From the Beer Writer: Saisons are my favorite beer style and I, like many a San Diegan, adore hops. So you can imagine my excitement when encountering a farmhouse-style ale given a punch of botanical goodness care of a “super” infusion of lupulin-laced greenery. Adding to my excitement was the rare chance to taste a beer with Home Brewing Company roots outside its enclave within North Park shop The Homebrewer. This opportunity came care of 32 North Brewing Company, which invited Home’s crew to their Miramar home to create this beer, Sharks with Blazers. Described as “an aggressively hoppy super saison,” it comes in at 7% alcohol-by-volume with plenty of grapefruit and orange notes. Bold yet refreshing, it’s an awesome summer beer that I’ve found myself reaching for with great regularity. The hops make themselves known in the bouquet, and their flavors meld perfectly with yeast-borne esters. It’s impossible to tell where the fruitiness from one ends and the other begins, which is a wonderful testament to outstanding ingredient selection and recipe development.
From the Brewers: “Brewing with friends is what beer is all about. George and everyone at The Homebrewer, past and present, are amazing. It was fun to combine our knowledge of the
craft to come up with this beer was fun. A mix of San Diegan hop-forward [character] and a distinct saison yeast strain make for a unique, hoppy, super saison. I love the fact we canned this beer and would love to brew it again”—Nick Ceniceros, Head Brewer, 32 North Brewing Company
“Sharks with Lasers was a recipe developed by Shawn Manriquez, HBC’s previous head brewer. Designed to be a super-juicy IPA it has been one of the most popular beers we make. To develop the 32 North collaboration version we took a growler of original Sharks with Lasers and a bunch of commercial saisons and white IPAs to do some experimenting. With a bunch of taster glasses we went through the saisons we liked and then mixed them in varying proportions with Sharks to come up with a basic idea of a flavor profile for a saison-IPA for the collab version. With the basic idea in mind we then built an entirely new recipe from scratch and went straight to the full batch size at 32 North. The brew days were pretty straightforward. It wasn’t until dry-hop day that the real fun started. Nick blasted this beer with 11 pounds of Mosaic LupuLN2 powder, a sticky, soft hop extract that does not pour easily from a bag. He spent over an hour on a ladder hand-scooping this stuff into the fermenter using a screwdriver to drive it through the funnel. Talk about commitment! I personally learned a lot working with Nick, Jeff and Collier up there and am really happy with the end result.”—Jacob Bauch, Head Brewer, Home Brewing Company
Brewery owners come up with names for their businesses in a variety of ways. For Darrel Brown it was happening upon an old photo of his dad dressed in “’80’s cool guy attire”—a tight t-shirt, trucker cap and corduroy short shorts with Aviator sunglasses and a cop mustache (to be fair, pops was a rookie cop when that pic was snapped). Finding the humor in that image, Brown’s dad said he should go undercover as “Lance Savagewood.” As soon as he heard it, Brown, a homebrewer since 2014, knew his someday fermentation operation would go by that fictitious surname. So far, that’s the most concrete part of Savagewood Brewing, but if all goes as planned, many other aspects of the business will be chiseled into certainties in the next few months.
Brown has set his sights on the north-inland San Diego community of Rancho Bernardo. He sees it as an underserved area with demographics that align with his company’s goals. Currently, the neighborhood is home to a single brewery, Abnormal Beer Company, which is located inside The Cork and Craft restaurant (which also houses a winery), and Second Chance Beer Company resides in bordering Carmel Mountain Ranch to the south, but there is certainly room for more homegrown beer in RB. Brown hopes to sign on a spot and begin construction of a brewery and family-friendly tasting room by fall. His current project team consists of CLTVT, Hauck Architecture and The Craft Beer Attorney (which last week joined forces with San Diego-based law firm Dinsmore & Shohl, LLP).
Early on, Brown will be responsible for brewing and business operations. He has a good deal of experience with the latter. He is currently a vice president of operations for a large data and technology company and has run his own businesses in the past. Once open, he plans on hiring an assistant brewer to help produce a line of beers that, like the company’s name, is already carved in…wood? They include WhIPA it Good white India pale ale (IPA), $500 Millionaire session IPA, Poppa’s Amber Ale, Sugar Daddy’s Brown Ale, Sunshine Tax West Coast pale ale, Orphic black IPA, Big Fat Dad wee heavy and Exquisite Blonde, a blonde ale that has won awards on the homebrew competition circuit and will be offered with various fruit additions.
