A Temptation, An Anniversary and Expo!

Greetings Good Beer Fans!

There is a lot happening in the world of good beer. Right now we have some great new beers on tap at the pub including Port Brewing’s 2nd Anniversary double IPA. It is massively hopped and somewhere in the 10% abv range.

The Port Brewing Wipeout IPA is also on tap right now. We also have the Ballast Point Brother Levonian Saison named for the late Dave Levonian who was a great homebrewer, an avid beer enthusiast and generally just a really good person. The brewery is donating all of the money from the beer to his daughter’s college fund.

We will be doing a special fundraiser for Dave’s family on Tuesday, June 3rd when we tap a cask of Brother Levonian. Yes, cask saison. Also brand new is the Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA. This is a totally different beer than the Torpedo we had last year. It is now a 7.5% abv IPA with a great clean finish – very drinkable (speaking of drinkable, I am enjoying a bottle of Sierra Nevada Harvest as I write). Look for the new Southern Hemisphere Harvest from Sierra on tap soon – made with New Zealand hops that were just harvested!

As for events this week we tap a 5 gallon cask (pin) of Pizza Port San Clemente’s Pig Dog Pale Ale at 5:30 pm on Wednesday the 14th. Thursday’s cask is Alpine Pure Hoppiness in its triumphant return at 5 pm. When the cask is gone, we should have a draft keg on to back it up. And as with every Thursday, all of our local beers will be on special. Look for Bear Republic Racer X on tap on Friday the 16th when we will also feature the popular Racer 7 1/2, which is half Racer 5 and half Racer X. From the kitchen we have our French Papillon Brie cheese and we are using it in a number of specials including the Papillon Burger and the Papillon Brie Proscuito melt. The Spicy Steak sandwich will be available this Thursday and Friday and you can also look forward to Clam Chowder.

This weekend we have a special treat from Russian River as we release the new batches of Supplication and Temptation in bottles. I also have a few select bottles from the last batches, which were released nearly two years ago. We will have these bottles for sale all day Saturday – I have a couple of cases of each one so I expect them to last. And we will have our regular weekend special of 10% off all bottles for in house or for import bottles to-go. After closing last week for Mother’s Day on Sunday, we will be back open normal hours – 12 pm to 6 pm this Sunday the 18th. We will be open next Sunday, May 25th over Memorial Day weekend, but we will be CLOSED on Monday, May 26th for the Memorial Day holiday. Also happening this weekend is the City Beat Beer Festival in North Park from Noon to 6 pm featuring only local breweries. For more info visit www.sdcitybeat.com.

Next week have a great event on Thursday, May 22nd to celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of Port Brewing and the Lost Abbey and the fact that the brewery won Small Brewing Company of the Year at the World Beer Cup! We will tap a cask of the 2nd Anniversary double IPA and we will have several other beers on tap including Wipeout IPA, Lost Abbey Serpent Stout and a special Lost Abbey Blend made for the Belgian Beer Party. We will also have Angel’s Share Bourbon Barrel Barleywine, the Inferno golden ale and Cuvee de Tomme in bottles! Brewer Tomme Arthur will also be stopping by to share a few pints with us all. The cask taps at 5 pm and that is when the Cuvee bottles will go on sale. This will definitely be a night of great beer.

Tickets for the VIP session of the San Diego Real Ale Festival are now on sale at www.pizzaport.com. The festival will feature more than 45 cask conditioned ales on Friday and Saturday, June 13th and 14th at Pizza Port Carlsbad. The main festival will run from 4 to 11 pm on Friday and 11 am to 11 pm on Saturday. The VIP session is from 1 to 4 pm on Friday and includes admission into the regular festival. The VIP session will have special 5 gallon casks – including Lost Abbey Angel’s Share, Green Flash Double Stout, Ballast Point Tongue Buckler and a selection of bottled Real Ales from the US, England and around the world. VIP ticket sales are limited – nearly one third of the tickets are already sold. Consider the Coaster train as a way to get to the fest – the Carlsbad station is only a few blocks away and the last trains from Carlsbad run at 9:25 pm on Friday and 7:40 pm on Saturday!

For soccer fans, the UEFA Cup Final will be Wednesday June 14th at 11:30 am between Rangers and Zenit St. Petersburg. There will be a replay at 5 pm. Next week we have the UEFA Champions League final clash between Manchester United and Chelsea live at 11:30 am with a replay at 4 pm (I will also tape the game to reshow at night). US Soccer has some great matches coming up including England on Wednesday, May 28th at noon, Spain on Wednesday, June 4th at 2 pm (the same day that Mexico plays Argentina at the Q) and Argentina at 4:30 on Sunday, June 8th. The US will also play its first World Cup Qualifier for 2010 on Sunday, June 15 vs. Barbados at 2 pm. The game is at the Home Depot Center in Carson and tickets are available now! This will be the only WCQ game in southern California, so if you want to see the full strength US team in action, this is your one shot without traveling to Ohio or Alabama.

I know that many of you fell in love with the Harviestoun’s Ola Dubh 30 Year Highland Park Reserve when it was on tap. We still have the beer in bottles on our special release list (along with the 12 Year and 16 Year Old Barrel Versions). While I don’t know if we will get another keg this year, I do know of one that is on tap right now at Live Wire in University Hieghts. This is from Sam Chammas the owner:

We tapped a keg of the Harviestoun “Ola Dubh” 30 year Highland Park Scotch Whisky barrel aged ale. As a customer thank you to real ale fans we have it at $7.50 for a 10 oz goblet. Here’s the address if you want to pass this around: Live Wire 2103 El Cajon Blvd, San Diego Ca 92104.
The pub is not open in the afternoon, I believe they open at 5 pm. If you are in the neighborhood, check them out. They have been serving good beer for a long time.

I usually try to keep this just about the beer, but occasionally I do spill over into other arenas. As I sit here and enjoy my Harvest Ale, I am also enjoying the Alex Skolnick Trio. It is a Jazz Trio formed by former heavy metal guitarist Alex Skolnick who was the lead guitarist for the band Testament (also recommended if you are into that sort of thing). He now plays instrumental jazz covers of classic hard rock songs including Dream On, Detriot Rock City, Still Loving You, War Pigs and much more. I highly recommend it for anyone into jazz guitar or hard rock music. The website to check out is: www.alexskolnick.com.

That is just about it for now. I will tease you with some future events – Friday, May 30th we host a vertical tasting of Alpine Exponential Hoppiness and in mid-June we will be re-launching Blind Pig IPA on tap from Russian River. You can also look forward to bottles of Pliny and Blind Pig before the end of summer! I should have the results from the San Diego County Fair Craft Beer Competition posted up on the website by Friday as well. We’ll see you soon for a great beer. Cheers, Tom

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