot flavor with some mild earthy hops and a crisp sweet finish. It didn’t overwhelm with the malts and was overall a very nicely balanced drinkable beer.

Both the Spirit of 77 and Green Hat IPAs were fantastically balanced and delicious. They were both quite similar in many ways, both having a sticky icky sweetness and both not too overwhelmed by the malts. The 77 IPA was fruity with a piney finish and a little more malt balance. The Green Hat tended more towards the juicy guava and pineapple flavors and was overall deliciously fruity. Neither tasted much like any IPA I have had before while they both were excellent examples of the style. After all the hype for 2AM Bike Ride, I wasn’t too excited by it. It was a very smooth light-body stout with intense bitter coffee and a subtle vanilla in the back. It seemed to lack a complexity or roasted malt flavor that I love so much in the style.

The Apocalypse Pony has a strong vanilla flavor with a mellow coffee finish. Again I found the body lacking here and the vanilla was a little too overpowering for me. The Fall & Oats was quite fruity and the fruit was so sweet I almost thought it was vanilla at first. Like the other two I tried, it was lacking the thicker mouthfeel I love in my stouts and didn’t have the chewy oat character I normally love. Despite the stouts being mostly underwhelming for me, I recognize that they are quite popular among other groups. 2AM Bike Ride is a big hit with many of the local beer fans. Still, the two IPAs were so delicious and showed a real skill with blending hop flavors that I don’t see often with young breweries. If you haven’t gotten around to visiting Fall, you should do so soon.

Top 3:
Green Hat IPA
Spirit of 77 IPA
English Pale

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

Bitter Brothers Brewing – Impressive New Brewery in Bay Ho

February 20, 2016 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

I visited Bitter Brothers with a friend recently, and we both agreed about the most impressive beers in the bunch, which surprisingly were not the IPAs. Though the IPAs were all tasty, some less popular/common styles were among our favorites. We tasted the Berliner Weisse, Session IPA, ESB, Dunkelweizen, coffee porter, Amarillo IPA, and North West style IPA. Bitter Brothers is easy to find right off Morena Blvd in an area not yet surrounded by a ton of other breweries.

The Berliner Weisse was a smooth mix of ginger and grapefruit with a mild tart finish. It had a bit more flavor than the typical new brewery version of the style and a lot of subtleties as well. The session IPA has a nice mix of pineapple and grapefruit with a strong bitter finish. I found this one a little too bitter for what it was but I enjoyed it a little more after it warmed up. The hops come on nice and strong for sure. The ESB was super smooth and flavorful with a nice balance of caramel malts and apricot from the hops. It had a lot more flavor than most local versions and we left wanting more.

The Dunkelweizen was also quite impressive with a sweet plum taste and smooth sweet banana and molasses finish. Both of these styles are quite difficult to execute well and often local ESBs are flavorless or Dunkelweizens are too sweet or lack balance. Neither of these beers had those problems. The coffee porter is available on draft and nitro but I asked the bartender which she preferred and she suggested the draft, so we had that one. It was quite tasty with a strong nutty coffee flavor and a medium body. The taste was almost like a cold brew coffee.

Second set of tasters. I forgot to take a photo right away.

The Amarillo IPA was super fruity with flavors of mango and tangerine. It is a solid version of the local style, low on the malt bill and very hop forward. The North West IPA is the amber color beer you see. It was nicely balanced and bursting with herb and pine hops with notes of sage and a strong bitter finish. They were both enjoyable IPAs though neither of us was craving these as much as the ESB or coffee porter. The IPA you prefer will depend on your preference for hop flavors. Thankfully the North West IPA did not taste like a lot of the boring old-school Portland IPAs that rely too heavily on pine hops.

For a brewery that has only been open a month or so, we were both quite impressed by the beers. Come visit Bitter Brothers with a friend and share a few tasters.

Top 3:
Coffee Porter
ESB
Dunkelweizen

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

Highland Park Brewing Company – Highland Park Los Angeles

January 9, 2016 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Highland Park Brewing resides inside a bar called La Hermonsillo that you might quickly ignore as you walk past wondering why anyone would want to be seen inside. With a logo that could easily be mistaken as relating to a strip club or seedy dive bar, a friend I met with there had never gone inside despite living very close. The neighborhood doesn’t have the best reputation either. The night before visiting the brewery I mentioned my plans to some people at another brewery around town and they cautioned against my stepping foot in the neighborhood, though when I assured them that I occasionally visit Tijuana they thought I should be fine.

The sign out front you might see driving by. Doesn't exactly seem like a brewery. — The sign out front you might see driving by. Doesn’t exactly seem like a brewery.

Like many breweries, Highland Park Brewing can get quite the crowd during the middle of a Sunday. Some people may be visiting to pick up a few bottles from an online release. Like many breweries that offer sours, the tasters are not very cheap. Some can be as much as $4 or $5, though for a sour that is fairly typical. I tried a total of six tasters while I was there plus a larger pour of another beer. I tasted the Beer Spaceship session IPA, Partly Cloudy IPA, pumpkin porter, Griffith J. Griffith, Pushin Carts, Raised Eyebrows, and Wakeup Coffee Beer.

The Spaceship session IPA was a flavorful session IPA with flavors primarily of pineapple and tropical fruit. It made for a nice contrast with the Partly Cloudy IPA that tasted more of grapefruit and tangerine. Both beers were light colored and low on the malt bill. I almost filled a growler with the Partly Cloudy IPA but I decided against it. The pumpkin porter was nice and balanced with some mild pumpkin flavor and subtle spices. The beer’s light body contrasted nicely with the thick, sticky, and sweet Griffith J. Griffith, a 13% monster of an imperial stout. Bottles of the imperial stout had been sold online and were no longer available but I was tempted to pick up one if I could. The beer was quite sweet and had a nice intense coffee flavor.