Brown intends to start out with a 10-barrel brewhouse and aim for production of 2,000 barrels of beer annually, with its best-selling beers being packaged in cans and bottle releases of specialty or seasonal offerings. But the main focus will be at Savagewood’s taproom, which he hopes becomes an enjoyable neighborhood hangout. Distribution of packaged beer will be limited to accounts located in or near Savagewood’s home base.
The “South Bay Uprising”—an influx of banded-together breweries and beer-centric venues spanning Chula Vista to Barrio Logan—has been picking up steam for years. Last weekend, the most formidable beer-making member of that growing movement opened its doors after two years of construction on downtown Chula Vista’s main drag, Third Avenue. Thr3e Punk Ales Brewing Company (259 Third Avenue, Chula Vista) has brought its ambitious vision for a multi-story brewery and tasting room simultaneously celebrating anarchic rock and the city its founders call home. In doing so, it’s given the community the type of business it can rally behind and build upon.
When we first met the Chula Vistans behind this business, they were renting space at Santee’s Butcher’s Brewing (since renamed to Finest Made Ales) to create their first batches of mostly-hoppy beers, but their dream was to secure space to make an artisanal impact on their home turf. They were able to do so in 2015 when they secured the building that formerly housed The Highlander. A rare basement-equipped structure it was first coveted by Fall Brewing Company, but elevated enthusiasm and hometown espirit de corps inspired the landlord to opt for Thr3e Punk Ales. At last weekend’s friends-and-family pre-open party, the landlord felt vindicated in that decision and bullish on the future of Third Avenue’s business district with the debut of Thr3e Punk Ales as well as the impending arrival of a tasting room for Santee-based Groundswell Brewing Company in another of his properties across the street, and the recent opening of Chula Vista Brewery on the same block.
While Bay Bridge Brewing Company and Novo Brazil Brewing Company have been making beer in Chula Vista for years, quality has been an issue and neither are centrally located enough to make the number of impressions and aid in revitalization the way Thr3e Punk Ales can. In addition to being smack dab in the middle of downtown, Thr3e Punk Ales is an attractive space with a fully conveyed thematic. The north wall is covered from basement to ceiling in a punk rock collage intermingled with iconic imagery. Tour poster artwork from the likes of Suicidal Tendencies, Bad Religion, the Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys share space with the logos of Thr3e Punk Ales and the City of Chula Vista and the original Highlander sign augmented by the anarchy “A” utilized in the brewery’s wordmark. The brewhouse and fermenter tanks jut up from the basement into the tasting room opposite an L-shaped bar flanked by a roll-down screen illuminated by a ceiling-mounted projector. Rail bars line the north and roll-up garage door-equipped west side of the tasting room while a large wooden table provides a second, more communal seating option.
The opening beer list consisted of five offerings. Of them, the hoppy stock—what the company made its name on in its fledgling period—was the best. Needle in the Hey double IPA has the nose of a dispensary with flavors of clementine, melon, orange zest and pine resin. While it isn’t heavy, it is purposely sweet in a nod to old-school imperial IPAs. Conversely, their 6.5% alcohol-by-volume (ABV) IPA Hole has intense mango-and-papaya-like hop-bite up front and a sharp yet tacky finish. Morning After Pilz has such vibrant hop character it almost blots out its Pilsner foundation, but as its first-pour chill wears off, a bit of honey-ish earhiness and yeast character enter into the equation. A Mexican-style lager and 9.5% ABV imperial stout with flavors evocative of bittersweet chocolate, coffee and cinnamon bark round out the menu. Both would benefit from added carbonation, but taste nice and provide increased variety.
Overall, this much-anticipated project has made good on its intentions to bring a vibrant business in line with current trends and San Diego’s craft-beer scene to downtown Chula Vista. It will be interesting to see how a community less indoctrinated and inundated on the independent beer front will react, but if any brewery in the area has a chance to change the tastes of the city’s denizens, it’s this one.
