When Did Each San Diego Brewery Open

As of June 2015, San Diego county had 109 craft breweries and brewpubs

16 breweries opened in 2012, 25 in 2013, 17 in 2014, and 12 in 2015 (as of June 2015)

This equates to about two new breweries per month 

Source: West Coaster June 2015 issue

Largest Craft Breweries 2015

Four San Diego breweries rank among the 50 largest craft breweries in the U.S. (based on the metric of 2014 beer sales volume)

9. Stone Brewing Co. (2014  production: 287,075 barrels, a 35% increase from 2013 and 62% from 2012) (10th in 2013)

31. Ballast Point (2014  production: 123,435 barrels, a 74% increase from 2013 and 260% from 2012) (45th in 2013)

45. Karl Strauss Brewing Co. (2014 production: 67,920,  an 11% increase from 2013 and 16% from 2012) (38th in 2013)

48. Green Flash (2014 production: 2014 production: 64,640, a 16% increase over 2013)

Sources: West Coaster

To put that into some perspective, the top craft brewer on the list

1. D.G. Yuengling and Son Inc sold 2,917,992 barrels in 2014

2. Boston Beer Co - 2,550,000

3. Sierra Nevada - 1,069,694

6. Lagunitas - 601,420 (50% more than in 2013)

Sample Beer Tours

Here are three San Diego areas with highly concentrated breweries - all within 7 miles of each other - so that you can do a walking tour. You may choose to visit all indicated on the map or just a few. Click on the name to see the route.

Miramar Road

North Park/30th Street

Vista/San Marcos

How to Homebrew

My friend is an award-winning homebrewer. I also tried his beers, which are excellent. This is his advice on how to get started: what equipment you will need and the process, with my own additions.

There are different pieces of equipment that you will need depending on what type of brewing that you choose to do. I'll go from easiest to most difficult. All methods assume you'll be making 5 gallon batches. First, here are the basic steps to the brewing process:

1. Mashing (only for all grain)
2. Boiling of wort (unfermented beer) and addition of hops
3. Cooling of wort
4. Fermentation
5. Packaging (bottling or keging)
6. Drinking!!

Methods:

1) Boil Extract

With this method, you use a malt extract (which comes in either a syrupy liquid or dry, powdered form), make a strong solution with it, boil it while adding hops, and then add back water at the end to make the full beer volume. You can also steep actual crushed barley grains in a muslin bag in the boil to add complexity. This is a partial volume boil extract, but you can also boil your full wort volume, a process called full volume boil extract; but instead of a 5 gallon pot, you'd need a 10 gallon pot. Equipment needed:

• 5 gallon aluminum or stainless steel pot
• Muslin bags
• Fermenter. This can be a 6 gallon food grade plastic bucket, glass carboy, or Better Bottle. I use glass carboys for fermentation because they don't scratch, which can provide a nice little nestling place for bacteria. I bought my carboys on craigslist. Plastic buckets are okay as long as they're relatively new and you're gentle with cleaning, i.e. don't use abrasive sponges. 
• Method for chilling the wort. The most rudimentary method (which I still use) is ice bath immersion. For this, you can use a sink or a container that is large enough to contain both the pot and ~20 lbs. of ice. If you want to get more fancy, you can chill via coiled convective heat exchanger or plate geometry heat exchanger (this requires a small pump and a pot with a valve and barbed fitting at the bottom).

2) All Grain

The full volume boil all grain is the method that I employ. Instead of an extract, you use raw, crushed, malted barley grains to create the wort in the mash. It creates an arguably better product, you have more parameters of freedom for recipe formulation, and to me it's more rewarding. However it is much more complicated than extract brewing and requires more equipment and time per batch. In addition to the previously mentioned equipment, you'll need:

• 10 gallon aluminum or stainless steel pot
• Mash tun. I use a modified 10 gallon water cooler. The process for making one can be found here
• A large enough pot or enough pots to hold ~4 gallons of liquid

Other Equipment:

For packaging the beer, you'll need the same equipment regardless of brewing method. You'll need:

• Bottling bucket. This is a food grade plastic bucket with a hole and spout at the bottom. 
• Capper
• Bottles and caps

The following are optional but HIGHLY recommended. They make the bottling process much easier. The substitute for these would be a clean dishwasher rack and a container with sanitizer that you would dunk the bottles in.