Pushin Carts, a tart saison, was very tasty with a light body and mild tart finish. The beer is subtle yet flavorful, with the familiar saison flavor and hints of fruit. In contrast the Raised Eyebrows, passion fruit sour, was intensely bitter, showcasing the passion fruit and guava while still tasting like beer. I really enjoyed both of these beers and was tempted to pick up a bottle of Pushin Carts. I ended with the nitro Wakeup Coffee Stout, a thin, creamy, coffee-forward beer that could almost be mistaken for cold brew coffee. It had all the delicious characteristics of a coffee beer, without getting too bitter on the back end.

Though the tasters were a bit expensive, the beers were quite delicious and the sours weren’t overly expensive for the style. The bar also has a few guest beers as well as a fairly solid menu of food. We ended up ordering some sliders, polenta bites, and the charcuterie and cheese board and they were all quite well-done. Because they are located in a neighborhood with a lot of Mexican food you could easily stop by a place nearby for a bite before visiting the brewery. They also surprisingly have some parking behind the place, which was great to see.

Top 2:
Partly Cloudy IPA
Raised Eyebrows

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

Three Weavers Brewing – Los Angeles California

January 2, 2016 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Three Weavers Brewing is right off the 405 freeway and relatively close to LAX and El Segundo Brewing. I didn’t try as many beers as I might have when I visited because you have to choose one of the set flights of 5 beers, either $10 for the core or $15 for the specialty. This turns out to be either $2 or $3 a taster depending on the flight. Thankfully they do serve half pours of the other beers available so I did end up trying one of the specialty beers after the core flight. Perhaps they had too many people ignoring the ESB and Kolsch lager that they wanted to give people a reason to try them.

My flight included the kolsch, session IPA, expatriate IPA, ESB, imperial stout, and then I added a half pour of the coffee stout at the end. The kolsch is unfiltered and has a medium bitterness that joins with some citrus. The hops were nicely present, a lot more than in other local versions. It is quite a nice easy drinking yet hoppy kolsch. The session IPA was even more bitter than the kolsch with a nice citrus hop kick. Also a solid beer. The Expatriate IPA was thick and resinous with a good combination of tropical and mango flavor from the hops. It manages to be true to the West Coast style of IPA without having that overpowering simcoe flavor.

The ESB was quite tasty with a good balance of bready malts and earthy hops. I was also a bit surprised how much I could taste the complex flavors of the beer after the IPA despite many of the flavors being fairly subdued. I could easily have drunk a pint of the ESB. The imperial stout was a nice mix of caramel with mild smoke and dark fruit. Everything blended together nicely so that neither flavor dominated or became unwelcome. The coffee stout was really smooth and nutty with a high caffeine kick. We enjoyed the smooth coffee flavors and left with a bottle.

Three Weavers is fairly easy to get to and worth a visit for those of you who like a solid hoppy beer or a stout. They didn’t have a lot of other varieties available but they do such a great job with what they do that it doesn’t matter. I was especially glad how delicious the ESB is because it is a hard style to give a good amount of flavor while remaining light and drinkable. The tasting room has plenty of seating both inside and out with the occasional food truck on site.

Top 2:
Expatriate IPA
ESB

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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Craft Beer Bar

Abnormal Beer Company inside The Cork and Craft

April 8, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

The Cork and Craft opened sometime last year offering a wide tap selection, good wine selection, and a menu of upscale food. They already hosted quite a few events including one featuring Stone’s Xocoveca Mexican Chocolate Stout where you could meet the Tijuana brewers who worked with Stone. On April 7, 2015 they had the official opening of their house brewery known as Abnormal Beer Company. This meant the first set of house beers was available on tap.

I came up to see what they were brewing and tried the session IPA, mocha stout, IPA, and cask mocha stout with honey. The Session IPA was crisp and lightly bitter, in line with the other San Diego session beers. Some hop heads might find it too low on bitterness compared with a Stone Go To IPA. Comparatively the IPA was a powerful 7.6% while not much more bitter than the typical pale ale. The IPA was a little sticky and packed in some delicious tropical fruit, lemon and orange flavors and was mild enough that people who are scared away from IPAs might enjoy it.

The Mocha Stout was a very flavorful stout for just over 5% alcohol, blending nicely a strong coffee flavor with chocolate and signature roasted malt flavors. This certainly gives the Black House from Modern Times a run for its money. Compared to the regular, the cask stout was a bit too mild for me, mostly because of the addition of the honey. An already smooth beer from the cask became a little too mellow with the honey although you could still taste a little bit of the coffee.

Though I would have liked to have been able to order tasters of the house beers, I got a good taste with the 8 ounce pours of each. Both the IPA and Mocha Stout would be worth ordering a pint if you are interested in their house beers and fans of the styles. When I am in need of a place for a pint in the area I will certainly be coming back after seeing the wide variety of beers available on tap. For those in the area looking for a good location to have a pint after work Cork and Craft has something on tap for everyone, even your friends who only drink wine.

Pork belly dish I shared with my neighbors.

Before I left I got a chat with the brewer who mentioned that they will be planning some multi-course beer dinners going forward where big breweries from all over will get a chance to pair beers with their chef’s creations. This will also give them a chance to put one of their house brews in the lineup to get people to try them.

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: Session IPA

Fall Brewing Company – Young San Diego Brewery that is Quite Impressive

Paul McGuire

Bitter Brothers Brewing – Impressive New Brewery in Bay Ho

Paul McGuire

Highland Park Brewing Company – Highland Park Los Angeles

Paul McGuire

Three Weavers Brewing – Los Angeles California

Paul McGuire

Abnormal Beer Company inside The Cork and Craft

Paul McGuire

Exploring San Diego's Craft Breweries