San Diego Beer Week 2010 – O’Brien’s Pub Events
Hello Beer Week Fans!
San Diego Beer Week is almost upon us. Nearly 350 beer events will be happening all over San Diego county from November 5th through the 14th. The San Diego Brewers Guild Festival will be Saturday the 6th from 2-6 pm at Liberty Station with a special VIP session from 12-2 pm. The Guild is also sponsoring the Beer Hall at the Lodge at Torrey Pines on Sunday the 14th from 11:30 am to 3:30 pm.
The Beer Hall will pair local chefs with local breweries for a great afternoon of beer and food pairing. This was one of the best events I went to last year. Tickets for those events along with information on all of the Beer Week events can be found at www.sdbw.org.
We will of course be doing something every single day during Beer Week for your beer drinking pleasure. And even though it always seems like Beer Week around here, this will be a particularly insane series of events and great beers. We will be hosting brewers from around the country and tapping great beers from San Diego and around the world. We’ll be doing events with AleSmith, Alpine, Green Flash, Lost Abbey, Ballast Point, Avery, Allagash, Kern and some great nights featuring Belgian and Barrel Aged beers. All of the details follow below.
Before Beer Week kicks off, we will tap a cask of Green Flash Palate Wrecker double IPA on Thursday, November 4th at 5 pm. All of our local beers will be on special as well that night. You can also look for some of our new bottles including Ballast Point Victory at Sea Coffee Imperial Porter with Vanilla and Affligem Noel – already our second Belgian Christmas beer on the list. We got the St. Bernardus Christmas in early October. This weekend we will open early for the Chargers game this Sunday the 7th at 9:45 am and serve up a great breakfast with champagne and mimosas.
Beer Week Tastings
We are doing 2 Sunday night tastings during San Diego Beer Week. The first is with Green Flash on Sunday, November 7th at 6:30 pm with head brewer Chuck Silva. Chuck will lead us through tasting 11 of his delicious beers including 4 IPAs and double IPAs, Superfreak, 2009 Grand Cru, St. Feuillien collaboration Beer de L’Amitie and the amazing Silva Stout (which will be back on the bottle list soon). The kitchen will be pairing some great food with the beer that will include Braised Pork Loin, Winchester Farms Gouda, Seafood Salad and a rich chocolate dessert. Cost is $40 (cash only please) and I have a sign up sheet at the pub. There are only about 8 seats left for this tasting, so sign up soon.
The second tasting is with Lost Abbey and head brewer Tomme Arthur on Sunday, November 14th at 6:30 pm. I finally have nailed down some of the dozen beers that we will be serving. We will be tasting Veritas 007, Framboise de Amarosa, Angel’s Share Grand Cru, Deliverence (blend of Angel’s Share and Bourbon barrel Serpents Stout), Red Poppy, Amazing Grace, Saints Devotion and more. We’ll also be doing some incredible food with Tomme’s beer including mussels steamed in geuze, pork belly tacos and crab cakes. This tasting is $50 (again, cash only please) and it is nearly sold out. We will have a waiting list started once the tasting is sold out. I am sure that we will let a few people in off the waiting list – I just want to make sure that Tomme has enough of each beer before I do.
Beer Week Events
Here are the final updates to our amazing Beer Week events. All of this is what I am expecting to be pouring and serving from the kitchen.
Friday, 11/5 – Night of a Million Zillion Speedways – Now up to 9 versions of AleSmith Speedway including multiple casks and other great AleSmith beers – Evil Dead Red, YuleSmith, IPA and Nautical Nut Brown. The featured Speedways will include: regular draft, Bourbon barrel aged, kopi luwak coffee (aka weasal poo), AleSmith house roasted coffee, toasted coconut, chipotle pepper, Whiskey soaked oak chips, vanilla bean and cocoa nibs. Look for a special Speedway-inspired dessert from Tyson and a night of beer boiled corned beef specialties along with AleSmith beer cheese. If you ever read the old Tick comic books, that is where the name for this night comes from.
