O’Briens Pub – Casks, Brew Dog and Lost Abbey!
Hello Beer Fans!
As you might expect from the month that spawned the world’s largest beer festival, October is full of good beer happenings here in San Diego. There will also be plenty of good beer of all types at the pub all month long.
This week we will feature our regular pitcher special for Monday Night Football – $9 pitchers of locals and crafts and $13 pitchers of rare and strong ales. Wednesday the 8th we will release the Big Swell IPA and Coconut Porter from Maui Brewing Company. We have had the beers once before during the Craft Brewers Conference, but now the beers are in San Diego full time.
I will be keeping the Coconut Porter around full time – I don’t even like Coconut and I think that it is an amazing beer. You really just have to try it. Next Thursday’s cask will be another double, this time from Alpine – Pure Hoppiness IPA and O’Brien’s IPA both at 5 pm. And keep an eye out for the return of the Bacon Stilton burger next week.
Next weekend, Friday the 10th will start the pub’s week-long Octoberfest celebration. And in keeping with true O’Brien’s style, it won’t just be regular Octoberfest beers and some lighter lagers. Nope, we will have on tap the Weihenstephaner Vitus (a weizenbock like the Schneider Aventinus) and Schneider Aventinus Eisbock (13% abv) along with some great bottles including EKU 28 and Aecht Schlenkerla Smoked Marzen which is a very intense smoke beer. We will have some regular offerings – Hacker Pschorr Octoberfest, Ballast Point Rocktoberfest and Paulaner Hefeweizen as well to round things out during the week.
Beer Tastings
I have two great special events to tell you about. First, we sat down and made the pairings for our next Beer and Cheese class with Taste Artisan Cheese and Gourmet Shop in Hillcrest. We have some amazing pairings that really surprised me. Among the beers we will be using are: Malheur 10 (this delicious strong golden ale is now on our bottle list), Duchess de Bourgogne and Young’s Double Chocolate Stout. We will also have some incredible cheeses including a black truffle cheese from Italy. The first class on Wednesday, October 15th at Taste is already sold out. However, there are still about 20 seats left for the class at O’Brien’s on Sunday, October 19th at 6:30 pm as I write this. If you want to go though, I would not wait long. I expect the class to sell out by next weekend. Cost is $40 and you can sign up at the pub (cash only please) or call Taste to use a credit card – 619-683-2306.
The second event is our Lost Abbey Rare Bottle Tasting with brewer Tomme Arthur and food wizard Vince Marsaglia. Tomme has pulled together a collection of rare bottles you won’t find on any bottle shop shelves for us to taste. Vince and Lindsey will be preparing light tapas-style food to pair with several of the beer courses. For fans of these amazing beers, this will be opportunity to taste beers that even we can’t normally get for the pub. The tasting will be Sunday, November 2nd at 6:30 pm at the pub. Cost is $45 (cash only please) and I will have a sign up sheet out by 5 pm tonight (Thursday the 2nd). I expect this to be a hot ticket and that it will sell out well before the end of the month. If you want to go, I would sign up in the next week to guarantee a spot.
Hard to believe I am not yet done with this. I have set the weekend of October 24th, 25th and 26th for our annual wet hop festival. I already have a good number of beers lined up, including several casks. I am not sure that it will be quite as big as in years past due to the hop situation, but I am expecting something around 20 beers total. I will most likely tap all of the full kegs on Friday and then all of the 5 gallon kegs on Saturday. I have casks of Sierra Nevada Harvest and ESP (extra special pale) and one from Lagunitas. I will start tapping the casks on Thursday the 23rd. We should have the Sierra Harvest on tap by next weekend. The brewery won’t release it until the Anniversary Ale is sold out, so I ordered a keg and will ask for your help in drinking through it so that we can get to the Harvest!
In other beer event news, our friends at Hamilton’s Tavern will be celebrating two years of great beer on Saturday, October 18th. Ballast Point will be hosting its 12th anniversary party on Saturday the 25th at the Scripp’s Ranch brewery. My good friend Colby Chandler says that he has been saving one keg from every specialty batch that has been brewed this past year and I can only assume that means that there will be Dorado and Sculpin on tap! Check out the Brewers Guild website at www.sandiegobrewersguild.org for more info on both events.
Almost Done!
Our wi-fi is back to normal – broadcasting with no password. If any of you are having any problems, please email me and let me know. It seems to be working fine with no glitches though. And while you are surfing the net, you can check our new My Space page at www.myspace.com/obrienspubsd. There are some great pictures from some of our past events including Halloween and the Stone Bus Trip.
Two of topic items to end up with. First, I have two tickets to the Australian Pink Floyd show at Symphony Hall on Monday, November 24th that I now can not use. The cover band will be doing a full performance of The Wall. The seats are in the Grand Tier. If you are interested, just reply to this email. Second, in these crazy economic times, I just want to pass along two ways that I have found to keep some money safe – ING Orange Savings with 3% apy and CDs at the San Diego County Credit Union, which is currently running a special near 4% apy. Both institutions are solid and it is hard to beat the returns. I am not a gambling man, so I like guaranteed returns. Just fyi, I am not getting any kickbacks here.
That is it for now – as if that was not too much already. Casks of Poor Man’s IPA and Hop Suey on the 16th, Evil Dead Red on tap for Friday and a cask on the 30th. Halloween Costume party on Friday the 31st! 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
