San Diego for Isabelle Proximus

There she is. Isabelle Proximus brought to us by the good brewers of Port/Lost Abbey, Russian River, Dogfish Head, Allagash, and Avery. This would of course be Tomme Arthur, Vinnie Cilurzo, Sam Calagione, Rob Todd, and Adam Avery. If you aren't familiar with this beer, the group brewed this beer together and then each one supplied a barrel and a yeast strain to the making of the beer. It was an excellent sour beer and I thoroughly enjoyed my glass. It is almost on the sour level of Beatification, had a tiny amount of funk to it, and just overall bright flavors and sourness. If you happen to get any of the 400 cases total that were made consider yourself lucky.

We didn't stick around at Lost Abbey too long since we had to get back by the late afternoon and we had other place we wanted to hit. First up was Green Flash brewing company a few miles down the road in Vista. Their website states tasting room hours on Saturday are from 11-3, at least when I checked it last week. We got there at 11:30 to visit the tasting room only to find locked doors. Yeah, they now open at noon for their tastings and I hadn't checked back on their website to see if any changes had been made. My bad I guess. But we were really hungry so we didn't want to wait around, so we made our way another few miles down the road to Pizza Port Carlsbad. Here we had some pizza and I had the Poor Man's IPA. I was really hoping Hop Suey would be on tap but it wasn't, and I figured Poor Man's IPA was a single IPA. After finishing my tasty pint of this I was informed it is actually a double (the bartender said above 10%, although Beer Advocate lists ~8%). Got a growler of that and we were on our way.

The next stop on our journey was kinda out of the way, about a 45 minute drive from Carlsbad down to Alpine Beer Company to get 3 growlers of Pure Hoppiness. Yes, we drove that far out of our way (opposite of the way home was) to get just under 200 oz's of Pure Hoppiness. That's how much I like it. Unfortunately no other IPA's were available (Duet IPA should be ready next week) otherwise I would have gotten more. Oh, one huge shout out to Alpine. They charge under $10 a 64 oz. growler for this amazingly tasty Double IPA known as Pure Hoppiness (earlier in the day I was surprised Pizza Port charged me $20 to fill a growler of Poor Man's IPA in a growler I already own! Yes I checked to make sure that was correct and the guy at the bar said pitchers of it cost that much so my growler does too- sucks huh? If he hadn't already filled it when I found out the price I would have passed).

After the quick Alpine stop we headed up to Stone World Bistro & Gardens to purchase some 12th Anniversary tickets and a growler of their IPA. We also went to the bar to have a beer. I chose Oskar Blues Dale's Pale Ale which I've had before and enjoy. It's really an IPA, and a tasty one at that. My friend Steve ordered a Mad River Steelhead Extra Pale Ale which he started to drink but didn't like. We switched glasses and I drank the Mad River. I actually really liked it, since I was in the mood for something lighter in alcohol and flavor at this point. It has a fairly subtle fruitiness to balance out the light grain that comes though. Refreshing on this warm windy afternoon.

We got home back to Upland and our friend Adam called us to let us know there were two extra tickets for his suite at Dodger stadium for that night's Angels (my favorite team) vs. Dodgers game. It was fun, I had 2 crappy Coor's Lights and a water that was more flavorful, and my Angels pitched a no-hitter..... AND STILL LOST! What a ridiculous game to have to watch amongst all the Raider... I mean Dodger fans. Anyway, we finished the night at The Back Abbey, a new Belgian beer bar close to home in Claremont, CA, with a Moinette Blond and Saison Dupont. I do recommend checking out The Back Abbey if in the Inland Valley, it's a great new place and not your standard Inland Empire trashy bar.