Due to the rarity of these beers and the very limited quantities, we will be dividing the 9 Speedways into two flights of 4 and 5 two ounce tasters. You will be able to order either flight or both flights at the same time, but we will only be offering individual pours of the regular draft Speedway. This way we hope that everyone who wants to can taste all 9 Speedway stouts. I am sure this will be a popular and crowded event, so please be patient and remember that we are all there for the good beer. The Speedways will all tap at 5 pm and hopefully last several hours.
Saturday, 11/6 and Sunday, 11/7 – Weekend in Belgium – A two day, all weekend, draft and bottle celebration of Belgian beer including Rodenbach Vintage, Malheur 12, St. Bernardus Christmas, Val Dieu, Tripel Karmeliet, Stuise Black Albert, Boon Kriek and more on tap. We’ll have lots of new bottles including Drie Fonteinen Geuze, Cuvee De Ranke, Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, Achel and more! In addition to the great beer, I will have some very limited amounts of Belgian glassware for sale from Malheur, Konigshoeven (La Trappe) and a few others. Look for Chimay cheeseburgers and cheese plates, Flemish stew and more Belgian-themed food specials. We will be tapping great Belgian beers all weekend and I have multiple kegs of the Rodenbach Vintage so that it will be on tap all weekend.
Sunday, 11/7 – Charger Brunch at 10 am with a great breakfast spread from Humberto and Said – pub open at 9:45 am. Look for scrambles and breakfast burritos along with champagne and mimosas. The Chargers play at Houston and will be trying to win the team’s first road game. We’ll have great Belgian beers available all day Sunday and all of our bottles will be 10% off all weekend including import bottles to go. The Green Flash tasting with head brewer Chuck Silva will be at 6:30 pm (ticketed event, cost $40 – see details above).
Monday, 11/8 – Alpine Night with Bad Boy and O’Brien’s IPA release including a Bad Boy cask at 5 pm. We should have lots of other hoppy Alpine beers including Hoppy Birthday, Duet IPA, Nelson Rye-IPA and Pure Hoppiness. Cesar will be making some great Carnitas specials including tacos and burritos and Lindsey will be making Bad Boy beer cheese. Some of the good folks from Alpine will be joining us for these great beers since the Alpine pub is closed on Mondays (open Tuesday thru Sunday).
Tuesday, 11/9 – Avery Night with Avery national sales manager Ted Whitney at 5 pm. I just got the beer list last week and we will have 2007 Mephistopheles stout, 16th Anniversary (made with peaches, honey and jasmine), Kaiser Imperial Octoberfest, Reverend Quadrupel, Salvation Belgian-style Golden Strong, Rumpkin (rum barrel aged pumpkin beer that I have never had), Hog Heaven, and Dugana double IPA. In the kitchen, it will be curry night with lots of great specials including a curry parsnip soup and some sweet potato fries.
Wednesday, 11/10 – Kern River Night at 5 pm – JO IPA, Citra double IPA, Bourbon Barrel Class V Stout, Class V Stout – nitro, Harvest Ale cask and the brewers will be at the pub. We might get one more beer, the brewery’s red ale, but I won’t know that until they drop off the beer from Kern next week. We’ll be running some great English pub specials out of the kitchen – cottage pie, smoked sausage plate with a special Ballast Point gin and juniper sauerkraut and we’ll also have our great beer battered fish and chips.
Thursday, 11/11 – Ballast Point Night at 5pm with 2 Sculpin IPA casks, Sculpin draft and 4 different versions of Victory at Sea including 2010, 2009 vintage, Bourbon Barrel Aged and Cask. We’ll also have Bourbon barrel Sea Monster Stout on nitro, San Salvador Saison, Dorado double IPA and a cask of Black Marlin Porter aged with Ballast Point Three Sheets Rum-soaked oak chips. We’ll have some great fish specials for the brewery that names everything after the sea. Cesar will have his amazing ceviche, we’ll have beer battered fish tacos, Humberto will be making cioppino and we will have Victory at Sea chocolate bread pudding.
