Brace Yourselves...#SDBW Is Here!

In a way, I am glad October is over. Don’t get me wrong, it is probably my favorite month of the year. I mean, who doesn’t like having an excuse to dress slutty, drink pumpkin beers, go to the Great American Beer Festival, go to the Santa Barbara Beer Festival or see Red Fang at the Casbah? Don’t worry, I didn’t dress slutty at Red Fang.

It really was one hell of a month, but I’m glad it’s over so I can finally relax-- and by relax I mean drink more beer within a ten day period then I probably drink in one year. That’s right, I’m talking about San Diego Beer Week which starts today and continues until November 11th. Sure, it’s technically a little longer than a week, but you know that 7 days isn’t enough to celebrate America’s Finest Craft Beer City! You can head on over to the SDBW events page by clicking here and this year they even included a nice “Add to Calendar” feature for each event so you can sync it your iCal, Google Calendar, Yahoo etc. Here’s some of the events I’ll be checking out this weekend if you’re interested in meeting up and talking beer:

Friday Nov. 2nd

Karl Strauss’s Brew Your Own Brunch - http://sdbw.org/events/3275/
Pizza Port OB’s San Diego IPA Extravaganza - http://sdbw.org/events/3506/
O’ Brien’s Pub 10 Tasty Treats from Alpine Brewing - http://sdbw.org/events/3241/

Saturday Nov. 3rd

Toronado’s 3rd Annual IPA Blowout (50 IPA’s on tap!!) - http://sdbw.org/events/3634/
Public House’s Russian River/Bear Republic Tap Takeover - http://sdbw.org/events/3534/

Sunday Nov. 4th

Hamilton’s Man the Victory at Sea Fleet - http://sdbw.org/events/3337/
Amplified Ale Works’ Farm to Table Beer and Bacon Brunch - http://sdbw.org/events/3612/
Sessions Public’s Duvel Art Glass Brunch - http://sdbw.org/events/3648/’


That’s all I got for now but I may try and sneak out to a few more since the events list seems to update each day with more and more SDBW goodness! Are you planning on going to any events? If so, comment below and let us know which events suit your palate!

Cheers,
Charles Eck

Goodbye NovemBeer...

I feel like November came and went faster than the Alaskan IPA I just drank a few minutes ago. That puts us just one month closer to the year of the Apocalypse, according to the Mayan calendar at least. I guess that means we better get as much beer drinking in before then, right? Well, let’s just say that if my past year had a pie chart for total beer consumed, November would probably make up 70% of that pie.

I'm finally starting to feel back to normal after the madness that was San Diego Beer Week which took place at the beginning of the month. The ten day celebration of our very own craft beer mecca was nothing short of amazing. With over 450 events to choose from, I definitely had a lot of choices as well as sacrifices to make for SDBW. It was a craft beer odyssey in which my taste buds ventured into the depths of hopped, malted and roasted blissfulness. I tried to make it to at least one event for each day of the fest so I’m going to try my best to tell this story as it happened. Full story after the jump.

Rosey's Diary: November 11-15, 2011

I wrote briefly about Monday's show at the Soda Bar with Joshua James, Desert Noises, and Honeyhoney, but last night I woke up in the midst of a dream turned panic attack and I realized I wanted to write about the awesome weekend to settle my nerves about a bunch of the other bullshit that is swirling in my brain at the moment. So let me just rewind a bit, for my own therapy. This one is gonna be really long, so read after the jump if you feel so inclined.

photo credit: Johanna B-K (age 4)

SDBW: Checking In

Beer week kicked off with a rainy Friday in San Diego. My good friend and beer blogger Jonathan and I had made plans to hang out on Friday and somehow a noon lunch ended up starting closer to 3 after he kindly ran some errands with me (a ride to my credit union is hard to come by sometimes). We decided to try Tiger Tiger, the newish spot on El Cajon near 30th brought to you by the people behind Blind Lady. We had planned on eating a pizza at Blind Lady later, so we opted to share the fried oyster po boy. It was delicious but the half sandwich ended up being the only thing I ate all day. Such a rookie mistake. I'll get back to that later.

SDBW: Let the Games Begin...

Decisions, decisions.

I have plenty of them to make over the next 10 days since today marks the beginning of the third annual San Diego Beer Week. With over 400 events scheduled between now and Nov. 13th, it's looking to be an adventurous (and expensive) journey through this craft beer extravaganza!

