Real Ale Festival and Pizza Port Goodness

Jon and I, along with my dad and Jon’s Pooter rolled down to Carlsbad for the 11th Annual Real Ale Festival. We started the day off by stopping in next door to the festival, at Pizza Port Carlsbad, for some pizza and some warm up beers.

As expected, Pizza Port had a wonderful selection of beer to choose from on tap. I saw Dale’s Pale Ale, and wanted to order it, but the bar tender suggested I try ‘Hail to the Pail’ made by Pizza Port. I was not dissapointed. This pale ale was much like Dale’s, only way more hoppy. Jon had an Oskar Blues Old Chub.

It is way better on tap than out of the can. Rather than going into detail on the Real Ale festival itself, I will save it for a post later, and show nice pictures Jon took. In a nut shell, it was a fun festival, although I would love to find out why the festival is held in the facility its held in, based on crowd capacity. Great beer and good people make you soon forget you are shoulder to shoulder with people, and there is no where to sit down and take a breather. It makes tasting a quart of beer (8 – 4oz tasters) quite exhausting. I have my own theories but I will keep them to myself incase I am dead wrong.

Because of the festival being at Pizza Port, you almost HAVE to stop in. Even if there are no events going on there, it is always worth going to. As a former East-coaster, I full endorse the pizza they make there. They don’t use pre-made shells, they actually make pizza dough, and let it rise. They use fresh toppings and good cheese. As simple as it would seem to make a pizza, it is not always simple to make a good one. I am on a quest to learn about San Diego’s pizza history, as there are many pizza spots in San Diego. Pizza Port Carlsbad has many great brews they make on premises.

By complete luck, I got to stop by Pizza Port San Clemente on my trip back to LA today. The 5 Freeway was backed up, so we hit the detour button my GPS. We dumped off onto El Camino Real in San Clemente. I proclaimed that if we passed PIzza Port San Clemente, we’d have to stop in for a beer. Not knowing their address, we ran into it within 3 minutes of my statement. They made a half dozen or so beers that they didn’t have at the Carlsbad location as well as other yummy west coast beers. I had a Lagunitas Lucky 13, and was on my way back to Los Angeles. I thought about bringing home a growler of ‘Dana Double IPA’, but thought I’d have to drink it all and have a lousy day at work tomorrow. Didn’t try the pizza there, but the place has the same setup as the Carlsbad location, so I’d imagine it to be top notch as well.