Friday, 11/12 – Attack of the Barrels – A night of barrel aged beer on tap and in the bottle that I am hoping will feature more than 50 different beers starting at 5 pm. I have been saving back a bunch of special bottles for this event. There will be some bottles that we have never had before like Trois Dames Grande Dame Oud Bruin and some that we have not had in a long time like Drie Fontenien Schaerbeekse Kriek and Firestone Parabola. I have some incredible draft beers like Marin Old Ale aged in a Port barrel, Struise Pannepot Reserva, Stone 10th Anniversary Russian Imperial Stout barrel blend, Deschutes Bourbon barrel Mirror Mirror, Moylan’s barrel aged Barleywine, Green Flash Superfreak (maybe even some Silva Stout) and we will still have some great barrel aged beers from Ballast Point on tap. It will be Torta day in the kitchen. In addition to our regular chicken and roast beef tortas we will have carne asada tortas and pork belly tortas. We’ll be ordering lots of extra torta bread so that they last all day.
Saturday, 11/13 – Allagash Night with owner/brewer Rob Tod at the pub from 4-6 pm. On tap we’ll have a vintage keg of Four quadrupel, Curieux (Bourbon barrel aged Tripel), Black (Belgian-style stout), Dubbel, White and Avance (barrel aged Four with strawberries). We’ll also have bottles of Fluxus, the Allagash anniversary ale which this year was a chocolate Imperial Stout. We just couldn’t resist doing something with Lobster since Rob will be here from Maine. Look for lobster bisque soup and Lindsey’s epic mac n’ cheese with lobster.
For those of you who are thinking about attending next year’s Great Belgian Beer Tour in late February and early March, Ciao! Travel owner Bill Snider will be at the pub from 4-6 pm during the Allagash event to talk about the trip. This will be the seventh year that we have teamed up with our good friend Bill to bring you the ultimate Belgian beer experience. The trip is anchored by the Zythos 24 Hour Belgian Beer Festival and includes visits to La Trappe, La Chouffe, Cantillon, Orval and Westvleteren and many amazing pubs. Bill is also organizing a post-fest addition to the trip that will visit breweries and distilleries in Scotland. The trip is an amazing way to take a beer-centric trip across Europe without feeling like you are constantly being herded around like a group of tourists. We have itinerary information on the back wall of the pub or you can find complete information at www.ciaotravel.com.
Sunday, 11/14 – The Chargers are guaranteed not to lose this day as they have a bye. The pub will be open from 11:30 am until 6 pm and we will feature Firestone Double Jack double IPA on tap. The Lost Abbey Tasting with Tomme Arthur will be at 6:30 pm. Tickets are almost sold out – see details above.
And just after Beer Week, look for a Pizza Port night on Wednesday, November 17th featuring smoked ribs from owner Vince Marsaglia and lots of hoppy Pizza Port beer. We’ll serve out the great beer left from Beer Week on the 18th, 19th and 20th as we will have way more beer than we can drink in 10 days. The pub will be shut down Thursday and Friday, November 25th and 26th for Thanksgiving. The San Diego Strong Ale Festival at Pizza Port Carlsbad will Friday and Saturday, December 3rd and 4th. Tickets for the Friday VIP session are on sale now at www.pizzaport.com. The session is about 50% sold out. Tickets for the regular fest hours – 4 to 11 pm Friday and 11 am to 11 pm Saturday will be available at the door.
That is your good Beer Week news for now. We’ll see you soon at one of our great San Diego Beer Week events. Cheers, Tom
Tom Nickel
O’Brien’s Pub
20 Taps – Tons of Hops
Official U.S. Soccer Bar
4646 Convoy Street
www.obrienspub.net
