Thursday Happy Hour: Cocktail Recipes, Drinks, Music, and Good Times

San Diego Int'l Beer Festival

It's not news that San Diego has become a would-class beer town. Odd, perhaps, given that just ten years ago you'd be hard pressed to find any craft beers – let alone local – on tap. But now it's ubiquitous in this city. Expected, even.

Along with that trend there's been a spike in the number of local beer festivals, tastings and cask nights. I won't say that's a bad thing but it's hard to keep track of them all. So, when one lands on our radar with plenty of lead time and a discounted pre-sale, we're on it (see link at right for discount info). It doesn't hurt that it takes place inside the San Diego County Fair. Guaranteed good times.

And, if you're not already following my Hopped Up San Diego project, have a look. I've been photographing local craft beer revolutionaries and posting up a little history about San Diego's rise to beer fame. Drop by and let me know about your favorite local revolutionary.

Skip and Go Naked

Balancing Act 

I’ve been practicing this balancing act of traveling while working, working while traveling, which I’m getting pretty good at, but takes a little mind adjustment and a whole lot of planning. It also infuses a good dose of perspective and innovation to anything I’m working on.  Content strategy, after all, is about creative problem solving.

So when we pack up and hit the road, we consider where we’ll be on Thursday, for happy hour, and how we might toast the region and our latest projects. This time, the contrast of coastal sun and mountain snow leaves us just a little giddy ... this beer cocktail is the perfect reflection.

Ballast Point Bourbon-Barrel Black Marlin Porter

Wood Is Good  

Colby Chandler slides a 4 oz. taster to me with no explanation. The look in his eye says it all: "You will like this. A lot." I do. It's bourbon-barrel-aged Black Marlin Porter and it's got my number. Dark chocolate, caramelized malts and a nice hop note. The whiskey falls into all the right places. Some vanilla and carmel in the nose, some oak and charcoal in the finish but none of it ever overshadowing the beer.

Lately we've seen just about everything drinkable making its way into a wooden wine barrel or used spirit cask only to come out more mature, complex, and well rounded. Wood, charcoal, and the apparition of bygone booze does something inexplicably wonderful.

We want to store everything in barrels now.

Stone Ruination IPA

Bikes and Beers

This week we're preparing for a few upcoming adventures, one of which is the 25-mile Bike the Bay – the one day a year in San Diego when you can ride your bike over the Coronado bridge. That's hard to pass up.

While tuning, tinkering, and polishing our bikes outside, we sipped very cold, very delicious beer for Thursday happy hour. What is it about cyclists and good beer? Seems that everyone into bikes also has a strong opinion about craft beer. Gotta be something to that.

If you're planning on biking the bay, be sure to look for us. And if you miss us on the ride, you can find us in a nearby beer garden, I'm sure.

Russian River's Supplication

A-Bottle-Hunting We Will Go

A couple months ago, I discovered another great bottle shop in San Diego. Some people geek out in high-end electronics stores, some people get big-eyed at jewelry stores, and some people go crazy in candy shops. But for me, a well-stocked bottle shop makes my heart go pitter pat.

And it was definitely thumping as I walked the aisles of Best Damn Beer Shop and found interesting new ales by famous brewers, as well as bottles of hard-to-find old favorites.

I spotted a small row of 375 mL bottles with bright blue labels: Russian River's Supplication. I bought two -- one to drink post-haste and one to keep and age.

De Landtsheer’s Malheur 10 and 12

Beer and Misfortune in San Diego

De Landtsheer makes some remarkable beer. Trouble is, they make it thousands of miles away from me.

So when a local San Diego pub had the honor of providing Malheur 10 and Malheur 12 on tap for the first time ever in the United States, I beat a path there pretty darn quick.

I started with the 10. I don’t know why a lot of Belgian beers have the tradition of giving their brews dark names (“malheur” translates to “misfortune”). I felt anything but unfortunate as I sat sipping this golden Belgian strong ale with its honey mouth-feel, its yeast and apple flavor, and its mild but crisp hop finish. It went down much too easily.

Dogfish Head’s Aprihop

Hopping Along the Hops Trail

Spring fever is busting out all over in San Diego. And I was looking to celebrate the weather with a patio brunch and a few good friends.

But our meal of fresh salads, vegetable tarts, and incredibly moist Hawaiian cake needed just the right beverage.

Lucky for me, the owner of a great local beer shop steered me in exactly the right direction -- a 4-pack of Dogfish Head’s Aprihop beer.

This hazy copper brew tastes like springtime. It’s brewed with apricots and has just the right amount of fruit to keep the green hoppy bitterness in check. 

