S ERV I NG TH E S AN D IEGO C RAF T B EE R C OM MU N ITY


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Letter from the Editor


SD Brews in the News


Beer and Now


SDBW Executive Memos


Into the Brew Guest Tap


The Nameless Beermaid


Directory 2 3 4 6 & 7 8 Ingrid’s 1 in 8 9 10 11


Collaboration beer benefits breast cancer research By Ryan Lamb


verywhere you look, you’ll find great examples of San Diegan collaborations. Stone teamed up with Ballast Point and Kelsey McNair to create the San Diego County Session Ale. Then there’s the O’Brien’s IPA, brewed for the pub by Alpine. During San Diego Beer Week, The Yeastie Boyz, an “All Star Beer Band” composed of craft beer- industry musicians, rocked the house at Eleven. One recent collaboration to grace San Diego is the first between Coronado Brewing Co., Ballast Point, and Ingrid Qua, owner of The High Dive. Back in September at the Great American Beer Festival, Coronado’s Southern California District Manager Clinton Smith came up with the idea to do a collaboration beer for San Diego Beer Week while talking with Ballast Point’s Sales Manager Matt Wilson. Coronado’s Co-Founder, Brewmaster, and San Diego Brewers Guild VP Shawn DeWitt loved the idea, so he got in touch with Colby Chandler, Ballast Point’s Specialty Brewer and former San Diego Brewers Guild President. Colby was in New York at the time for the 3rd Annual NY Craft Beer Week, where he started bouncing ideas off the beer enthusiasts in attendance. “It was during that week walking around Manhat- tan that I came up with the recipe in my head.”


E Ballast Point’s Matt Wilson with Ingrid Qua


On opposite coasts, Colby and Shawn worked side-by-side to start put- ting the idea into action. Having learned in October that Ingrid Qua of The High Dive had been diagnosed with breast cancer, they decided to brew their beer to honor her “and all the women in the world fighting for a cure.” A week after her diagnosis, Ingrid got a call from the breweries asking if she wanted to be involved in the collaborative brew- ing process. She jumped on it knowing the proceeds would go to breast cancer research. She also wondered, “As a beer person, is there anything better than this?” “It was organic the way it came


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South Park The South Park Abbey bolsters neighborhood craft beer scene


he South Park Abbey is perched in what is currently the most exciting beer neighborhood in San Diego. While still in the shadow of its more beer-pedigreed northern neighbor, South Park holds the reins on the lower part of 30th Street with authority. Around the corner from Hamiltons and Stone’s proposed new location, The South Park Ab- bey transformed from the South Park Bar & Grill in July 2010 when couple Adam Neitzke & Sarah Jewell bought the restaurant. Originally from the Los Angeles area, the two proprietors knew of the vibrant San Diego Craft Beer Community before setting up shop. However, they had no idea that 30th Street was the main artery of local brew.


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Belgian Gastropub Corners


The view of the bottling line from the future tasting room at Green Flash’s Mira Mesa location Flash Forward West Coaster gets a peek at Green Flash’s


44,000-square-foot Mira Mesa expansion By Mike Shess


“We’re going to be doing the exact same thing, just with bigger tanks,” says Mike Hinkley loudly over the sound of a trac- tor tearing up concrete behind him. The CEO & Co-Founder of Green Flash was overseeing construction of their upcom- ing expansion at 6550 Mira Mesa Blvd.,


scheduled to open mid-2011. Mike invited West Coaster to have the first media glimpse into what the future holds for the hop-centric brewery. The expansion’s inception came about 3 years ago, when Green Flash re- alized that capacity for production would


Mike Hinkley, Co-Founder & CEO of Green Flash Brewing, takes a break from overseeing construction to show us the plans for the Mira Mesa expansion.


eventually exceed the ability of the current location in Vista. The planning stage began and Green Flash reached out to the San Diego Craft Beer Community for advice on the project. Mike recalls, “We went to our good friends at Stone Brewing Co. with the plans and asked, ‘What are we missing?’” It’s rare in any industry when one company can go to their direct competition and seek support like that.


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