Malheur and a Weekend of Cool Beers At O’Brien’s Pub

Hello Beer Fans!

We have quite a number of treats for you this weekend.  Friday, April 1st we celebrate one year of draft Malheur in the USA (no fooling).  We will have Malheur 10 and 12 on tap Friday night along with bottles of Malheur Brut and Malheur Dark Brut.  If you haven’t tried Malheur yet, you should.

The 10 is a strong golden ale that is 10% alcohol and ridiculously easy to drink.  The 12 is a great Belgian dark strong ale that is malty, but not sweet.  The Brut and the Dark Brut are both champagne-style beers that are excellent.  Both the 10 and the 12 are on tap right now for your Thursday night drinking pleasure.

On Saturday the 2nd we are hosting a fundraiser for my friend Brit Antrim from 12-5 pm.  Brit is a former brewer who grew up in San Diego and worked at several local breweries before becoming the head brewer at Anderson Valley for a number of years.  He also worked at Kona and Great Divide during his brewing career.  Brit was hurt in a work accident that has left him with no feeling from the chest down.  He and his wife Tammi are great people and we are raising money to help with their mountain of expenses.

We will have a great collection of draft beer and a silent auction that will include some very rare bottles from Lost Abbey (Veritas, Yellow Bus) among other goodies.  On draft we will have Great Divide Oak Aged Hades (Belgian-style Golden), Sierra Nevada ABLE Best Bitter, Avery Maharaja, Pizza Port OB ABLE Stout, Port Solana Beach ABLE IPA, Port San Clemente ABLE Session Pale, Port Carlsbad ABLE Strong Pale, Hollister Hip Hop double IPA, Lost Abbey Saison Blanc and Cambridge Brewing ABLE Belgo-IPA.  All of the money raised during the afternoon will go to help Brit with his recovery.

Saturday is also the final four of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  Butler v. VCU will be on at 3 pm and Uconn v. UK will be on at approximately 5:45 pm if the first game does not go into overtime.  We’ll also being 10% off all bottles all weekend including import bottles purchased to-go.  We have a number of great new Scandinavian bottles on the list: Xbeeriment Black Force One (Smoked Imperial Stout), Haanbryggeriet Haandbic (Norwegian lambic with currants and cranberries), Haandbryggeriet Barrel Aged Porter (Imperial Porter in Aquavit casks) and Oppigards Winter (Swedish version of an English strong ale).  Sunday the pub will be open from 11:30 am to 6 pm and you can stop in to say hello to Coral.

Next Week

Monday the 4th is the NCAA basketball final at 6 pm.  We will be pouring $10 pitchers of all craft/local beers from 4:30 pm to close with strong/rare ales just $14 per pitcher.  Tuesday and Wednesday there will be live Champions League quarterfinal matches at lunch at 11:45 am (daylight savings time will have finally kicked in over in Europe).  Tuesday the 5th will feature Inter Milan v. Schalke and Real Madrid v. Tottenham.  Wednesday will have Barcelona v. Shakhtar and Chelsea v. Manchester United.  We will tape all of the games to reshow later.

Thursday the 8th you can look forward to a cask of Alpine Duet IPA.  We will have some draft Duet IPA as well.  Friday the 8th we have a new Belgian-style beer from Sierra Nevada, Ovila Dubbel along with a very limited supply of glassware for sale.  The beer is part of new series of Belgian-style ales that are being brewed in collaboration with a local Northern California Monastery, the Abbey of New Clairvaux.  The Trappist monks at New Clairvaux also operate a winery.  The dubbel is the first in the series, with a Saison and Quad to follow.  Part of the proceeds of the beer are donated to the Abbey as they seek to restore the 12th century Ovila chapel from Spain that was dismantled and shipped to the United States by newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst.  For more information on this very cool project, visit www.ovila.com.  We will be making a donation to the Abbey of New Clairvaux each time we tap an Ovila beer.  If you are interested in supporting the project, you can visit the Abbey’s website at www.newclairvaux.org

Saturday the 9th we will have a keg of Alpine Bad Boy on tap for your double IPA drinking pleasure.  Bad Boy is one of my favorite beers, but it is dangerous at 9.2% alcohol.  Also on the 9th at 4:30 pm we will host a viewing party for the LA Galaxy v. DC United soccer match.  US striker Charlie Davies who was nearly killed in 2009 in a serious car accident is back playing professional soccer for DC United.  USA captain Landon Donovan plays for the LA Galaxy.  It will be the first time that the two players are on the same field since 2009, even though they will be on opposing teams.

Real Ale Fest

The San Diego Real Ale Festival will be Friday, April 15th and Saturday, April 16th at Pizza Port Carlsbad.  The festival will feature all cask conditioned beers from breweries like Bear Republic, Avery, AleSmith, Mission, Triple Rock, Hollister, Green Flash, Ballast Point, Alpine, Stone and many more!  Every beer will be served through a beer engine.  More than 50 beers are expected to be poured over the two days.  The festival will run from 4 pm to 11 pm on Friday and from 11 am to 11 pm on Saturday.  Cost is $30 which includes a festival Imperial Pint tasting glass and 8 taster tickets each good for a 4 ounce pour.  Additional taster tickets will be just $1 each.  There will be a special discounted rate starting at 7 pm on Saturday the 16th of just $20!

There will also be a VIP session on Friday the 15th from 1 pm to 4 pm in the afternoon.  The session features limited ticket sales, food snacks provided by Pizza Port owner Vince Marsaglia and a great line up of VIP casks from Alpine (Odin’s Raven!), Green Flash, Ballast Point, AleSmith, Firestone, Lost Abbey and Pizza Port.  Tickets for the VIP session are only available on line through Ticket Derby.  The cost is $40 and the session is nearly 50% sold out at this point.  The link for tickets is: http://www.ticketderby.com/event/san-diego-real-ale-festival-vi-id-4883.  The VIP ticket includes admission into the Friday night session.  You can also RSVP for the Real Ale Fest on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=135619219843309.

On Thursday the 14th we will host a pre-party for the Real Ale Fest featuring specialty beers from Coronado Brewing Company – Black Ops black IPA, Idiot IPA, Czech Pils and Hoppy Daze Belgo-IPA.  All of the beers will be in full kegs, so look for them throughout the weekend.

Next month we will be hosting a hoppy beer and food pairing with Alpine Beer Company on Sunday, May 1st at 6:30 pm.  We will be featuring 6-7 different hoppy beers from Alpine paired up with several courses of food.  Cost will be $45 (cash only please) and seating is limited.  I will have a sign up sheet out tonight at the pub and I expect this tasting to sell out quickly.  The week after the tasting, May 2nd to 6th will be Alpine week as we tap what is left in the kegs from all of the beers.

That is your good beer news for now.  We’ll see you soon for a great beer.  Cheers, Tom

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