From the Beer Writer: One goal of the West Coaster Beer of the Week is to help people discover special, high-quality beers they might not otherwise come across (and in some cases sadly find out about after they tap out). In the case of this week’s featured beer, there were plenty of people in the know and willing to point me in its direction. The day I was headed to the East Village’s Half Door Brewing Company, I shared my eventual destination with a pair of beer drinkers. Their eyes lit up as they blurted out the same thing: “Buzzwords!” It was the beer I was en route to sample. Nothing like finding out you’re on the right track. If you haven’t yet heard of this beer (or been keyed in by the aforementioned boisterous brew fans), allow me to introduce you to Half Door #Buzzwords. This highly-hopped pale ale revels in its en vogue nature (i.e., it’s hazy, bro). Pop-culture adjectives like “juicy” and “dank” fully apply, as the beer comes across more like grapefruit juice or a mimosa on the front-end, before a pleasant punch of pine finishes things out, reminding you that you are, in fact, enjoying a beer, and a delicious one at that. #Buzzwords revels in appealing to craft fans’ current tastes while staying true to traditional flavors from household-name hops.
From the Brewers: “#Buzzwords is our super-dank, 8.7% (alcohol-by-volume) India pale ale. It was the first hazy double IPA that we made, using a simple grain bill of Pilsner malt and flaked wheat. We use hops throughout the hot and cold side starting with mash-hopping, first wort hops and a generous dose in the whirlpool. On the cold side, depending on scheduling with yeast, we will either do one or two dry hops and the beer finishes around two-and-a-half to three pounds per barrel total. We ferment #Buzzwords with London Ale 3 yeast and adjust the water profile to a 2.5 to 1 ratio of chloride to sulfate. We mix as many hops as we have on hand but make sure to go heavy with Chinook or Simcoe, then balance using numerous hops of New Zealand origin, mostly Southern Cross and Motueka. The result is a beer with notes of tropical fruit…mostly pineapple and mango…plus some lingering pine and grapefruit citrus in the finish.”—Daniel Drayne, Head Brewer, Half Door Brewing Company
There are no official holidays in the month of August. Given that, one might expect it to be a pretty humdrum month from an events standpoint, but local breweries are taking charge of their—and your—destiny, offering a plentitude of good times for all to enjoy. Check out some of these higher-profile affairs, then refer to our events page for even more craft-beer happenings.
August 5 | The Full Pint 10th Anniversary: Sure, you get your local beer news from the pages (both paper and web) of West Coaster, but online beer-news site The Full Pint has been doing this even longer than us, and will celebrate a decade of slinging suds stories with an epic tap-list of rarities from esteemed breweries that includes more than 20 beers brewed just for this party. | Toronado San Diego, 4026 30th Street, North Park, 9 p.m. (general admission session)
August 6 | Hop-Picking Picnic: Join the Womens Craft Beer Collective and the folks from Pure Project Brewing at a Fallbrook farm to help pick hops that the latter entity will use to brew a beer. It’s a free-form event where you can come and go as you please (a brewery visit will follow for those who last to the end). All you have to do is bring a picnic item (and perhaps some beer) to share. | San Diego Golden Hop Farm, 467 Solana Real, Fallbrook, 9 a.m.
August 12 | Anniversary IPA Fest: To celebrate their first year of business, the staff at North Park Beer Company are taking advantage of their ability to pour guest beers, and stocking their taps with more than 30 IPAs of varying strengths, styles and hop bills, including their own impressive stock of hoppy delights. It doesn’t get much more San Diego than that. | North Park Beer Company, 3038 University Avenue, North Park, 11 a.m.
August 18 & 19 | Stone 21st Anniversary Celebration: Stone Brewing continues to show beer fans how to take a festival to the next level, inviting breweries from all over the country to help take over a college campus over a two-day span that includes a Friday night VIP session replete with brewer meet-and-greet possibilities. Join them at this charity event as they celebrate finally being of legal age to drink. | California State University, 333 South Twin Oaks Valley Road, San Marcos, Times Vary
August 27 | Treasure Chest Beer & Food Fest: Green Flash Brewing Company is holding the seventh edition of its charity festival benefiting Susan G. Komen, and everyone will get lucky at this luau featuring 20-plus rare and exotic beers (including brews from Alpine Beer Company) plus food from beer-centric eateries including Urge Gastropub, Carnitas’ Snack Shack and Nomad Donuts. | Green Flash Cellar 3, 12260 Crosthwaite Circle, Poway, 12 p.m.