His best-selling beer reflects craft brewing’s return to America’s pre-Prohibition beer landscape: 1903 is a 5.9% ABV lager using a proportion of corn in the mash (as lagers of that era did, adding body and a certain corn flakes–like flavor profile), bittered with Nugget hops and finished with late additions of Mt. Hood to add a nice, delicate hop presentation and aroma.
Jilg doesn’t have a taproom or take visitors—it’s basically a one-man show in a 2,500-square-foot space—so look for the beer on tap at good L.A. beer bars like Laurel Tavern and Lucky Baldwin’s in Pasadena. Maximiliano, in Highland Park, has become a semi-official Craftsman tasting room. Jilg hasn’t started bottling, but if he does, the whole operation ought to blast off. His delivery van may be a green 1946 M-15 Studebaker, but the beer is next generation.
Farther South
SMOG CITY BREWING
1901 Del Amo Blvd. • Torrance, CA 90501 (310) 320-7664 • smogcitybrewing.com • Established: 2013
SCENE & STORY
For some reason there’s a Rob Lowe portrait hidden somewhere in the taproom at Smog City, an unexpected gag for what is essentially a straightforward venture built in a huge, conventional warehouse space. “We always wanted a place that felt like you were in the brewery, so that’s what people get,” says Jonathan Porter, founder. Expect “tanks, barrels, chalkboards, knowledgeable staff and great beer.” Porter, who started home brewing in 2003 and attended the American Brewers Guild in 2006, then started as a keg washer at BJ’s in Brea, CA. After a stint as head brewer at Tustin Brewing Co. in Orange County, CA, he set out to build his own place with his partner Laurie Porter and opened Smog City up in May of 2013.
PHILOSOPHY
“Balanced beer is the best beer” says founder and head brewer Jonathan Porter. “Whether light and crisp, super hoppy, or loaded with coffee, our beer is all about balance. We love to make all styles of beer and so visitors to our taproom find a lot of pilot batches, fruited saisons, and IPAs that don’t leave the brewery.”
KEY BEER
In 2015 Smog City pulled down a silver GABF medal for their Kumquat Saison, and look for barrel-aged, wild, and other sour beers in development in late 2015.
PORT BREWING CO. / THE LOST ABBEY
155 Mata Way, No. 104 • San Marcos, CA 92069 • (800) 918-6816 • lostabbey.com • Established: 2006
SCENE & STORY
Port Brewing Company and its Belgian-beer-influenced Lost Abbey line of beers are produced under the watchful eye of award-winning brewer Tomme Arthur, founding brewer of Pizza Port, and one of the first American craft brewers to employ barrel aging. The operation is based in an industrial space on the northern perimeter of San Diego County (one that used to house Stone, which outgrew the space and moved a few miles down the road).
One of San Diego county’s biggest beer traveler draws, Lost Abbey (as most refer to it now) has a spacious tasting room stacked high with oak barrels and kegs on end with grain or brewers’ sugar sacks for cushions at the forty-two-foot bar. In its first six years, Lost Abbey won over 100 medals and awards in the competitive craft brewing world and become a real draw for travelers who come to taste, trade stories, and leave with rare bottles in tow. On the weekend there are free, informal guided tours, but the main thing to do is sample here. There are twenty taps at all times with at least sixteen different beers available to take out in bottles. The scene here has real energy and buzz. “It’s like Sonoma County in the late 1970s,” says former tasting room manager Sage Osterfeld. Lost Abbey opened another location in Cardiff in 2015.
PHILOSOPHY
Belgian-style beers with cork-and-wire cage and a medieval theme running through the label art and brew names.
KEY BEER
Ask for Duck Duck Gooze, a wild yeast beer of 5.5% ABV made of a blend from young and older barrel-aged ales. But it’s extremely rare, so you might have better luck with Bourbon Barrel Aged Angel’s Share, a beer on the other, less acidic, but no less interesting end of the flavor spectrum (12% ABV). In distillers’ parlance, the “angel’s share” is the proportion of precious spirit lost to evaporation in the barrel. This barrel-aged brew marries the woody, vanilla-laced smokiness of a classic sipping bourbon to a rich, port-like beer.