For those of you who have been itching to learn about the local craft beer scene or about craft beer in general, this is a great opportunity to get out there and taste the liquid gold. The majority of San Diego's breweries, craft beer bars and restaurants will be celebrating SDBW with specials, festivals and plenty of taps to choose from. There are several events planned throughout SDBW which give you the opportunity to meet the headbrewers of different local breweries including the award-winning Ballast Point. In my experience, most of the headbrewers are always happy to answer any questions you might have about the brewing process, so feel free to pick their brain and have them answer all your craft beer uncertainties!  If you're more of a grub and grog type of person, there are also plenty of food pairing events taking place throughout SD. These events allow you to try amazing beers with equally as amazing food pairings. If you happen to be heading to the Brewer's Guild Festival tomorrow afternoon, the VIP session will be offering pairings for all attendees. I will be at the fest tomorrow enjoying my favorites and listening to the tunes of Dead Feather Moon, The Bloody Hollies and Family Wagon, so come on by and let's have a drink, or two, or ten.

A whole list of the events that makeup SDBW can be found here:

www.sdbw.org/events

For those of you who have been planning on this for weeks, well, I think it goes without saying, be safe out there and cab it up. Even better, if you've been wanting to hangout with that friend that doesn't drink, have them be your designated driver for the day or night!

I'll be jumping around to as many events as I can and will try to post about them but as Rosemary mentioned before, sometimes we spend more time drinking and less time typing! haha! I'll be heading to Ballast Point later for their Victory at Sea Day where they'll be pouring the famous Vanilla/Coffee Imperial Porter in six different variations! I'll then most likely be spending the rest of the evening at O'Brien's pub where they'll be hosting Alpine Brewing's Beer Bonanza!

Where will you be tonight on the first eve of SDBW?

Cheers,
Charles Eck

San Diego Beer Week Is Almost Here!

San Diego Beer Week is rapidly approaching and though I'm sure my beer guys Charles, Jonathan, and maybe even Mike might chime in about events and such, in my experience they sometimes spend more time drinking and less time typing.

If you're going to participate in any of the beer events, take the time to get familiar with the SDBW site because the event page is kinda disorganized and challenging to navigate.

Don't forget the Guild party joined forces with FM 94/9 and takes place this Saturday at Liberty Station from 1-5pm (or 11am for VIP).

Beer week takes place from November 4-13 at participating locations all over the county.

Have fun, be safe and don't forget to hashtag #SDBW share your beer adventures!

San Diego Beer Blog
LoveLikeBeer

The Calm Before the SDBW Storm...

Ah yes, Pints for the Park. We certainly drank a few pints this past weekend. Actually, we drank many of them at the Pints for the Park Santa Barbara Beer Festival. This annual event takes place every October to help benefit beautiful Elings Park as well as the Santa Barbara Rugby Association. My girlfriend’s father happens to be the assistant VP of the Rugby Association and helps to put on this festival every year, so there is no reason for us not to go.

Representing the San Diego Craft Beer community, Karl Strauss and Stone Brewing were on site to pour some their popular ales. Karl Strauss served their Tower 10 IPA, Red Trolley and Whistler Imperial Pils while Stone poured their Smoked Porter, Cali-Belgique and Arrogant Bastard. While it was nice to taste the familiar SD beers, I was impressed to see a lot of Santa Barbara and central-California based breweries filling my glass.

The picture you see above was a pour from The Brewhouse, based in Santa Barbara. They had a Ghost Chili Porter that was quite possibly the spiciest beer I have ever tasted. Now, I know that our very own Ballast Point puts out it’s Habanero Sculpin as well as the recent Indra Kunindra Curry Stout, which both have their fair share of kick to them, but I can usually finish those with barely a drop of sweat on my brow. The Brewhouse’s Ghost Chili Porter kicked my ass. It kicked a lot of people’s asses. For those of you who may not know, the Ghost Chili, also known as the Bhut Jolokia, is considered one of the hottest chilis in the world and has the spice capacity to make a jalapeno taste like a frozen mint. The headbrewer at The Brewhouse explained that he used a combination of Habaneros and Ghost Chilis then let them soak in the fermenter to kick up the spice. Let’s just say that there was no shortage of this beer at the fest since it was the palate wrecker of all palate wreckers.