O’Brien’s Cask and Russian River Night!

Greetings Good Beer Fans!

The last week of our 15th Anniversary celebrations is here. We have tapped over 70 different beers so far month for your drinking pleasure – and we still have many more to go. We still have lots of great Pizza Port beer on tap from our 15 beer promo on Friday.

The Alpine O’Brien’s IPA is back on tap and we have kegs of Sierra Nevada Harvest and Bigfoot on tap right now. And with Bigfoot and Sierra Pale on tap, that means we can pour the Big P – 1/2 Bigfoot and 1/2 Pale Ale. It is a delicious combo that makes the Bigfoot more quaffable and the Pale more flavorful. We also have AleSmith Speedway Stout back in the bottle and a very limited amount of Dansk Viking Blod mead will be available starting tonight. Look for De Dolle Still Nacht to be on the bottle list for the weekend.

This Week
Tonight, Wednesday the 28th, we tap a cask of Alpine O’Brien’s IPA at 5:30 pm. If it tastes as good as it smelled when I vented it, we are all in for a treat. Lindsey will have her new Guinness and Cheddar Beer Cheese for sale as a cheese plate and on burgers (it goes great with bacon!).

Next Wednesday we will start selling containers of the Beer Cheese to-go! Tomorrow, Thursday the 29th we tap two full size Russian River casks at 5 pm – Pliny the Elder and Russian River Porter. I expect the Elder to be very popular on cask and to not last very long. The Porter should be around most of the evening though. Foodwise, we will have some new goodies on the specials list – Chipotle Pastrami, Chili Verde and Humberto’s new delicious Torta.

And there is something going on Friday night, I am sure…. The Big Russian River TION Night! We will have 19 different Russian River beers on tap for Friday the 30th and brewer Vinnie Cilurzo will be there to share a few of his beers with us. It is going to be a crazy night – think St. Patrick’s Day-like crowds. I would suggest not even trying to pull into the parking lot after 3 pm. Look for street parking on Convoy, Opportunity, Dagget or Ruffner on the block right around the pub. There will also be no darts on Friday due to the large crowd. We will have everyone working so just please be patient and remember that we are all there for the good beer. So here is the plan for tapping the beers. We have 11 TION beers and 8 pub beers. I am tapping the 8 pub beers first at 4 pm and this includes Aud Blonde, Dead Leaf Green, Happy Hops, Porter, IPA, Blind Pig, Pliny the Elder and yes, Pliny the Younger. We will be serving 5, 10 and 16 ounces glasses of all of those beers, except the Younger, which will serve in 5 or 10 ounce only due to the limited amount. If you are worried about not getting any Younger, don’t fret.

I already have more lined up for 5 pm on Saturday, February 7th. That will be a full size keg and we won’t have the TION crowd there that night. So if it is just Younger you crave, you may be better off just waiting a week until the 7th. We will also have 750 ml bottles of Consecration on Saturday the 7th. At 5 pm we will have all 11 TION beers on tap – some will likely be on tap before 5 pm, but all will be on tap no later than 5 pm. In our TION line-up we will have Redemption, Perdition, Salvation, Damnation, Batch 23 Damnation, Rejection, Temptation, Supplication, Sanctification, Beatification and Consecration. I have typed up a sheet with descriptions of all of the TION beers so that you will know what they are. All of them will be available in 5 ounce samples and most will be available in Chimay goblets as well. The sour barrel aged beers will be avaible in 5 ounce or 8 ounce glasses only. We will also have some bottles of Beatification (different batch than our draft), vintage Temptation and Supplication and 3 liter bottles of Damnation and Beatification – but those will be very limited. Look for several types of Russian River beer cheese for Friday night along with some other beer themed specials (Lindsey never tells me everything). Over the weekend, I expect to have several Russian River beers still on tap, in addition to lots of new beers where Russian River beers have blown.

Sunday the 1st, we will stay open late for the Superbowl. Next week’s cask on the 5th will be Stone’s poorly named, but very tasty Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale, which is a remake of the 11th Anniversary Black IPA. Friday the 6th we will host a Mission Brewery night with several beers on tap. The following week we get a cask of AleSmith’s My Bloody Valentine on the 12th and then an AleSmith draft night on Friday the 13th with a full keg of My Bloody Valentine. We will be open President’s Day normal hours. We won’t close down again until Easter Sunday. Pubs, Fests and Pub Crawls In other news, we have set some dates for upcoming Pizza Port Festivals.

The Belgian Beer Party will be Saturday, March 28th at Pizza Port Carlsbad. Pre-sale tickets will be available in February. The fest will again be in two sessions with identical beer lists. The Real Ale Fest will be June 12th and 13th. The San Diego County International Beer Festival will be June 26th and 27th at the Fairgrounds. And for those who just have to plan months in advance, the Strong Ale Festival will be December 4th and 5th. In other pub news, I got a chance to check out the new Blind Lady pub in Normal Heights. Lee Chase, former Stone head brewer, is one of the partners and he has lined up a great selection of beers. The pub will be open this weekend, starting Friday night. The kitchen was not open while I was there, but the menu looked very tasty. The restaurant is laid out well and has a nice feel to it. There is a small bar table area for drinkers as well. The pub is on Adams Avenue, on the same block as Rosie O’Grady’s. I also got to visit Beachwood BBQ in Seal Beach. We stopped by on the way up to the USA soccer game on Saturday and the place was great. An awesome selection beer was complemented by some of the best BBQ food I have ever eaten. I really believe that the smoked chicken wings were a life-changing experience. Even if you find yourself nowhere near Seal Beach (off the 405 north of Costa Mesa) make the effort to stop by. You will not be disappointed.

There is still room on our European Pub Crawl with Ciao Travel! and our friend Bill Snider. There are several different itineraries from which to choose including stops in London, Brussels, Ghent and Paris. This is the fifth Europe Trip we have done with Ciao Travel! and all of the previous four have been great fun. There are lots of brewery tours and pubs to visit and even a little bit of history and culture thrown in for good measure. Find all of the details at www.ciaotravel.com.

That is your good beer news for now. I will likely take next week off from the email after having sent out 4 this month – check for a website update mid-week. Thanks for all of your support during our 15th anniversary celebrations – it has been a lot of fun. Here’s looking forward to 15 more years of great beer.
Cheers, Tom

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