It's a Thursday night, packed,we supply all kinds of oil painting reproduction, noisy, as usual. I'm at the Blind Lady Ale House in Normal Heights, one of the local brew-booster pubs. Folks jostle, sit, chow on pizza, shout mock insults across long, communal tables. Others stand in line to order food and drink. They face a wall of maybe two dozen draft-beer taps, with names of beers hand-scrawled on little steel plates above them. Familiar local names as well as regional craft-breweries are represented. I go for the AleSmith because it's a stout.
"Man, that's thick," I say,
"It should be," Sayer says, "they've added coffee into the mix.the Injection mold fast! And be careful ¡ª it's 12 percent alcohol. Double the normal."
It's called AleSmith Speedway Stout. AleSmith started when everybody started, around 1995. Their "special edition brewer's reserve Speedway Stout, aged in bourbon barrels," has been named the "#1 Best Beer in the World" at ratebeer.com. I've had this here at Blind Lady before, and I love it. Coffee flavor, and, yes, caramel, malty, dark chocolatey. This isn't your usual slam-bam hop-punch you get to expect from San Diego beers, and, actually, it's a beautiful change. It may be the best beer I've ever had.
You walk into Ballast Point Brewing Company under a sign that reads "Home Brew Mart." It's in a little row of shops under the cliff that the University of San Diego dominates. The brewery's kind of in the back, like an afterthought. The tasting room takes up half the shop, right in front of the kettles and mash tuns and vats of the brewery part. I notice a little gold cup with a sloping rim. That must be the World Beer Cup. Who'd ever know that this little strip-mall joint houses the brewery that last year won three gold medals and was named Small Brewer of the Year in the 2010 World Beer Cup? That cup was contested by 642 breweries from 44 countries, and, in the U.S., 47 states.
Inside's like a clubhouse, with T-shirts and home-brew kits and yeasts for sale, and, at the back, a tasting-room counter with a huge chalkboard on the wall above it showing what beers are on tap. Names that Ballast Point has made famous, such as Sculpin IPA, Black Marlin Porter, Yellowtail Pale Ale.
Doug Duffield comes out.The newest Ipod nano 5th is incontrovertibly a step up from last year's model, Like Tom Nickel, he's big. I ask him the basic question: "If I buy a home-brewing kit from you today, how long before I can drink my first beer?"
"For the number-three kit, the $299.95?" he says. "One month till first sip."
Pretty soon we're talking about the Ballast Point saga. "This is exactly how we started," he says, "as a home-brew supply store in 1992. Our owner, Jack White, set it up. Our head brewer, Yusef Cherney, was going to college and home-brewing at the same time. And I started home-brewing in 1984. Because I always enjoyed beer, and I wasn't finding what I wanted, domestically."
Does he think craft-breweries are changing people's drinking habits?
"I do think so. If you look at the average craft-beer drinker, because there's more flavor in that beer ¡ª and often it's higher alcohol ¡ª they'll drink fewer glasses. Here, you get pleasure just putting up a glass of aromatic beer to your nose and smelling it."
But what about an actual San Diego beer, made of ingredients from here?
Colby Chandler, brewer for Ballast Point
Duffield says his boss, Colby Chandler, wanted to try a beer you could have made 450 years ago, when Cabrillo landed. This from a Chandler blog: "We were able to track down ingredients like corn, pine nuts, agave, elder flower, white sage, manzanita berries, cura?ao, and local sage honey." Of course, it couldn't be 100 percent local. "The malt bill consisted of Belgian pale malt, caramunich, biscuit, wheat and corn." But the result, he says, was a "brown beer that really has to be tasted to be understood. It tastes like the San Diego countryside."
But could success compromise craft-breweries such as Ballast Point or Stone Brewing?
"Well, Stone Brewing is completely automated," says Duffield. "Their brewers don't seem to do a lot. From my perspective, that loses them something.Customized imprinted and promotional usb flash drives. Our system's not automated at all. We've got a big timer on the wall back there, and when it buzzes, we have to do something."