• Bottle tree
• Bottle squirter for sanitizing the bottles

Other miscellaneous items that you will need:

• Bung and airlock for the fermenter 
• Kitchen scale that can measure to 0.25 oz. I like the digital ones
• Sanitizer. I prefer a no-rinse variety like Starsan
• Probe thermometer
• Racking cane or auto siphon with appropriate size food grade tubing
• Carboy brush if you use a carboy

These items can be procured at your local home brew store, online, or craigslist.

San Diego Takes Home 14 Medals at the 2014 Great American Beer Festival

Here is the list of decorated San Diego beers that was announced this morning at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). This year San Diego took away the same number of medals as in 2013, despite the competition being more fierce, with breweries having a limit of 5 submissions, down from 10 last year. California continued to lead the medal count with 46 medals, followed by Colorado, with 39. Note that San Diego is the first city ever to dominate an entire category!

Category: 14 Session Beer – 94 Entries 

Gold: Oatmeal Stout, Benchmark Brewing Co., San Diego, CA
Silver: Guillaume, Pizza Port Ocean Beach, Ocean Beach, CA
Bronze: Mosaic Session Ale, Karl Strauss Brewing Co. – La Jolla, La Jolla, CA

Category: 21 American-Belgo-Style Ale – 69 Entries 

Bronze: Le Freak, Green Flash Brewing Co., San Diego, CA

Category: 51 International-Style Pale Ale – 88 Entries 

Bronze: The Pupil, Societe Brewing Co., San Diego, CA

Category: 52 American-Style Pale Ale – 145 Entries 

Gold: Grunion, Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits – Scripps Ranch, San Diego, CA

Category: 55 Imperial India Pale Ale – 135 Entries 

Silver: Hop 15, Port Brewing Co., San Marcos, CA

Category: 57 Imperial Red Ale – 62 Entries 

Bronze: Shark Attack, Port Brewing Co., San Marcos, CA

Category: 62 Irish-Style Red Ale – 60 Entries 

Silver: Piper Down, Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits – Scripps Ranch, San Diego, CA

Category: 71 Belgian-Style Witbier – 65 Entries 

Gold: White Ale, Saint Archer Brewing Co., San Diego, CA

Category: 76 Belgian-Style Tripel – 58 Entries 

Bronze: La Flama Dorada, Pizza Port Ocean Beach, Ocean Beach, CA

Category: 78 Other Belgian-Style Ale – 26 Entries 

Gold: Witty Moron, Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens – Liberty Station, San Diego, CA

Category: 81 Classic Irish-Style Dry Stout – 26 Entries 

Bronze: Asphalt Jungle, Bagby Beer Co., Oceanside, CA

Category: 89 Barley Wine-Style Ale – 51 Entries 

Gold: AleSmith Old Numbskull, AleSmith Brewing Co., San Diego, CA

How to Review a Beer

Image by Robby Davis

You don't need to be a beer snob to review beer. Below are simple guidelines to get started, along with a sample review:

Stone's Arrogant Bastard Ale
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4 (on a 5-point scale)

Appearance - Note the beer's color, carbonation, head and its retention. Is it clear or cloudy? Does it look lackluster and dull or alive and inviting?

Pours a brilliant deep copper-red with a frothy, dense quarter inch khaki head that won't dissipate.

Smell - Bring the beer to your nose. Note the beer's aromatic qualities. Malts: sweet, roasty, smoky, toasty, chocolaty, nutty, caramelly, biscuity? Hops: dank / resiny, herbal, perfumy, spicy, leafy, grassy, floral, piney, citrusy? Yeast will also create aromas. You might get fruity or flowery aromas (esters) from ales and very clean aromas from lagers, which will allow the malt and hop subtleties to pull through.

Floral, fruity hops, resin, pine, fresh cut grass leap from the glass. There's a subtle caramel malt sweetness in the background that hints of dark fruit.

Taste - Take a deep sip of the beer. Note any flavors, or interpretations of flavors, that you might discover. The descriptions will be similar to what you smell. Is the beer built-well? Is there a balance between the ingredients? Was the beer brewed with a specific dominance of character in mind? How does it fit the style?

Dank hops dominate the initial flavor, with sweet caramel malt coming in and fading mid palate, bowing to resinous bitterness that lingers through the finish. Grapefruit, catty hops, and pine emerge in subsequent sips, but the balance is decidedly resiny and bitter. The malt sweetness provides nice respite in later sips, along with dark fruit.

