We’ve seen most of the 15th annual San Diego Beer Week — the 10-day affair concludes this Sunday — and it’s clear this edition will not rival previous ones for showstopper events.
No Brewers Guild Fest, with oodles of county breweries showcasing scads of beers.
No Beer Garden, a food-and-beer party overlooking the Torrey Pines golf course.
No Collabapalooza, an epic afternoon of collaboration beers.
No showdowns pitting Northern California breweries against the (obviously superior) brewers of SoCal.
Still, several remaining events look promising:
- An annual crowd-pleaser, Speedway Grand Prix offers pours of four to — gulp! — 16 versions of AleSmith’s fabled stout. Think Speedways dosed with salted caramel pumpkin cheesecake, say, or Turkish coffee or wild Thai bananas. Heats begin 4 p.m. today and noon Saturday at 9990 AleSmith Court, San Diego. Tickets, $20 to $64, are at alesmith.com.
- Come to Embolden Brewing for its anniversary party, 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, and stay to chat with San Diego Brewers Guild board members. (Just a suggestion: ask when we will see the return of Collabapalooza?) Embolden is at 8655 Production Ave., Suite A, San Diego.
- In the mood for something rare? Visit O’Brien’s Pub, 4646 Convoy St., San Diego, for its Barrel Aged and Sour Weekend, today through Sunday.
- Get in the holiday spirit at Kilowatt Brewing, 7576 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., San Diego. At noon Saturday, Kilowatt will release its 2023 Christmas Ale, a winter warmer with notes of honey, nutmeg and cinnamon bark.
- End the Week on sweet note. Pure Project and The Goods, an artisan doughnut shop, will join forces Sunday from noon to 8 p.m. for “Desserts & Beer.” For $25, enjoy three pastries and three 5-ounce pours at any of Pure Project’s five taprooms. Advance purchase is necessary; go to shop.purebrewing.org.
From the Beery Bookshelf
Two recent books caught my eye:
1. “Craft Breweries and Cities: Perspectives from the Field” (Routledge Publishing) explores craft beer’s links to sustainability, crime, race relations and other urban topics from a very San Diego standpoint.
The co-editors — Julie Wartell, a University of California San Diego lecturer on urban studies and planning, and Vince Vasquez, executive director of Carlsbad’s Policycraft Institute — will host a panel discussion/ book launch at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Blind Lady Ale House, 3416 Adams Ave., San Diego.
Panelists will include Russ Gibbon, who spent years as the go-to resource for brewers trying to navigate San Diego’s regulatory landscape, and the University of Toledo’s “beer professor,” Neil Reid.
Book jacket for Beth Demmon’s “The Beer Lover’s Guide to Cider: American Ciders for Craft Beer Fans to Explore.”
(Beth Demmon)
2. While researching her new book, San Diego’s Beth Demmon was sometimes admonished to “buzz off and quit contributing to the ‘beerification’ of cider.”
What a sour, short-sighted attitude! Demmon, an accomplished beer writer, also proves an insightful, effervescent guide to an American cider scene that should be — but too often is not — blossoming.
“Cider,” she writes in “The Beer Lover’s Guide to Cider” (Mango Publishing), “can take the best parts of craft beer — the romance of its creation, an appreciation of artistry, a supportive community, and curiosity of discovery — to become the biggest and best version of itself.”
The best version of Demmon will appear from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Small Batch, 8332 La Mesa Blvd., La Mesa; and from 1 to 3 p.m. Dec. 9 at Barnes & Noble, 1040 N. El Camino Real, Encinitas.
Bagby Beer Company in Oceanside.
(Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The Next Round
Nov. 18: Expect a lineup of top-ranked lagers at the third annual “Low & Slow Fest,” 1 to 5 p.m., Bagby Beer, 601 S. Coast Highway, Oceanside. For tickets, $50-$75, surf over to bagbybeer.com.
Quick Sips, Dark and Stormy Beer Week Edition
AleSmith Brewing’s Barrel-Aged Speedway Stout Coconut Vanilla Edition imperial stout.
(Courtesy of Peter Rowe)
Beer: Barrel-Aged Speedway Stout Coconut Vanilla Edition, 2023
From: AleSmith, San Diego
ABV (Alcohol By Volume): 13.2 percent
Style: Imperial Stout
Drink or dump: Drink. One of the world’s great beers is here rendered into a bourbon-spiked Almond Joy. This is a pricey – my 16-ounce can cost $1-plus per ounce – indulgence, but worthy of special occasions.
Goal Brewing’s AWEEEE imperial stout.
(Courtesy of Peter Rowe)
Beer: AWEEEE
From: GOAL, San Diego
ABV: 11.5 percent
Style: Imperial Stout
Drink or dump: Drink. While AWEEEE is not quite a carbon copy of coconut vanilla Speedway – it places more emphasis on the coconut and less on the bourbon – this is another liquid candy bar.
Half Door Brewing’s Coleman Stout Irish Dry Stout beer.
(Courtesy of Peter Rowe)
Beer: Coleman Stout
From: Half Door Brewing, San Diego
ABV: 4.6 percent
Style: Irish Dry Stout
Drink or dump: Drink. Like Speedway and AWEEEE, Coleman delivers maximal flavor, but – unlike those imperial stouts — minimal booziness. This light-bodied winner smacks of coffee and baker’s chocolate, finishing with a hint of hops.
Rowe is a freelance writer.