Another Saturday in San Diego

My friend Steve and I got down into SD around noon on Saturday and decided to have lunch and a beer at O'Brien's Pub. This was actually the first time I've been there and let's just say I wish this was my neighborhood pub. It's a tiny little place (though lots of outside seating) with a fairly small but amazing selection. Although here were things like Stone 9th Anniversary, Pizza Port Seaside Stout, and Russian River Pliny the Elder, the minute I saw Alpine Pure Hoppiness I ordered a pint almost without hesitation. Having had Exponential Hoppiness before I kinda knew what to expect, but I was hoping for a little less actually than Exponential which is a very thick, syrupy, albeit tasty double IPA. Pure Hoppiness has a wonderful clean and fresh hoppiness to it consisting of lots of citrus. Being a double IPA at 8% ABV, it still has more of a beefed up body so the malt overshadows a lot of the bitterness found in normal IPA's. However, it's not too syrupy, and goes down really well for a double IPA, a style I have been kinda getting tired with.

After a beer and some food at O'Brien's we headed back up to San Marcos to stop in and have a drink at Port Brewing / Lost Abbey. I had a High Tide IPA that was packed with flavor. The hoppiness you get out of this one is more along the floral, herbal type, and there is a very strong bitterness to it. Maybe the most exciting news of the day is that Lost Abbey Red Poppy Ale, a delicious (dare I say as good if not better than New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red) sour cherry beer, is set to be released soon. I thought I heard "February 19th", but maybe it was January 19th since that would make more sense being a Saturday and all. Of course my memory could have just completely recalled it wrong and neither of those dates is right (that tends to happen to me when I'm drinking beer) but the main point is it will come soon. I can't wait. [EDIT: Will be released January 19th per Beer Sage]

After a pint at Port we headed up to Stone to see what was on tap. The list was good, like always, but not a whole lot excited me. One beer that did excite me was Alpine Captain Stout a standard American style stout. Captain Stout is a sweeter stout packed with coffee and chocolate but enough roasted malt bitterness to keep it stout-like. Just another nice beer day in SD.