Mouthfeel - Take another sip and let it wander. Note how the beer feels on the palate and its body. Light, heavy, chewy, thin / watery, smooth or coarse? Was the beer flat, over-carbonated?

Body is on the full side, with moderate carbonation and slight alcohol warmth, with a big resiny bite.

Overall - Your overall impression of the beer.

Decidedly bitter, but balanced in extremes, to an extent. A glutton for punishment, the promise of sweet malt draws me back in for the bitter hop beating.

Here are beer judging sheets you can use:

• Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) Beer Score Sheet (.pdf)
• RateBeer.com Tasting Form (.pdf)

Want to learn more? 

Listen to Peter Zien give some advice. Zien is the AleSmith's owner and a BJCP Grand Master level 1 beer judge, the only one in the San Diego County.

How to Plan a Beer Tasting

A Tourist Destination

Few people know that San Diego is the America's craft beer capital. This is because the beer culture hasn't yet caught up to the young beer scene, which started in mid-90's and exploded in the late 2000's, producing 90 breweries. For this reason a brewery tour is the perfect activity for visitors and locals alike.

It's Like Winetasting

Most breweries offer 4oz tasters (usually $1-$2 each), so ordering a flights of 4 will let you appraise the brewery's merit while only consuming one pint of beer (16oz). 

Planing Tips

• Pick 3-4 Breweries within 5-10 minutes of each other. Check brewery hours on each brewery's website (Yelp and Google often list wrong hours)
• Bring water and food (like supermarket sushi, beef jerky, cheese, crackers, pretzels, etc.) to cleans your palate and stay hydrated 
• Take a guided tour of one of the breweries to learn about the brewing process: check a brewery's website for tour times and days
• Bring a designated driver who can still take a few sips of your beer but won't drink a lot. 

Sample Tour (Miramar Road)

1. Green Flash
2. White Labs
3. Alesmith 
4. Ballast Point

Sample Tour (San Marcos)

1. Stone
2. Lost Abbey
3. Belching Beaver
4. Aztec

Sample Tour (Kearny Mesa)

1. Societe
2. Helm
3. Quantum
4. Council

Largest Craft Breweries in San Diego 2013

Explore this map at MAPPING THE RISE OF CRAFT BEER.

As of 2013, the United States was home to over 2,800 craft breweries. As of April 2014, San Diego county had 87 craft breweries and brewpubs.

Three San Diego breweries rank among the 50 largest craft breweries in the US:
10. Stone Brewing Co. (2012 production: 177,199 barrels)
38. Karl Strauss Brewing Co. (2012 production: 58,700 barrels)
45. Ballast Point (2012 production: 47,503 barrels)

Sources: SD Brewing Industry Watch

Why Drinking Budweiser Hurts the Craft Beer Community

To me it's pretty obvious.

When you chose to buy InBev/MillerCoors, who own 4/5 of the U.S. beer market, you are funding their lawyers and lobbyists who in turn work to pass laws against the craft beer community, such as the three-tier distribution law.

In addition, you are not spending this money on a local craft brew, which does nothing to help a local craft brewer grow and create new great beers.

But why should we even support craft beer? Here are just a few of the reasons: craft beers are good for health, have a great variety, taste great, made with better and fresher ingredients, provide jobs (craft brewers provide over 110,000 jobs), and create community. You won't need much convincing after you step into a local craft brewery and witness the dozens of people socializing, learning about the ingredients, the process, and the various styles.

Besides Budweiser and Coors, don't be fooled by "crafty" beers, such as Blue Moon, Shock Top, and Goose Island - examples of brews that are not made by independent companies—their parent companies are MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch InBev—yet which market themselves as craft beers.

What business can be defined as an American craft brewer? The Colorado-based Brewers Association has three criteria: It must be small, independent, and traditional. More specifically, the brewer must produce no more than 6 million barrels of beer annually, less than one-quarter of the business can be owned or controlled by a company that’s not a craft brewer, and the products must be made with traditional ingredients such as malted barley.

Facts about craft beer in the US:

The craft brewing sales share in 2013 was 7.8% by volume and 14.3% by dollars (a 15% increase over 2012)

2,822 total breweries operated in 2013, the highest total since 1887 (with 2,011 breweries)

Craft beer shipments are now exceeding the shipments of Budweiser, the brewery’s flagship lager, and proclaimed “King of Beers.”

The good news is that craft beer is becoming ubiquitous. However, this is leading AB InBev to go on a craft beer acquisition spree, infiltrating from within and creating an identity crisis for the craft beer community.

