SD BREWS IN THE NEWS
westcoastersd.com’s Month in Review
TapRoom’s 4th Anniversary Easily the most San Diegan of San Diego beer bars, TapRoom celebrated its 4th Anniversary Party, complete with beer garden, on Saturday, February 26th. $20 got you six 8oz tasters of a wide array of craft beer; rain didn’t stop the nearly 300 thirsty attendees from packing the house. The best part of running TapRoom according to GM Jeff Fuchs? “Seeing the Pacific Beach crowd get excited about local craft beer.”
QUAFF AFC Awards San Diego-based homebrew club QUAFF held the awards ceremony for the 2011 AFC (America’s Finest City) Competi- tion at Randy Jones All American Grill in Hazard Center on February 22nd. This year marked the biggest AFC ever thanks to 502 entries. Winners came from 16 different homebrew clubs, with QUAFF standing tall on their home turf, taking 41 medals over 23 categories of beer. In the specialty category, North Park Beer Co.’s Kelsey McNair won for his German Pil-
sner brewed w/ 20% rye, and as an added bonus, will be brewing the beer with Hess Brewing for the AHA National Homebrew- ers Conference Pro/Am in June. Towards the end of the ceremony it was hometown hero Paul Sangster who nabbed the Jim Howard Memorial Best of Show Beer with his “Tri-Paul-Bock” Eisbock.
The Linkery Turns 6
Kudos to the restaurant that makes us proud to be North Parkers. We remember Jay Porter back when he had a normal haircut. Setting up shop on 30th Street in 2005 was a risky move, and opening a farm-to-table, local-centric restaurant on the same street was considered insane by many at the time. In hindsight, he started what is now the trendiest craft beer circuit in the country.
Cervecería Academia: La Gran Terraza Hits the Craft Beer Books Attending USD now comes with added perks: great beer on campus. La Gran Ter- raza, student/teacher pub O’Toole’s and
adjoining venue Grand Dining & Ter- race have started a craft beer program. The recent Beer & Chocolate Dinner with Stone was the best deal in town: $21.95 + tax & tip for a 5-course pair- ing of generous pours and fine food. The menu: Double Bastard w/ Braised Short Rib in Chocolate Rosemary Sauce & Stone Sublimely Self-Righ- teous w/ Pork Spare Rib in Chocolate Hoisin Sauce.
AleSmith Brewer Matt Akin Moves to La Jolla Brew House One of the AleSmith greats is now head brewer for La Jolla Brew House. We’re going to give him some time to brew something before we grill him with questions. Another talented brewer arrives at LJBH, and we are hopeful that good beer will ensue. Any restaurant that serves pretzels as big as your head, has a dog friendly patio with comfy couches, and brews decent (and improving) beer is fine by us. While opinions of LJBH are varied,
we at West Coaster maintain that LJBH has the potential to be a fantastic local craft beer location.
Lucky Bastards! Normal Heights hot spot Small Bar hosted Stone Brewing Co. Wednes- day, February 16th for a Night of the Bastards. There were seven differ- ent Bastard variants from Stone on tap for the event: Arrogant Bastard, Oaked Arrogant Bastard, 2009 Double Bastard, 2010 Double Bastard, 2010 Dry Hopped Chipotle Double Bastard, Lukcy Basartd, and Dry Hop Lukcy Basartd. Stone Brewing Co. CEO Greg Koch and Head Brewer Mitch Steele were both on hand with a bunch of employees from the brewery. Attendees were able to try all the beers in flights or by the pint. If you are a Bastard fan, this was a great opportunity to try many of the various versions side-by- side, so hopefully we’ll see this again soon.
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