Belgian Beer Festival and O’Briens Pub SD Info

Belgian Beer Festival in Carlsbad, CA  and O’Briens Pub San Diego, CA – A note from Tom Nickel from O’Briens Pub

Hello Fans of Great Beer!
The Belgian Beer Festival at Pizza Port Carlsbad is this Saturday, March 28th. Tickets are still available for the night time session from 5 pm to 11 pm at the Pizza Port website – www.pizzaport.com. More than 100 Belgian and Belgian-style beers will be available including many rarities. Cost is $40 which includes a Belgian beer glass and 8 taster tickets each good for a four ounce pour. Additional taster tickets are just $1. There are fewer than 150 tickets left as of Thursday morning and the cut off for pre-sale tickets is 8 pm on Friday the 27th. Pre-sale tickets are sold out for the first session. There may be tickets available on a walk-up basis, but only as space allows, so there is no guarantee unless you have a pre-sale ticket. I hope to see you there!

On the pub front, we will tap a cask of Alpine Nelson Rye-IPA at 5 pm. This is a great IPA and a rare treat on cask. The beer uses New Zealand hops that create a unique fruity nose. We have some great draft beers on tap right now as well. Many of the Russian River kegs are still flowing – only two have blown so far. Ballast Point’s Bourbon Barrel Black Marlin Porter and Victory at Sea Coffee Imperial Porter are both on tap and tasting very delicious. If you missed the Gouden Carolous promo over the weekend, we have been rotating the beer back on tap. Right now, we are pouring the Hopsinjoor which is a strong, hoppy golden ale with a very pleasant bitterness to it. The beer was released last year for the 24 Hour Belgian Beer Festival – I remember it vividly because we were at the brewery 3 days before the festival and they wouldn’t let us try it. But I have to say it was worth the wait and it was voted best beer at the festival that year.

Friday the 27th we host a New Belgium brewing night with four beers on tap – La Folie (barrel aged sour brown), Might Arrow Pale Ale, Dunkleweizen 30 and the newly re-released Biere de Mars which has never been available in San Diego and hasn’t been brewed since 2004. We will also have limited amount of NBB glassware for sale – we also have a few Gouden Carolous glasses for sale along with some cool Deschutes pint glasses. Check out the Bacon Guinness Beer Cheese burger on the specials board – it really is as delicious as it sounds. If you find yourself nowhere near the pub on Friday night, Pizza Port Carlsbad is hosting a pre-party for the Belgian festival at the pub featuring lots of draft Belgian beer (which should be on tap all weekend).

There are plenty of great soccer games coming up. The USA men play at El Salvador at 6 pm on Saturday the 28th and then again on Wednesday the 1st vs. Trinidad and Tobago at 4:30 pm. There are a ton of World Cup Qualifying matches coming up. We have Setanta, Gol TV and Fox Soccer – anything that is on those channels we can show during business hours, or have taped to show later. The UEFA Champions League resumes on April 7th and 8th at 11:30 am and we will have all four quarterfinal games on live. Lindsey invites all Chelsea fans to watch the game against Liverpool on the 8th somewhere else.

Beer and Cheese Please!

Our next round of Beer and Cheese Pairings are coming up in April. The first will be Wednesday, April 22nd at Taste Cheese Shop in Hillcrest at 7 pm. The second will be Sunday, April 26th at O’Brien’s at 6:30 pm. Cost is $40 and you can sign up at the pub (cash only please) or at Taste (find the link on our website). If you sign up before April 1st, you will be entered into a drawing for a chance to help us pick the pairings. It is a tough job of tasting lots of beer and cheese to find the perfect pairings for the class, but it is a job that I am willing to do for the greater good. The classes are a lot of fun and are vey casual.

Our own Micaela Cano is being featured as the Bartender of the Month on Sign On San Diego! You can watch her video interview by visiting: http://www.signonsandiego.com/feature/one-more-round/. Micaela does a great job and seems very relaxed in front of the camera. She is the first beer bar bartender they have featured, so instead of listing a favorite beer, they have a recipe for the Champliny – a half Champagne, half Russian River Pliny the Elder cocktail. It is surprisngly good – especially during brunch for Chargers games.

I am working on an O’Brien’s bike jersey. I am trying to gauge how many to order. If you think you might be interested in one, please let me know and tell me what size you might want. You can just reply to this email. I will order extras no matter what, but I just want to size the order appropriately. The same designer who did the Alpine bike jersey is designing the O’Brien’s bike jersey.

Next Week

I already have some great April events lined up. It starts next week with our Make You a Fools day promo on Wednesday, April 1st. It will feature four hoppy beers over 10% – one that sounds like icicle, one named for a mathematical function, one named for an ancient philosopher and lawyer and one named for an Indian King. All of them will be on tap at 6 pm. Thursday the 2nd we will tap a cask of Mission IPA at 5 pm. Friday the 3rd we have the last keg of the Coronado Bourbon Barrel Belgian Stout. The regular stout was great and I have not yet tried the Bourbon Barrel version, so I am very excited about this. I’ll also have two Imperial Porters on tap that night from Full Sail and Shipyard.

Wednesday the 8th is our next Pizza Port Pizza Night with Vince Marsaglia. Vince will bring down his incredible mobile pizza kitchen to create some tasty pizzas for us. I imagine Pizza will be ready to order around 5:30 or 6 pm. I will also be tapping some very rare kegs of Italian craft beer that I have been hoarding including Verdi Stout. I will put a full list out before the event. Lagunitas night will be Friday the 10th. The pub will be closed Sunday, April 12th for Easter.

That is your good beer news for now. Hope to see you in Carlsbad this weekend for a great Belgian beer! Cheers, Tom
Tom Nickel
O’Brien’s Pub
20 Taps – Tons of Hops
4646 Convoy Street