OBrien's Pub – Evil Dead Red, Chimay and Halloween!

Greetings Beer Fans!

It was a great weekend of Harvest beers at the pub. The Wet Hop Festival featured a ton of great beers with not one, but many standouts. About 10 of the beers are still on tap, mostly beers that were in full kegs or that had been served on the jockey box over the weekend. I have updated the tap list on the website as of Wednesday morning.

Most of our regular beers are back including Racer 5 and Pure Hoppiness. The Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence is also back on tap and we just got our first keg of Celebration in this week and I hope to tap it soon.

I have to give a big thanks to two folks, without whom our Wet Hop weekend could have been a total disaster – Josh Miner from Drakes Brewing and our own resident handy man Fix It Paul. Josh helped organize the Northern California beers and ship them down here. The shipping company though didn’t do its job and the beer never left. So Josh piled the beer in a van and drove down from San Leandro on Friday with about 17 kegs in the van to save the day. Otherwise, we would have missed out on all of the Northern California beers.

Continuing with the theme of things going wrong, our CO2 system and our glycol chilling system for the taps both had problems – one on Friday the other on Saturday and Paul was able to come in and fix both problems and keep the draft beer flowing and cold. So a big THANKS to Paul and Josh for basically saving the Wet Hop Festival from certain doom. Needless to say, there were many free beers for both Paul and Josh.

And now on to this week’s beer happenings. On Thursday, October 30th we tap our one and only cask of AleSmith Evil Dead Red at 5 pm. This is always a very popular cask and I expect it to be gone by 7 pm – you have been warned. If you can’t make it by, however, there are several other pubs around town tapping EDR casks in the next week or so – Hamilton’s and The Linkery on Friday and PB Tap Room and Ritual Tavern next Wednesday and Thursday respectively.

Friday the 31st is our big Halloween Costume Party and I have a bunch of great beers lined up. We will have the new Ichabod from Alpine, which is a pumpkin Dunkle Weizen. We will have a very special 5 gallon cask of Ichabod and the beer will be on tap on nitrogen. Also on tap will be AleSmith Evil Dead Red, Craftsman’s Edgar’s Ale, an oak aged strong ale named for Edgar Allan Poe and Moonlight Boney Fingers, a 6% alcohol black lager beer. I am also hoping to have the Hopocalypse double IPA on tap from Drake’s. The tap line up will be great and all of the employees will be in costume. Halloween at the pub is always fun, so please join us in costume for some great beer.

Over the weekend, we will have our regular 10% off all bottles special. Sunday we will be open normal hours, Noon to 6 pm, since there is no Charger game (hey, at least they can’t lose this week). For those who signed up for our Lost Abbey tasting, it will be at 6:30 pm on the 2nd. Monday, November 3rd, we get the Steelers at the Redskins for Monday Night Football and we’ll have our great $9 pitcher special going all night long. The paper may tell you the economy is in the toilet, but with gas under $2.85 and pitchers of Russian River IPA for $9, it can’t be all that bad. For soccer fans, the Champions League will be on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 4th and 5th at 11:30 am both days.

Next Tuesday is election night. And you have to allow me to get on my soapbox for a minute. Voting is important. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, it matters that you participate. The only way we can hope to get this city, state and country of ours in the direction we want it to go, is to vote on election day for the issues we believe in. I don’t care who you vote for, but I will offer to bribe you to vote. Just bring in your I Voted sticker and you will get your first craft or local beer for just $2. You might as well wake up with a hangover on Wednesday, because no matter what happens, your head will probably hurt as soon as you read the paper or watch the news in the morning. At least we won’t get any more of those damned election mailers.

Now, back to the beer. On Wednesday, November 5th we have a very special celebration – 25 years of Chimay in the United States. We will have Chimay on tap and all three Chimay beers in the bottle – White Cap, Red Cap and the Grand Reserve along with magnums and 3 liters of the Grand Reserve. There will also be specially engraved 25th Anniversary Chimay glasses for sale. The kitchen will have Chimay cheeseburgers and Chimay cheese plates featuring three different Chimay cheeses. The celebration starts at 6 pm and goes until closing. Our Chimay representative for California, Jay Baum, will be on hand to answer questions, share beer and talk soccer. Chimay is one of the most recognizable Belgian beers and this is a great milestone. Chimay was a forerunner of the good beer movement in this country. O’Brien’s is proud to host the 25th Anniversary party for Chimay in San Diego.

On Thursday, November 6th we will have a cask of the aptly named Green Flash Palate Wrecker double IPA at 5 pm. Friday the 7th we will feature the beers of Airdale Brewing Company, a new San Diego based outfit. The guys are making their beer at Bayhawk in Orange County, but unlike other contract brewing company’s, they have a head brewer and their own recipes. David Lusk, formerly the brewer at Backstreet Vista, is the head brewer for Airdale and he goes to Orange County to make the beer. The company does have plans to open a brewery in San Diego in the future. We will have a Pale Ale, Hefeweizen and Porter from Airdale. So be sure to check out these newest beers in San Diego. Sunday the 9th, the Chargers and new defensive coordinator Ron Rivera face Kansas City at 1:15 pm.

Saturday the 8th is the annual San Diego Brewers Guild Festival. This is always one of the best beer events of the year. It features beer from every single San Diego brewery and only San Diego breweries – though there will be San Diego county wines. Most of the breweries bring out great specialty beers that aren’t regularly available. There will also be some food pairing with the beer from pub members of the Guild and live music. The festival is at the World Beat Center in Balboa Park – it is the funky looking round building you pass before getting on the freeway. It will run from 7-11 pm with a special VIP session from 5-7 that will feature a line up of VIP only beers. Tickets are cheaper if you buy them in advance, which you can do through the Guild website at www.sandiegobrewersguild.org.

And while I am on festivals, the Green Flash Anniversary Party is coming up on November 15th. It will be at the brewery in Vista from 12 – 4 pm. For complete details click here. If you are looking for a safe way to get up to Vista, consider Brewer Tours of San Diego. They are driving folks round trip for $20 and will pick you up at O’Brien’s at 11:30 am. For more info visit: http://brewerytoursofsandiego.com/ridegreenflash.html. And VIP tickets for the San Diego Strong Ale Festival are sale now through www.pizzaport.com. This session always sells out, so don’t delay in buying your tickets.

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
4646 Convoy Street
www.obrienspub.net