O’Brien’s Pub – Maui, Casks and Alpine Week!
Aloha Beer Fans! – We are gearing up for our massive Maui Brewing Night on Thursday the 28th with owner/brewer Garrett Marrero and 7 different Maui beers on tap.
We’ve also got Alpine Week coming up next week along with our Alpine Hoppy Beer and Food Tasting this Sunday (there are only a few spots left). Lots of great beers to tell you about, so I’ll jump right into it.
Tonight, Wednesday the 27th we are tapping a cask of The Bruery’s Humulus Lager, which is a 7.4% hoppy lager similar to Ballast Points Fathom India Pale Lager (which we just got a keg of delivered to the pub yesterday). We’ll tap the cask at 6 pm. This is a great hoppy beer and a rare cask for us from this great Orange County brewery. We’ll also have a great glassware special tonight – a free Deschutes pint glass when you buy a glass of Deschutes awesome Jubel Ale 2010 (while supplies last). The Jubel 2010 is a special release double version of the brewery’s Jubel Ale that is 11% and partially aged in oak barrels. We’ll also have specials on Deschutes Inversion IPA and Hop Henge double IPA. From the kitchen we will have Lindsey’s great Beer Chili and Cesar’s Pork Belly Tacos.
For the soccer fans, Real Madrid hosts Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final at 11:45 am on Wednesday. At night, former MLS champions Real Salt Lake look to add the Concacaf Champions League to the team’s trophy case. RSL hosts Monterrey of Mexico in the second leg Wednesday night at 7 pm. RSL tied in Monterrey 2-2 giving them an advantage on away-goals so that a 0-0 or 1-1 tie would see them crowned champions. The winner will get a berth in the Club World Cup in December in Japan – a tournament no MLS team has ever participated in.
Maui Night
Thursday is our massive Maui Brewing Night. Garrett will be on hand to share some beers, tell us about his beers and help celebrate his mom’s birthday. Garrett’s MOM (mainland operations manager) lives here in town and she will be celebrating with us at the pub. We will have 7 beers on tap which is more draft Maui beer than we have ever gotten before and most of the beers are in full size kegs. We’ll have Coconut Porter, Big Swell IPA, Red Alert (hoppy 7% red ale), Mana Wheat (made with pineapple juice), Ode to Carol (Belgian-style Golden ale at 6.3%), Flyin Hi P Hay (an IPA made in honor of the late Oregon brewer Glen Hay Falconer) and a Pale Ale. We’ll also have a limited number of Maui pint glasses for sale. Garrett will be by around 5 pm and hanging out for a few hours. On cask look for Port Brewing’s Wipeout IPA at 5 pm.
Friday the 29th raise a pint to our pub manager Tyson and Pat McIllhenney of Alpine Beer Co. for their birthday. Tyson will just be working lunch so that he can enjoy the evening off. We’ll still have all of our great Maui Brewing beers on tap Friday and Saturday. Saturday the 30th we will have Schneider beers from Germany on special – Weiss, Aventinus (the classic wheat double bock) and Aventinus Eisbock (an iced version of the wheat double bock that is 12%). There will also be a limited amount of Schneider glassware for sale on Saturday. Enjoy 10% off our entire bottle list all weekend long. On Sunday the 1st and Monday the 2nd, look for our great beer battered fish specials from the kitchen including our tasty Fish Tacos.
Alpine Tasting
Sunday the 1st at 6:30 pm is our Alpine Hoppy Beer and Food Tasting. Everyone is contributing a little bit to the food menu on this one. Tyson is doing beer curried Lamb, I am doing birthday bacon (almost more of a bacon steak bite inspired by Peter Lugers steakhouse in Brooklyn) and Lindsey is doing a Nelson birthday bundt cake. We’ll have a couple of other great courses of food to pair up with 7 different hoppy Alpine beers – Alpine Ale, Hoppy Birthday, O’Brien’s IPA, Duet IPA, Nelson IPA, Pure Hoppiness and Bad Boy. There are only a few spots left at the tasting and I expect them to be gone by Saturday. Cost is $45 (with tax and tip inclusive) and you can sign up at the bar (cash only please).
Alpine Week
For those who won’t be attending the Alpine tasting, you still get a special treat – Alpine Week May 2nd – 7th. All of the beer for our tasting is coming in full size kegs which we won’t even come close to using up. So Sunday night we’ll have 7 Alpine kegs that will just have to be emptied during the coming week. I know, it sounds awful, 3-4 handles of Alpine beer all week long, 11 different beers on tap, with all of the hoppy kegs from the tasting and kegs of Captain Stout on nitro, Token Imperial Porter on Wednesday the 4th, Exponential Hoppiness on Thursday the 5th and Odin’s Raven Imperial Stout on Friday the 6th.
It gets worse – casks of Nelson on Wednesday, Hoppy Birthday on Thursday and a special 5 gallon lunch time cask on Friday the 6th of Duet. Worst idea ever, right? If you could please help us get rid of all this Alpine beer, we would sure appreciate it. We’ll need your help all month long as we’ll have casks of O’Brien’s IPA on the 12th, Ugly black IPA on the 19th and Pure Hoppiness on the 26th. This is all Shawn’s fault, I swear.
The return legs of the UEFA Champions League semi-finals will be May 3rd (Barcelona v. Real Madrid) and May 4th (Manchester United v. Schalke). Both games will be live at 11:45 am. The Final will be Saturday, May 28th at 11:45 am on Fox Sports from Wembley Stadium in London.
The pub will be CLOSED on Sunday, May 8th for Mother’s Day as we are every year. Check out www.sandiegobrewersguild.org for a great list of pubs and breweries as well as upcoming events. We’ll also close down for Memorial Day, Monday, May 30th. But don’t worry, we won’t close again until the July 4th weekend. In May you can look for some great one-off kegs as Tyson and I clean out the cold box. I have some buried treasures in there and we will be tapping them throughout the month of May. We’ll also have some Hair of the Dog kegs – Blue Dot double IPA and Fred – on tap in May.
That is your good beer news for now. We’ll see you soon for a great Maui 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
