O’Brien’s Pub – New Belgium, Belgians and Casks!
Hello Beer Fans!
We have a great line up of beers in July including quite rather a good number of Belgian and Belgian-style ales. But don’t worry, there are lots of hops right around the corner as well. And the World Cup is finally winding down. There are only two matches left – both at 11:30 am – on this Saturday and Sunday. We will be celebrating our annual Christmas in July this month as well. So onto the beer news…
Tonight, Thursday the 8th we have a cask of the very tasty Coronado Idiot IPA at 5 pm. We also have a draft keg of this great double IPA that I expect to be on tap soon. All of our local beers will be on special including Alpine Pure Hoppiness, Alpine Red Card Ale, Alpine Nelson Rye-IPA, Green Flash West Coast IPA and AleSmith Wee Heavy to name a few. Look for the new Bacon Gouda burger on the specials board. And Lindsey tells me that her awesome Sausage-Chicken Gumbo will be back soon along with new batches of beer cheese.
Friday the 9th brings us a brand new beer from New Belgium Brewing Co. in Ft. Collins, Colorado – Belgo IPA. This is a beer that uses a Belgian yeast strain but hopped up like an American IPA. I have yet to taste it, but imagine it in the same vein as Green Flash Le Freak, Chouffe Houblon IPA or Uthel Hop It!. We will be able to taste the Belgo-IPA alongside the brewery’s Ranger IPA which will be on tap as well. To round out the evening, we will have Eric’s Ale from Lips of Faith series, which is a sour peach ale that has a great mouth puckering flavor.
Look for some great new bottles to hit the list this weekend. La Trappe (formerly Konigshoeven) Quadrupel is back in stock after a short absence. The brewery is now switching over all its brands to the La Trappe label. Same great beer, just now under the original name. Alaskan Smoked Porter has been re-added to the list for Christmas in July. Chimay White is our current bottle special. We’ll also have another new beer from the tiny Dutch brewery, De Molen – SSS Stout. It is an English-style stout brewed from a recipe dating to 1914.
World Cup
The weekend brings us the last World Cup action until 2014. Saturday the 10th is the third place match between Germany and Uruguay at 11:30 am. The pub will open at 11 am. Both teams had great tournaments and it should be an exciting game. The Final is Sunday the 11th at 11:30 am featuring two teams that have never won the World Cup – Spain and the Netherlands. I will lay plain my allegiance to the Netherlands, but I will be almost as happy to see Spain lift the trophy. The pub will open at 10:30 am with our regular lunch menu on Sunday. We will again set up an extra TV on the patio and we just got a new bulb for our 65″ big screen TV so the screen is much brighter and it looks brand new again. I expect to have a very large crowd, so if you are not coming for the game, please avoid the pub until after 2 pm.
Next Week
Thursday the 15th we get a double shot of casks from Tomme Arthur at Port Brewing Company in San Marcos. We will tap casks of Port 4th Anniversary and Wipeout IPA at 5 pm. The 4th Anniversary is on tap now and tasting great – but be careful it is over 10% but drinks like a much smaller beer. We should also have a keg of Port’s Mongo IPA on in addition to the casks.
Friday the 16th begins our mini 10 day Belgian fest. We will be celebrating St. Arnoldus Day at the pub with kegs of Kwak, Triple Karmeliet, Jacobins and St. Feuillien all weekend. St. Arnoldus Day is the feast day celebrating the patron saint of Belgium brewers. Although widely celebrated in Belgium, the holiday is not much recognized over here. So we will help change that by having a weekend featuring Belgian beers on tap and highlighting our extensive list of Belgian bottled beers.
More Belgians
Wednesday the 21st we continue our Belgian theme with Feestdag, which is the day of Belgium’s Independence. On this day in 1831, Leopold I took the first constitutional oath as king of Belgium. We will be featuring beers from Latis Imports on this day which include Rodenbach, Palm and Steenbrugge. Look for a mix of draft and bottled beer.
Friday the 23rd we reach the conclusion of our Belgian trio – Christmas in July. I have saved back some great Belgian Christmas beers including Scaldis Noel, Dupont Avec les Bon Vouex, N’ice Chouffe and St. Bernardus Christmas among others. We will tap these beers on Friday night and feature them all weekend, along with other great Belgian ales. So any time that you can stop in between the 16th and 25th of July, look for great Belgian beer on tap.
And just to tie in with our holiday theme, we will have a cask of AleSmith YuleSmith on Thursday the 22nd at 5 pm.
By request from the brewery, we have moved our Airdale night from the 16th to the end of the month.
That is your good beer news for now. Check out Brewery Rowe for news on Santee’s new brewery – Manzanita Brewing Co. – at http://www.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/brewery-rowe/. The brewery is having a grand opening party this Saturday. And the pub at Alpine Beer Co. is expected to be open by the end of the month. Follow the latest O’Brien’s updates on Facebook. We’ll see you soon for a great Belgian beer.
Cheers,
Tom Nickel
O’Brien’s Pub
20 Taps – Tons of Hops
Official U.S. Soccer Bar
