Some New Beers Had In San Diego

Tried a couple new ones while at Toronado in San Diego. This is what was left of my Green Flash 30th Street Pale Ale. Probably much closer to an IPA. In fact it had way more hop flavor than many of the more average IPA's or DIPA's. It was a real resiny hoppiness and kinda harsh. That's a compliment though.



The next was Firestone Velvet Merkin. An oatmeal stout, I'm not sure of its ABV. It was pretty good. Kinda weird in that when I tried to smell it I got absolutely nothing. A friend confirmed this. After I got about half the glass down I was able to get a small roastiness out of it. The flavor was a bit more robust. Chocolate and roasted barley... very nice, fairly silky from the oats. A good beer.


I don't really remember what this next beer tasted like. It was a champagne beer like Deus I think but I didn't order it. In fact this is what my friend Steve ordered. Me and Brian had imperial pints of Blind Pig to work on. About 5 minutes after Steve ordered this he got the chain around his neck pulled on and had to go pick up his girlfriend from work. We got left with his lunch and this $20 bottle of beer. Thankfully the whole tab at Hamilton's later in the night was on him.




Lastly, after a couple glorious pints of Green Flash West Coast IPA and Bear Republic Racer 5 at Hamilton's we went with a new beer and picked Fantome Noel. Crazy thing this is. It was basically a dark farmhouse ale. Lots of chocolate in this thing but with all that Fantome yeast funkiness of sweaty socks. Was pretty good.