Saturday Fun In San Diego

Well, maybe not San Diego, but North San Diego County as in San Marcos and Escondido. We arrived down to the 10am release of The Lost Abbey Red Poppy at 9:30 to a much bigger line than we experienced at the Angel's Share or Older Viscosity release. With a half hour to go until the doors open we were about #60 in line and when the doors opened at 10 there were plenty of people behind us. As usual the whole process was flowing nicely, and making it easier is the fact that they (mostly Beer Molly) serve you beer while standing in line. We all had tasters of Red Poppy and some pints of Old Viscosity and Red Barn.

We got our bottles by ~11am and took off relatively fast to get to Stone and do a tour. While waiting for that to start we sat at the bar and had some beers. I went with the Ballast Point Victory At Sea Imperial Coffee Porter. Now I've had a few beers who's coffee character is big, namely Kona Pipeline Porter and Founders Breakfast Stout, or hell even Alesmith Speedway Stout, but this beer trumped all of those in the coffee category. In both aroma and taste this was just like dark, cold, roasted coffee. And it was amazing.

After the tour we went to Churchill's for lunch. They had a pretty good rotating tap lineup of Pliny the Elder, Alesmith Speedway Stout, and Alpine Duet IPA, among others. I had a pint of the Alpine Duet. This IPA is ALL citrus. There's not much bitterness to it either as they really go for a juicy citrus punch, and it's very tasty.