San Diego Fair Beer Festival 6/21

Hello Beer Lovers!

This weekend the San Diego County Fair hosts its Craft Beer Festival featuring more than 200 different beers on Saturday, June 21st! It will be one of the largest collections of beer in the country and certainly the biggest this side of the Great American Beer Festival.

Nearly every local brewery will be represented. There will also be beers from nearly a dozen countries at the festival. The fest runs from Noon to 8 pm in the Chevrolet Arena near the front entrance of the Fair. In addition to the great beer, there will be a bluegrass music competition and a bratwurst tasting.

This was a great event last year and promises to be even better this year. Some of the breweries you will be able to sample beer from include: Alpine, Green Flash, Lost Abbey, AleSmith, Chimay, Malheur, Redstone Meadery and many, many more. Taster wristbands are $15 and can be purchased at the main gate of the Fair or at the festival site. You must pay to enter the Fair in order to go to the festival. Be sure to look for Micaela who will be working one of the beer booths!

On the pub front, we host a New Belgium Sour Ale night on Friday the 20th. We will have La Folie, a sour barrel aged brown ale, and Eric’s Ale, a sour peach beer, both on tap. These are two great beers that we can only get once in a while, so enjoy them while they are here. Saturday night, the 21st, we will have a special release of some vintage Samichlaus and Thomas Hardy’s ale bottles. We’ll have 2003 and 2004 Samichlaus and 2004, 2005 and 2006 Thomas Hardy’s ale available.

Sunday we will be back to our normal hours of Noon to 6 pm. New on tap right now we have the Full Sail Prodigal Son IPA and Port Brewing’s Shark Attack double Red. There are still a few of the Avery beers on tap including the funky farmhouse styled 15th Anniversary Ale. If you like dark beers, you should try Papago Brewing’s Milk Stout while it is still around.

Next week we start off with a very special guest on Tuesday, June 24th – David Myers, Chairman of the Mead from Redstone Meadery. We will have Redstone Sunshine Nectar and Black-Raspberry Nectar on tap along with the Traditional Mead, Juniper Berry Mead and for the first time at O’Brien’s Boysenberry Nectar all in the bottle. David will be at the pub from around 6 to 8 pm to talk mead and answer questions.

Next Thursday the 26th we tap into a cask of Firestone Pale 31 at 5 pm. This is the brewery’s flagship pale ale. It has been nice that we have been able to get more cask and specialty beer from Firestone in recent months. It is a great brewery that always makes high quality beer. We’ll also have the new Lil’ Opal beer on tap which is a wheat beer/saison hybrid that should be perfect for our summer weather.

Friday the 27th we will feature beers from Oskar Blues in Colorado. The beers are new in the market and you can find them in cans, yes cans, around town at better liquor stores. We will have Dale’s Pale Ale, Old Chubb and Gordon, a strong IPA all on tap next Friday night.

For soccer fans, the Euro 2008 tournament is in the Quarter-final stage. Today’s game (the 20th) is Croatia v. Turkey, Saturday the 21st its Netherlands v. Russia and Sunday’s game is Spain v. Italy. All games kick off at 11:45 am. The Semi-Finals will be on the 25th and 26th and the Final will be Sunday the 29th. The USA also plays a World Cup Qualifier this weekend at Noon on Sunday.

Looking further ahead, we will be closed Friday, July 4th, but open on the 3rd, the 5th and the 6th that weekend. I am working with AleSmith owner Peter Zien to pick a date in July for our AleSmith Barrel Aged Beer Tasting – I should have some details by the end of the month.

And looking way ahead to August, I will be hosting my birthday week celebrations starting Monday the 11th – we have already set our second Pizza Night for Tuesday, August 12th. The Stone Anniversary Party is that Saturday, August 16th and I am not yet sure if we will be doing a bus up there or not. Look for a decision next month. That is all for now. It was great to see so many of you up at the Real Ale Festival last weekend. I am sure I will see many of you this weekend up at the San Diego County Fair Craft Beer Festival for a great beer.

Cheers,
Tom Tom Nickel O’Brien’s Pub
20 Taps – Tons of Hops 4646
Convoy Street
www.obrienspub.net