The Bruery, The Bolts and Labor Day!

Here’s note from Tom Nickel of O’Briens Pub in San Diego. Contact thefullpint.com if you want to send out a similar message about your pub, beer bar, or upcoming event.

Greetings Beer Lovers!

The end of summer for most, Labor Day, is almost upon us. However, for those of us who live here, Labor Day signifies the time that we get our city back from the tourists while the weather is still nice. And given how warm September and October usually are, it is hardly the end of summer (unless you are going back to school, in which case you are screwed, it really is the end of summer). No matter the season, we will have good beer on tap for you.
We have several new beers on tap right now from our Bruery Night on Friday. The Bruery is a new micro in Orange County specializing in Belgian-inspired beers owned by Patrick Rue (hence the clever B-Rue-Ry name). We have four on tap – the White Orchard Wit and the Dark Orchard which is a dark Wit, Humulus Bruin which is a hoppy brown ale and the Hottenroth Berliner Weiss which is a slightly sour hefeweizen (lactic acid sour, not wild yeast sour) that is an amazingly light 3.2% alcohol and very drinkable. We also have four more in the bottle – Tradewinds Tripel which is spiced with Thai Basil and uses rice in place of sugar to create a light body and color, Saison Rue which is bottled with brettanomyces, Luved’s Batch #1 which was an award winning homebrew recipe inspired by Duvel and a Bourbon barrel aged version of the Luved’s Batch #1 which I can say from first hand experience is delicious.

Also new on tap is the Ettaler Curator Double Bock from Germany, Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest and Pizza Port San Clemente El Camino IPA. Look for Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA, Rogue Imperial Stout, Green Flash West Coast IPA and Rubicon IPA to be on tap soon.

We have some other great new bottles to tell you about. The Unibroue Quatre Centieme which was made for the 400th anniversary of Quebec – it is a 7.5% golden ale with some very nice spicy notes. Thiriez Blond Biere de Garde, Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron, Afligem Blond and Green Flash 2007 Le Freak are all new on the list. And right now we have six meads (honey wines) available – 3 from Redstone: Traditional, Juniper Berry and Boysenberry Nectar; and 3 from Dansk: Viking Blod, Klapojster and GI Dansk. We can sell any import bottle on our menu to-go (sorry, no domestic beers) with a limit of one per person per day. All bottles are 10% off every Saturday and Sunday.

Tonight, Monday the 25th, we have a Chargers pre-season game that should be much more fun to watch than the game against the Rams. The Bolts play the Seattle Seahawks at 5 pm and our starters are projected to play the first three quarters. We will also have our regular Monday night pitcher special all during the game – just $9 for pitchers of locals and domestics and $13 for strong/rare ales. Clearly the best deal on Russian River IPA or Pure Hoppiness anywhere in town.

Later in the week we will host a Bear Republic night on Friday the 29th featuring four beers on tap – Racer 5 IPA, Rebellion – a strong hoppy pale with Amarillo hops, Crazy Ivan – a blend of the Racer 5 and Red Rocket worts (unfermented beer) fermented with a Belgian yeast, and Black Raven Porter on Nitrogen. This will be the first time that we have had three of these beers on tap so be sure to check them out while they are around. As an added Friday night bonus we get the last Chargers preseason game on Friday vs. the 49’ers at 7 pm. Thursday night’s cask will be Port Brewing Wipeout IPA at 5 pm.

Over the weekend we will be open normal hours on Saturday the 30th (Noon to Midnight) and Sunday the 31st (Noon to 6 pm). We will have some glassware specials over the weekend with the following glassware for sale – Urthel, Koningshoeven, Delrium Tremens (the one with the pink elephants), Unibroue, Stella Artois, St. Feuillien, Celis Grotten, Kwak, New Belgium, two styles from Lost Abbey and of course both styles of our O’Brien’s pint glasses. We’ll also be featuring all our merchandise including our new shirts for 10% off all weekend. On the food front, the kitchen will be serving Fish and Chips, our Chipotle Fish Sandwich and Fish Tacos both days.

Now that you have a weekend full of good stuff, here is the bad news – O’Brien’s Pub will be CLOSED on Monday, September 1st for Labor Day. It is a holiday for our employees as well. So be sure to get in all of your Pliny and Pure Hoppiness over the weekend or just come back on Tuesday the 2nd when we resume normal hours. Rest easy knowing that we won’t close again until Thanksgiving – only banks take Columbus day off.

Football is back – both the American and European varieties. We will be opening early for all 10 am Chargers games and staying open late on Sundays for all of the Charger night games. We cook breakfast for all of the 10 am Charger games. The first real game will be Sunday, September 7th at 1:15 pm against the Carolina Panthers.

Right before that we will be featuring beers from the Boulevard Brewing Company Smokestack series on Friday the 5th and Saturday the 6th. These beers are brand new in San Diego. Boulevard, which is in Kansas, makes a high end line of 750 ml bottles they call the Smokestack Series. We will have the brewery’s Saison, Double IPA, Tripel and Quadrupel – all of which are very good. We will also have some Ommegang beers on tap – Rare Vos and the new Grand Cru Rouge which is a Flanders Red Ale/sour brown along with some great Ommegang glassware. The cask for next Thursday is yet to be determined – check the website after Labor Day to find out what we will have.

For soccer fans, I have posted up the latest schedule of games on our website in the news section under the heading “soccer”. I have a soccer-specific email that goes out twice a month that lists all of the upcoming games – if you would like to get on it, just reply to this email and mention that you want to be on the soccer list. With our DVR box, we can also tape any of the games.

In other upcoming events, we still have a few seats left for our AleSmith Vintage and Barrel Aged tasting on Saturday, September 13th at 6 pm (which will also feature Lindsey’s famous Pear Tart). The San Diego Festival of Beer downtown will be held on Friday, September 19th from 6 to 11 pm featuring more than 50 breweries. All of the proceeds go to benefit local cancer research programs. For more info visit www.sdbeerfest.org. And our Elysian launch party will be Tuesday, September 23rd with 6-8 Elysian beers on tap.

Finally, some of you may have experienced some difficulty with our Wi-Fi recently. We have upgraded our system and we are in the process of working out some of the kinks. The network is still there, but it does not broadcast and it is password protected. As changes occur, I will keep everyone posted. For now, the password is posted by the Coke machine up front and there are step by step directions on how to connect behind the bar – just ask for them.

That is your pub news for now. Have a great Labor Day weekend filled with much good beer. Cheers, Tom

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