PIZZA PORT SOLANA BEACH
135 N. Highway 101 • Solana Beach, CA 92075 • (858) 481-7332 • pizzaport.com • Established: 1987
SCENE & STORY
There are now three other Pizza Port locations (San Clemente, Carlsbad, and Ocean Beach), but this one—founded by siblings Vince “Vinny” and Gina Marsaglia, who sold its first beer in 1992—is the original, smallest, and to many, the best. Located in an unassuming stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway with the beach close enough to smell but not see, Pizza Port combines two very elemental things: great pizza and great beer. The inside is cozy and cheerful, and if you sit to the right of the tap row, you can look down into the sunken brewing area to watch the action unfold.
PHILOSOPHY
Pizza and beer, good times are near.
KEY BEER
The rich, dark, and coppery Sharkbite Red (6% ABV) is the big seller here—it goes well with spicy pizza dishes—but try the seasonal as well.
STONE BREWING CO. AND WORLD BISTRO
1999 Citracado Pkwy. • Escondido, CA 92029 • (760) 471-4999 • stonebrew.com; stoneworldbistro.com • Established: 1996
SCENE & STORY
Founded in San Marcos, Stone moved to its present location in 2006, and it’s more or less a Disneyland for beer lovers. First they built a sprawling eco-friendly compound, complete with a natural-boulder-tunnel-like entrance, an acre of gardens, and a huge roof solar array, cutting the power usage considerably. Then there’s a chic, glassy, 12,000-square-foot restaurant looking out on the gardens and a patio of reclaimed bricks (with side and outdoor bars, for overflow).
The eatery has a central U-shaped bar area with thirty-two drafts and 120 bottles from Stone and other excellent domestic and international craft breweries. It’s all laid out around an island of boulders and bamboo growing from a bed of river rocks in the center of the room, which has nice old weathered wood tables for a counterpoint. The menu is long, using only local and organic vegetables and breads, hormone-free and natural meats. The spicy duck tacos, made with chile de árbol and the brewery’s Levitation Ale-infused barbecue sauce, will require quantities of cold beer close at hand—they’re fiery.
PHILOSOPHY
Righteous. Brewing-wise the beers are always well put together, if on the intense side (with notable exceptions), and sometimes great. For the most part, Stone Brewing’s “extreme” beers are like standard ales in overdrive, with a side dish of attitude. (These are the fellows who brought the beer-drinking public “Arrogant Bastard” ale, after all.) Steve Wagner, Stone’s brewmaster, has spent years creating radical riffs on traditional styles: aggressively hopped ales fermented to a high alcohol percentage, usually around 7% ABV but sometimes nearly double that. But getting customers soused isn’t the point; the point is creating complex layers of flavor through long, robust fermentations with a rich mix of grains and huge amounts of resiny, fresh, green hops. With a new brewery recently opened in Berlin, Germany, Stone is taking this bombastic approach around the world. Will Germans embrace it, or merely American tourists? Time will tell.
KEY BEER
Until Levitation Ale came along, the unspoken rule on Stone brews was this: Don’t drink them before dusk unless you have time for a nap. These beers are tasty; they’re also tranquilizing. Like any beer from Stone, Levitation is loaded with grainy, fruity malt flavors and topped off with a sturdy dose of fragrant hops. At 4.4% ABV, though, it’s easy-going.
Southern California and San Diego County
That an American city often associated with surfing and skateboarding should turn out to be one of the country’s top craft beer destinations comes as a surprise to many. But it’s absolutely true: There are more than fifty top-tier brewing companies in the entire region now, and dozen
s of excellent beer bars. From crisp, refreshing lagers to pungent IPAs, funky Belgian ales, and even porters and stouts smoked with chipotle and other peppers, the brewers’ bold creativity stems from the area’s lack of brewing history. There are no expectations to live up to and no pressure to follow traditions.
MODERN TIMES FLAVORDOME
3000 Upas St. • San Diego, CA 92104 (619) 269-5222 • moderntimesbeer.com • Established: 2013
MODERN TIMES BEER—LOMALAND FERMENTORIUM
3725 Greenwood St • San Diego, CA 92110 (619) 546-9694
SCENE & STORY
Battle-tested PR handler Jacob McKean learned a thing or two about buzz and big beers at his former workplace Stone Brewing Co. under Greg Koch, one of the brashest and most polarizing figures in the industry. So it was no surprise in April of 2013 that McKean’s Kickstarter campaign to launch his own brand pulled in $20,000—in a single day (the final tally was over $65,000, the highest ever hauled in for a brewery at the time, though that is but a tiny fraction of the costs required of any start-up brewery over a barrel or two in size). Nonetheless: most impressive.