Sources:

That Craft Beer You’re Drinking Isn’t Craft Beer. Do You Care? 
BREWERS ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES 2013 CRAFT BREWER GROWTH 

Santee Street Fair & Craft Beer Festival

Name: 6th Annual Santee Street Fair & Craft Beer Festival
Location: Riverview Parkway & Town Center Parkway
Time: Saturday May 31, 2014 10am-7pm and Sunday June 1, 2014 10am-6pm
Price: $23 for 10 tasters, $13 for 5 (presale: $20 for 10, $10 for 5)
Review: 2 out of 5

Event Description:

Join FM 94/9 at the Santee Street Fair & Craft Beer Festival!

• Twisted Manzanita
• BNS Brewing & Distilling Co.
• Butcher's Brewing
• Oggi's Pizza and Brewing Co. - California Gold Ale
• Helm's Brewing Co. (not from Santee)
• Chuck Alek Independent Brewers
• Pacific Islander Brewing
• White Labs (not from Santee)

The Santee Street Fair is free and open to all-ages.

CRAFT BEER FESTIVAL

Saturday May 31 – Enjoy beers from as many as 40 taps
Sunday June 1 – the 5 brewers from Santee will offer both tasters and one pint pours with 10 taps to choose from.

Order online before Wednesday May 28 and get 10 – 4oz. tasters and some pizza from Dang Brother Pizza for only $20. 5 taster wristbands are $10 online. At the door, wristbands are $23 for 10 tasters and $13 for 5. 

Dang Brother Pizza was selling pizza for $2 per slice.

Brew Rendezvous

Name: 2nd Annual Brew Rendezvous - A food, farm and craft beer pairing event
Location: SILO Makers Quarter, Downtown
Time: Sunday, May 18, 2014 1:00-4:00pm
Price: $55; $25 Designated Driver
Review: 4 out of 5

Pros:

• Representatives from most breweries were present, unlike at the International Beer Festival in the Del Mar Fair, where everyone serving beer is a volunteer who is usually clueless about the beer.
• Unlimited tastings of 11 great local breweries offering 19 brews: 6 offering one beer, 3 offering two, one offering 3, and one offering 4. I tried 13 of them (about 32oz, or 2 pints, assuming they poured 2.5oz each). This was enough for the 3 hours I was there, but I also did not pour any of the beer out - I drank it all.
• About 9 food stations to match with beer was a plus. One of them was the Robusta grilled mountain meadow mushrooms.
• 8 food tents with gourmet food.
• Unlimited food and beer sampling.
• A souvenir 4oz engraved glass taster.
• Designated Driver tickets were $25, and included food.
• The event space was the perfect size for the number of attendees, I estimate 150 people (mostly mid 30s, about even men and women). I did not have to wait in line for more then one minute at each station.
• They had three tables with iced water, lemonade, and bottled flavored water.

Cons:

• Most breweries (6 out of 11) only offered one beer.
• Few sweets, cheeses, fruits, and berries. One booth gave out goat cheese ice cream on a stick, but I can't stand goat cheese. Only one booth was serving sausage and strawberries. But there were no cheeses or chocolates.
• Very few rare beers offered: neither AleSmith, Lost Abbey, Ballast Point, or Stone offer any barrel-age, limited release, collaboration, or seasonal beers. This makes me think the breweries were not tailoring toward craft beer connoisseurs but toward the general population.
• The music was very mellow, folk/country style. I did not enjoy it.

Beers offered by brewery:

The Lost Abbey - Lost and Found, Judgement Day, Avant Garde
Latitude 33 - Carolina honey hips blonde
Monkey Paw - Low and slow rauchbier
Black market - Deception coconut lime blonde, Aftermath Pale ale, 1945 sour wheat ale, Hefeweizen Bavarian style wheat ale
Coronado Brewing Co. - Sock Knocker IIPA
Stone Brewing - Oaked Arrogant Bastard, Stochasticity Project IPA
Rip Current - In the Curd IIPA, Barrier Reef Nut Brown
Mother Earth - 2014 Four Seasons: "Spring" Belgium Tripel (Collaboration w/Brasserie du Pays Flammand)

AleSmith - Nut Brown
Lightning - Thunderweizen, Electrostatic Ale
Ballast Point - Sculpin IPA

Event Page

Science on the Rocks: Love, Lust & Libido - The Chemistry of Sex

Name: Science on the Rocks: Love, Lust & Libido - The Chemistry of Sex

Location: Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, Balboa Park

Time: Thursday, May 15, 2014 6:30pm - 9:30pm

Price: $20 members; $30 non-members
Rating: 2 out of 5

I love the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center - both the idea of spreading the love of science to kids and its creative exhibits, as well as it's legendary IMAX dome theater. So when I heard they had an event catered to the 21+ crowd that combined science with both sex and beer, I had to go. I even missed my dance class because I thought this event would be worth it.