3 Fonteinen Schaerbeekse Kriek

Cherries Jubilee

Spring has sprung. That means if you live in Washington, DC, you are probably enjoying some beautiful cherry blossoms.

And if you live in San Diego, it means you’re probably enjoying some extraordinary cherry-inspired Belgian beer at a festival. Which is exactly what I did last weekend at the Pizza Port in Carlsbad. With over 100 festival beers on hand to sample, it was hard to go wrong.

But the standout for me was the Schaerbeekse Kriek by 3 Fonteinen. This perfectly dry and lightly sour Belgian beer is made with rare Schaerbeekse cherries. If it’s not totally obvious from the super saturated ruby red color, or the wonderful sour-cherry nose, you’ll know on the first sip that this beer was made with some special fruit. 

Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot Barleywine

Hops and Hoops

I don’t have TV. Which, most of the time, is okay with me.

Except when March Madness rolls around. Just about any TV show is available online -- except live sporting events.

I head to a pub for a little b-ball action and some beer. On tap, the perfect basketball brew: Bigfoot barleywine.

This is a big beer, and it seems like a fitting choice given my big dreams for the Big East teams in the tournament this year. (Yep, my beer loyalties are out west, but with sports I am an east coaster at heart.)

Cantillon Iris

A Beer to Remember

I’ve made a few journeys to beer country. (That’s Belgium in my book.) So as I flipped through the Facebook pics of friends that are currently over there enjoying all the sights and tastes, I was instantly brought back to a few of my favorite experiences.

One was my introduction to gueuze and lambics -- those funky ales that hardly taste like beer at all.  And the best place in the world to get them is at the Cantillon brewery in Brussels, Belgium.

So I was super psyched when I found a bottle of Cantillon’s Iris 2007 vintage at a local Whole Foods recently.

Lagunitas Brown Shugga

Sunshine on My Shugga

Even in a city like San Diego where the sun never sleeps, it can be hard to find that perfect combination of great beer and good outdoor atmosphere. One of my favorite places is Downtown Johnny Brown’s.

Look up, and you see blue sky framed in high rises. Look out and you see the fountain-filled plaza in front of the Civic Center. Look around you and you see brightly tiled tables and potted palms.

Look in your glass, and you’re bound to find something tasty in there. On this particular day, I was savoring a Brown Shugga from Lagunitas Brewing.

Kern River Citra Double IPA

A Taste of Spring Fever

East coast or West coast, about this time of year everyone is itching for spring. And a string of rainy days had made that itch worse here in San Diego.

So I was disappointed to find the patio closed at one of my favorite beer joints recently.

But I quickly recovered when I heard my friend rave about the beer he was drinking – a very citrusy IPA from Kern River Brewing, aptly named Citra.

This beautiful orange beer has an aroma that instantly transports you to citrus groves and the fresh outdoors. And the slightly viscous body is soft and smooth and absolutely heavenly going down.

We sat inside on our bar stools, sipping our tastes-like-the-outdoors beers, and continued to dream wistful dreams of the coming spring.

Lindemans Gueuze Cuvee Rene

A Not-So-Sour Split

The final day of a great visit is never easy. But a special beer can help soften the blow. 

So before I left Wisconsin, my host and I shared an almost champagne-split-sized bottle of an almost-champagne-tasting beer – Lindemans Gueuze Cuvee Rene.

A gueuze is a type of lambic beer where they blend old and young lambics. Expect to feel your lips pucker, because these ales tend to be dry and sour.

The Cuvee Rene is actually a touch fruitier and sweeter than most of the other gueuze I’ve had.

No pucker, but a nice combination of funky sours and champagne fruits, like apple and citrus. And all very bubbly.

New Glarus Cran-bic

A Berry Good Beer

No doubt, my favorite thing about visiting Wisconsin is the company I keep there.

A close second may be the beer.

On my most recent visit, I got to try a hard-to-find new offering from the folks at New Glarus: Wisconsin Cran-bic.

Even better, my host was wise to snap up every bottle he could find when it was released, so I enjoyed several bottles during my stay.

Bell's Winter White Ale

Let It Snow

A visit to Wisconsin in the dead of winter? Yep, made-to-order for cross-country skiing.

We had a fresh four inches on the ground to work with, a few more promised on the way, and a beautiful, empty-of-people nature reserve.

As we broke the first trail through the winter white, I took a deep, cold breath and let the workweek finally fall away.

And when we got back to the house and the fire, I kept that change-of-pace feeling going with a Bell's Winter White Ale.