The timing was ideal for a new business in the booming San Diego market, and McKean brought a lot of fresh, and frankly un-Stone-ish, ideas to the bar: a website popping with bright, retro yet design-forward cans and crowd-sourced recipes that were exactly au courant. A public consultation with Michael Tonsmeire (a.k.a. the Mad Fermentationist, a brilliant home brewing blogger in the midst of writing a now benchmark book called American Sour Beer), it was, in sum, a masterclass in humble yet confident promotion, but McKean’s project was based on a pro team of brewers that quickly established Modern Times as a brand worth reckoning. Once the Lomaland taproom was built—complete with a young local artist’s mural depicting pop star Michael Jackson and his pet chimpanzee made out of over 10,000 Post-it notes—the die was cast: Modern Times was a big story. Is the mural pure pop art, or earnest homage? Clever riff on the weird nature of celebrity, or deeply ironic nod to the beer world’s heroic Michael Jackson, the late British author of sixteen celebrated books on beer and whisky? All of the above, if you ask me.
In the Lomaland location you’ll find a bright space with sixteen-tap bar (and that mural). The Upas Street location is a cozier affair with newsprint walls, a book-themed tap row, and lampshades hanging upside down from the ceiling, allusions to McKean’s six years as a freelance writer.
PHILOSOPHY
Having already announced a huge expansion and a packaging hall (plus a surging coffee line and distribution through Costco), McKean and Co. have already created a brand beyond beer based, in his words, “on aroma-driven, complex, flavorful, sessionish beers. We often brew hybrid styles, combining the features we like from established categories to create new, Island-Of-Doctor-Moreau-style mash-ups.” In other words, think: thoughtful, stylish beers calibrated for maximum conversation.
KEY BEER
Fortunate Islands is a 5% ABV hybrid wheat beer and IPA, with Citra and Amarillo hops for days, as the kids say. But there are also four seasonals and monthly releases showcasing the range of this up-to-the-minute brewery.
SOCIETE BREWING
8262 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. San Diego, CA 92111 • (858) 598-5409 • societebrewing.com • Established: 2012
SCENE & STORY
Doug Constantiner was working as a young investment banker—set for life, likely. But there was something nagging at him: brewing beer. Starting with a cheap kit, he’d been bitten by the bug. Besotted with the process, yet lacking experience, he bailed on the banking job in NYC and enrolled in Siebel classes, then decamped to San Diego where he eventually scored a job at Green Flash. Next thing he knew, he was working in one of San Diego’s most revered new breweries.
Cofounder Travis Smith, meanwhile, had been soaking up wisdom from two Jedis in the industry, Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River and Brian Hunt at Moonlight, outside of Santa Rosa, California. Eventually Constantiner and Smith would each end up in LA working the Bruery, where, over beers, they hatched plans and made their own move back to San Diego—a bit late to the party, but there’s always room for great new project. Their first beers met with a lot of encouragement, to say the least. Chad Jakobson of Denver’s Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project was an early fan. “It was phenomenal, so flavorful,” Jakobsen told me. “They’re going to do Belgian-styles, they’re going to do barrel-aged beers—and I’ll be really excited to try those—but their IPA was off the hook.” Visit their cozy, wood-paneled tasting room and see what he meant.
PHILOSOPHY
Societe divides their beer families four ways: Out west (read: IPA, IIPA), Old World (Belgian pale ales; saison; golden strongs), Stygian (referencing the Underworld’s River Styx, i.e., dark and intense), and Feral, for sour and wild brews.
KEY BEER
The Pupil, a fragrant American Style IPA, is on the boozy side at 7.8% ABV, wafting tropical notes of guava and mango-like aromas. It’s a popular San Diego beer these days, but is just one of many they’re doing well.