Hmm...need to check that out. I track down Greg Koch, Stone Brewing's CEO and co-founder of the "All-Time Top Brewery on Planet Earth. The most popular and highest-rated brewery¡ever,Full color plastic card printing and manufacturing services." according to BeerAdvocate.
"Man, that's thick," I say,
"It should be," Sayer says, "they've added coffee into the mix.the Injection mold fast! And be careful ¡ª it's 12 percent alcohol. Double the normal."
It's called AleSmith Speedway Stout. AleSmith started when everybody started, around 1995. Their "special edition brewer's reserve Speedway Stout, aged in bourbon barrels," has been named the "#1 Best Beer in the World" at ratebeer.com. I've had this here at Blind Lady before, and I love it. Coffee flavor, and, yes, caramel, malty, dark chocolatey. This isn't your usual slam-bam hop-punch you get to expect from San Diego beers, and, actually, it's a beautiful change. It may be the best beer I've ever had.
You walk into Ballast Point Brewing Company under a sign that reads "Home Brew Mart." It's in a little row of shops under the cliff that the University of San Diego dominates. The brewery's kind of in the back, like an afterthought. The tasting room takes up half the shop, right in front of the kettles and mash tuns and vats of the brewery part. I notice a little gold cup with a sloping rim. That must be the World Beer Cup. Who'd ever know that this little strip-mall joint houses the brewery that last year won three gold medals and was named Small Brewer of the Year in the 2010 World Beer Cup? That cup was contested by 642 breweries from 44 countries, and, in the U.S., 47 states.
Inside's like a clubhouse, with T-shirts and home-brew kits and yeasts for sale, and, at the back, a tasting-room counter with a huge chalkboard on the wall above it showing what beers are on tap. Names that Ballast Point has made famous, such as Sculpin IPA, Black Marlin Porter, Yellowtail Pale Ale.
Doug Duffield comes out.The newest Ipod nano 5th is incontrovertibly a step up from last year's model, Like Tom Nickel, he's big. I ask him the basic question: "If I buy a home-brewing kit from you today, how long before I can drink my first beer?"
"For the number-three kit, the $299.95?" he says. "One month till first sip."
Pretty soon we're talking about the Ballast Point saga. "This is exactly how we started," he says, "as a home-brew supply store in 1992. Our owner, Jack White, set it up. Our head brewer, Yusef Cherney, was going to college and home-brewing at the same time. And I started home-brewing in 1984. Because I always enjoyed beer, and I wasn't finding what I wanted, domestically."
Does he think craft-breweries are changing people's drinking habits?
"I do think so. If you look at the average craft-beer drinker, because there's more flavor in that beer ¡ª and often it's higher alcohol ¡ª they'll drink fewer glasses. Here, you get pleasure just putting up a glass of aromatic beer to your nose and smelling it."
But what about an actual San Diego beer, made of ingredients from here?
Colby Chandler, brewer for Ballast Point
Duffield says his boss, Colby Chandler, wanted to try a beer you could have made 450 years ago, when Cabrillo landed. This from a Chandler blog: "We were able to track down ingredients like corn, pine nuts, agave, elder flower, white sage, manzanita berries, cura?ao, and local sage honey." Of course, it couldn't be 100 percent local. "The malt bill consisted of Belgian pale malt, caramunich, biscuit, wheat and corn." But the result, he says, was a "brown beer that really has to be tasted to be understood. It tastes like the San Diego countryside."
But could success compromise craft-breweries such as Ballast Point or Stone Brewing?
"Well, Stone Brewing is completely automated," says Duffield. "Their brewers don't seem to do a lot. From my perspective, that loses them something.Customized imprinted and promotional usb flash drives. Our system's not automated at all. We've got a big timer on the wall back there, and when it buzzes, we have to do something."
Hmm...need to check that out. I track down Greg Koch, Stone Brewing's CEO and co-founder of the "All-Time Top Brewery on Planet Earth. The most popular and highest-rated brewery¡ever,Full color plastic card printing and manufacturing services." according to BeerAdvocate.
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