California Drinkin’

While the brewers were overcoming terrorist threats to “places of amusement, immorality, and sin” (surely they can’t mean a beer fest…) and a dusty of snow in Colorado to compete at the Olympics of Beer, I was warming up a barstool at Pizza Port Carlsbad, tossing a few medal winners down my gullet.  Not only was PP C’bad voted Best Large Brewpub, they also earned 7 medals at the Great American Beer Fest.  By “beer” happenstance, I stopped by when six of the seven winners were on draft, including the Revelations Belgian Gold (take it easy- a surprising 8.5%!), Good Grief Brown, Reed’s Wee Heavy, Beech Street Bitter, 547 Haight (Imperial Red brewed for Toronado SF’s 20^th Anniversary), and Cow Stout.  Score!  You can’t visit SoCal without going to at least one of the Pizza Port locations.  PP Solana Beach won gold for Imperial Red Ale with Shark Attack and the San Clemente one was the GABF Oatmeal Stout gold medal winner for Ernest’s Silky Smooth.  Plus, $5.99 gets you pizza, a nice (and fresh!) salad, and a pint of one of their beers.  And every location is near the beach and packed with surfers, most of whom order the Carlsbad Chronic, which had originally been brewed using hemp seeds, but these guys didn’t need their requisite medicinal marijuana prescriptions to drink this beer.

I also swung by Lost Abbey once and visited Stone Brewing three times as I had to go through their draft list trying everything I hadn’t tasted before including the Craftsmans .5IPA (good) and Triple White Sage, which tasted a little too much like sucking on a Xmas tree for me.  I finally got to visit Toronado where a glance at Cable Car ($70!) dissuaded me from purchasing the rare gem, but I did try the Alaskan Barley Wine (malty) and the Alpine Bad Boy (West Coast Double IPA).  And among others, Duck, Duck, Geuze and the new Stone/Maui/Ken Schmidt collaboration Macademia CoCoNut Porter found their way safely to my house thanks to lots of bubble wrap and careful packing.  Can’t wait to go back!