GREEN FLASH BREWING CO. (CELLAR 3)
6550 Mira Mesa Blvd. • San Diego, CA 92121 • (858) 622-0085 • greenflashbrew.com • Established: 2002
SCENE & STORY
In the tradition of other San Diego County breweries, Green Flash could not have launched in a more flavorless location, an industrial warehouse space inside a business park off the highway. No matter—even if the walls were adorned with little more than dry-erase boards, the beers were anything but bland, and it was busy every weekend. Crazy busy. Now the brewing facility has moved to the Mira Mesa location while the original became a vast wood cellar operation (Cellar 1 and Cellar 2). Meanwhile, nearby, Green Flash opened a new barrel aging location (“Cellar 3”), set up for visitors who gawk at over 8,000 oak casks, several foudres, and a cork-and-cage bottling line. Standing around tasting amid the tanks and casks in either location, it’s easy to chat and mingle with other beer lovers who have made the trek.
PHILOSOPHY
Hoptopian. The best-known beers of Green Flash are by turns pungent, dank, grassy, piney, and bitter. If that’s your thing, this is your place. Lately though, the brewery has been doing a number of Belgian-style beers, including Bière De L’Amitié, a 9.5% ABV collaboration strong pale ale with Brasserie St. Feuillien in southwestern Belgium.
KEY BEER
West Coast IPA gets most of the love, but the fiery Hop Head Red (6% ABV), a copper-hued amber dry-hopped with Amarillo, is a fun beer to drink and would go well with pepperoni pizza. And look for Le Freak, an American-Belgo-style ale which took gold at GABF 2015. From Cellar 3, it’s all about Silva Stout, a 10% ABV bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout with serious heft.
WHITE LABS
9495 Candida St. • San Diego, CA 92126 • (858) 693-3441 • whitelabs.com • Established: 2012
SCENE & STORY
Drinking in a brewery is one thing, but drinking in a world famous lab where yeasts are cultivated for the world’s top brewers? That’s taking it to an entirely new level. With thirty-five taps, up to three casks at a time, and chic design elements made of glass beakers and test tubes, the super clean and cool White Labs showcases different yeasts in every beer style, an incredibly educational—and tasty—experience. After a tour through the incredibly high-tech facility, you hit the taproom for beers brewed on site. This is a must visit on any beer lover’s trip to San Diego.
PHILOSOPHY
Yeast is king. In the early 1990s, founder Chris White was a busy home brewer and lab technician while earning his PhD at UC San Diego. Some of his fellow home brewer buddies went on to found a little (heh) company called Ballast Point. White wanted his own brewery, too, but he also (brilliantly) saw the need for professional yeast services and lab work. With a $5,000 loan from his parents, White launched White Labs Pure Yeast and Fermentation. Today, thousands of breweries, distilleries and wineries rely on White for lab-cultured yeast. The lab also banks yeast samples for breweries needing analysis of house and s
pontaneous or wild strains.
KEY BEER
Well, what’s your favorite yeast strain? That line might have earned taproom laughs a few years ago, but in today’s beer-nerd paradise, one can ask and get an informed answer. The most interesting thing about White Labs is trying different beers made with the same strain, illustrating the massive impact yeast has on beer flavor.
ALESMITH BREWING CO.
9368 Cabot Dr. • San Diego, CA 92126 (858) 549-9888 • alesmith.com • Established: 1995
SCENE & STORY
AleSmith, one of San Diego’s early breakout successes—400 medals and counting!—has stayed small as others in the area (i.e., Stone) have grown at an incredible rate. But founder Peter Zien is content to keep production where it is (around 1,000bbl per year), so the little brewery and taproom remain almost a homespun affair, little more than a rectangular room in an industrial park with a walk-in cooler and the brewing tanks off to the side. This is a good thing; beer is the sole focus, and it’s no less of a draw for beer travelers (Saturdays get busy). No matter when you seek it out, though, you’re likely to meet fellow beer lovers there, who, having trekked from across the country, or even from abroad, are eager try every last beer on offer. There are free tours on the last Saturday of each month; call ahead. A new tasting room is planned, along with a facility partnership project with Mikkeller. AleSmith estimates it will jump from producing 25,000 barrels to 40,000 next year.
PHILOSOPHY
“Hand Forged” is the MO officially, and it fits nicely with AleSmith, a small, solid operation with consistently high quality in American interpretations of British and Belgian styles, primarily.
The Great American Ale Trail (Revised Edition) Page 14