The description of the event cleverly started with the lyrics of the Midnight in Paris' song, Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love, "Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it ..." Simply irresistible.

Walking in, people were arriving in jeans and t-shirts. A formally-dressed attendant was checking ID's. Inside, an expressionless DJ in his late-40's playing Bruno Mars' Grenade, followed by a series of LMFAO songs.

The program showed five breweries: Lost Abbey/Port, Manzanita, Helm, and Aztec, who did not even show up. Four food booths included: seafood, ham sliders, and veggie wraps -- all the stuff I dislike. Everyone was given a ticket with he image of each booth, which were marked upon redeeming. So you could only try each table once, including only one beer per brewery. Beer was served in small disposable plastic cups, an offense to San Diego's craft brewing. I expected a 4oz sturdy glass or plastic cup with an engraving. A sorry bar was also included with yellow fizzy beer for sale and cocktails for up to $8.

The crowd ranged from people in their late twenties to mid forties. No conversations made.

There were three 15-minute sessions in the dome theater. The line was unorganized, so everybody tried to get in from all direction. They mumbled something unintelligible on the speakers with terrible sound quality, like "don't bring food", and they started 10 minutes late. The people sitting behind me kept talking loudly during the lecture, which was very distracting.

The first presentation was by a graduate student (maybe the museum did not want to try hard enough to get a professor) on the chemistry of love, which was far off from his specialty - autism. Not surprisingly, he was not apt at answering the questions, but surprisingly he lacked even the basic critical thinking skills to interpret a question, "how did the research influence your own life in the bedroom", as "what practical applications can everyone here take away from this research," and instead answering, "I did not do this research, and my experience of it is purely academic," correcting himself, "well I do have experience with it, just not with the research" which was unintentionally hilarious.

The second speaker was a comedian, whom I skipped, and the third one - a guy from Understand Men - was someone the museum must have gotten out of desperation to find speakers, because he kept going on about how men don't see a sock on the floor when they come home because their attention is always fixed on only a singular thing, whereas women do notice it because their attention is diffused. He was tangential, unorganized, and sexist. So I left. There were three "hands on" exhibits that were laughable and were only peripherally relevant to sex (including a balloon dropped on a "bed" of nails without being popped).

The goodie bad was a disappointment as well.

Photos from the event
Facebook page for Science On The Rocks

Event description (from the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center website):

Love, Lust and Libido: The Chemistry of Sex

Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it ...

And we're going to do it, too, on Thursday, May 15, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Peep into the science of sex by exploring the laws of attraction, tinkering with sex toys and finding answers to questions surrounding the hot topic of sex. As always, your ticket will include complimentary food and drink samples, fascinating presentations and intriguing activities. Don't be uptight. Join the fun! 

• Be tempted by sinful sips by Helm's Brewing Company, The Lost Abbey and Port Brewing Company, Aztec Brewing Company, Twisted Manzanita Ales and California Fruit Wines. [Aztec cannot attend due to the fires.]
• Sample bites courtesy of Lil' Piggy's BBQ, West Coast Tavern, Feast On This and Carriage Trade Catering.
• Let our scientists show you the dangerous side of a midnight rendezvous with a bed of nails and the science behind morning breath.
• Take it slow and make your own fun Super Slo-Mo Video, thanks to A Little Scene. [Canceled due to the fires.]
• Do you like it hot or do you prefer it cool? Experiment with chemistry and learn how temperature-sensitive lubricants work.
• Find out what the buzz is about—take apart adult toys to see how they function.
• Delve into the mechanics of the mind during a chat about the chemical reactions that occur in the brain when lust or love take over. 
• Practice your sexy laugh during a sassy comedy show by Robert Timothy.
• Discover the primal urges that still drive us today, and find out how understanding the laws of attraction can help you create a successful relationship.
• Shake your groove thing while our DJ spins tunes.
• And be among the first to see our mind-bending new exhibition, ILLUSION: Nothing Is As It Seems.