San Diego: from Oceanside to Barrio Logan
For someone who writes about beer, I have spent less time in San Diego than is properly advisable. Fortunately, the book tour has allowed me to do some much-needed remedial field research and thought I would share a few of my experiences.
Following my event at Pure Project Wednesday night, the brewery’s Chris Leguizamon, Homebrew shop owner George Thornton, and master cicerone Dan Imdieke and I met up for a North County crawl. That was handy because it helped me understand a few things about “San Diego” I think outsiders should understand. Locals seem to lump everything in the vast county into the definition of San Diego, though Oceanside, our first stop, is 40 miles north of the city (!). That makes it much larger than Rhode Island and Delaware, and not much smaller than Connecticut.
This is car country. I strolled from my hotel to Pure Project to take in the sights and see Balboa Park. It’s just .7 miles, but everyone was astonished at this feat of athleticism. “You walked?” Those cars connect the various cities of the county and unite them conceptually in the minds of San Diegans, much like neighborhoods in other cities. Indeed, people casually refer to neighborhoods in the city proper and cities in the county in the same sentence. For the visitor, it can be confusing to learn that North Park (in the city) is nowhere near the North County we began our day. So, after a leisurely 45-minute drive, we were ready to start drinking and eating.
Our first stop was Craft Coast, a project of former Pizza Port brewer Blake Masoner. The concept is genius—good beer and tacos. You may favor a burger or pizza with your pint, but give me tacos any day. Blake’s preference would be having no regular beers, but his Mexican-style lager was so popular and such an obvious fit with the tacos that he keeps making it. Beyond that he does nice lagers and of course, a range of IPAs. Curiously, his house yeast for every ale except his hazies is a kölsch strain—and it makes a nice IPA. The tacos were great, too, including a standout carne asada.
Next up was Bagby Beer, founded by legendary local brewer Jeff Bagby (Stone, Pizza Port) and his wife Dande. Despite what you might think from his resume, Jeff’s love tends toward traditional ales and lagers. Blake advised us to got there for the Helles, but it was the Three Beagles brown ale that really knocked my socks off. (Because this has become the unexpected Autumn of Brown Ale (TM), I had to try it.) It was a perfect meditation on malt, starting with a flavorful layer of nuttiness that came from Maris Otter. Jeff came out and we chatted for quite a while about his approach and influences. Definitely a kindred spirit.
It was edging toward evening then, so George and Dan headed off and Chris and I drove south to Solana Beach to pay our respects to the birthplace of San Diego IPA. This was the location where Pizza Port’s Vince Marsaglia and Josh Schaner first brewed Swami’s IPA in 1992. Apparently that beer was a bit maltier than the current incarnation, which is straw pale, but possibly as punchy. It is totally old school in the way the bitterness snaps across your tongue like a gunshot. We’d had a few beers already, but Swami’s had no trouble cutting through the palate fatigue. Bracing!
For my final beer of the night I had a fresh hop ale—a type of beer I saw at most of the dozen or so breweries I visited. Locals are excited about these beers but, predictably to the Pac Northwesterner, they mostly weren’t made quite right or the hops had long passed. It takes quite a bit of practice to make beer with fresh hops, even when they’re very fresh, and even then they just don’t last long. Again, let me appeal to anyone who loves hops: schedule a long weekend in Portland or Seattle between the middle of Sept and the middle of October. Drink a dozen of these and it will all click into place.
Anyway, back to San Diego. On the way to Pizza Port we hit another grand old master of the region, stopping in for a glass of wild white peach ale at The Lost Abbey (and a pilsner). I was happy to see a good crowd at the pub—these kinds of beers have become unfashionable in the US. Tomme Arthur (yet another Pozza Port alum) really knows how to make them, and I’m glad people are supporting the brewery.
Swami’s in a shaker pint—old school all the way!
This shot features a cameo by Chris Leguizamon.
Barrio Logan
Tucked into an narrow strip southeast of downtown between the Bay and I-5 is historic Barrio Logan, one of San Diego’s oldest neighborhoods. Following the Mexican Revolution in 1910, Mexican refugees settled in the region and started calling it Barrio Logan after the central thoroughfare. It remains a majority Latino neighborhood, and is anchored by Chicano Park, which features fantastic murals and a great statue of Emiliano Zapata.
I was tipped off to a pair of breweries in the neighborhood by Sandra and Brenda, two enthusiastic beer fans who work for the newest, Mujeres Brew House. They invited me to visit and I am so glad they did. Their brewery, along with Border X on Logan Avenue, really illustrate Em Sauter’s maxim, “beer is for everyone.”
I could smell wort in the air as I approached Mujeres, on the edge of a residential neighborhood with an expansive outdoor courtyard. I had my fresh-hop pilsner in hand when Brenda arrived and told me about the brewery. Founded by Carmen Favela and Esthela Davila, the brewery’s mission is to bring people into beer, particularly women. Before there was a brewery, there was a club to educate and excite new beer fans. Perched as it is next to those rows of houses, the brewpub serves as a local in a part of town without the same density of breweries elsewhere.
The fresh hops in the pils had gone by, but the base beer was excellent—a creamy, soft example. They also had a cucumber sour, which was more cucumber than sour, which is about the perfect sitting-in-the-sun beer. Again, very well made and refreshing.
Border X is on the main drag on Logan Avenue just across the freeway walkway. As I have mentioned in the past, I’m a great connoisseur of the feng shui of a good pub, and with its tin roof, decorated walls, and breezy front window, Border X is loaded with it. If you’re used to experiencing craft breweries as White spaces, it’s refreshing to walk into a pub with lots of diversity.
That extends to the taplist, where two of the standards are a Blood Saison, made with agave and hibiscus, and a vanilla-y Horchata Golden Stout. I really loved the latter (though at 9%, it didn’t love me), which was creamy and sweet and comforting. It was completely unusual and I wish I could get it in Oregon. If you visit San Diego, Barrio Logan us a must.
The neighborhood behind Mujeres.
Barrio Logan is the place of murals—and that extends to Mujeres.
I had one more day in the city, and Julie Wartell of PubQuest was my guide. That project maps breweries, and she’d contacted me to discuss mapping the Diverse Breweries database. (Yay!) Look for that to come sometime down the line.
Julie’s a serious cyclist and offers to lead me on a pedaling tour. We went to North Park and stopped in the the eponymous brewery there, then checked out the Ballast Point in Little Italy. Finally, I finished out my tour at Half Door. Somewhere along the line I went to the original Karl Strauss as well. Since this post is running veeeeeery long, I’ll skip the details.
It was great to steep myself in San Diego beer culture for a few days, and I have some reflections on what it says about beer in America in late 2021—but I’ll save that for later. Off to San Francisco—