Friday, June 25, 2010

Hoppy Father's Day- Final Trip Post!

So long, San Diego. Sunday meant it was time to head up to Escondido, where we had reservations for Stone Brewery's Hoppy Father's Day! But first, let's reflect on this sign for a bit. Admit it: you've been using that phrase a little too loosely, haven't you? Sinner!

Before heading inland to Escondido, we drove up the coast, destination San Clemente. A bartender at Toronado had told us we should check out the great selection at Pizza Port's bottle shop located there. Sounds good, even though that meant going way north of our destination and sitting in stop and go traffic for most of the drive there. A sharp eye may say, "Wait! That picture is from Pizza Port in Carlsbad!" Shut up. I'm well aware. See, thanks to the Toronado bartender and my usual lack of fact-checking, we drove all the way there only to be told, whadda you know! There's no bottle shop at this location! So we had to drive back down I-5 in traffic to Carlsbad. Hence the picture. And there is no picture of the Carlsbad bottle shop because it wasn't that great. There was one bottle of Firestone Walker Parabola that I had been searching for the whole trip; however, it was being held for someone. Par for the day so far.

Things were bound to get better. I did have a momentary vision of Marty Moose outside Stone when we arrived telling us, "Sorry folks! Brewery's closed to clean and repair America's favorite family fun brewery!", but they were open and hopping. The building is located in an industrial area and the Stone brewery has no visible sign outside. However, it is an impressive structure. Can't imagine what the place cost to build, but I know I contributed over the years.

Our first beers at Stone! And no ordinary beers; we were there for the 24 taps of IPAs and DIPAs for the Hoppy Father's Day celebration! These beers are Jenn's Alpine O'Brien's IPA and my Alpine Bad Boy DIPA. Mine's the little one. We had originally reserved a table but found seats at the outdoor bar, which I preferred. I like the feel of sitting at a bar, watching beers being poured and talking to patrons and bartenders about the beer.

Check out the indoor dining area at this place. There is a whole wall of glass that you can partially see in the photo (didn't want to take too many pics inside while people were trying to enjoy dinner) that houses the brewing area. But I had to walk around now and then to take a break from all the beer I was drinking.

This place is called Stone Bistro and World Gardens, and here is the garden part. Or part of the garden part. There is way more. And we had way more beer: YuleSmith DIPA (great) Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous (very good), Bootlegger's Knuckle Sandwich DIPA (greatish), Mikkeller 10 (good), Mikkeller Green Gold (very good), Stone Double Dry-Hopped IPARussian River Pliny the Elder (duh! Of course Great!), Moylan's Hopsickle (not that good! Seemed darker and way maltier than I remember. I think it may have been a mispour, but I have no idea what other beer it was), Stone 14th Anniversary Empirial IPA (great- will be here in Abq soon!), Hangar 24 DIPA (Jenn's favorite of the night) and Kern River Citra DIPA (my favorite of the night).

What's that? We didn't drink enough? We agree! So we felt it was imperative to get a growler of 2009 Double Bastard for the hotel room, and I stand by our decision...no, I lay down by our decision. The room is still kind of spinning. A gift shop that sells full growlers is about the only gift shop I can stand. We almost finished half of that before falling limply in bed.

And home! Idiot me forgot my hard suitcase lined and filled with bubble wrap, but still managed to pack some good beers in our bags. Not pictured are duplicates of beers we each wanted, and six Pliny the elders bottled less than two weeks earlier! you can click on the photo for a larger image. Thanks for keeping up with the trip story. I promise I will get you some local news in my next post!

3 comments:

whiskeylynn said...

...jealous...I would've needed a few days there...what a dream

p said...

the bomb shack in Carlsbad- "wasn't that great"? Really?

ABQbeergeek said...

Yeah, can you believe it? The store was kind of picked through. The guy told me they had a Real Ale fest recently so they needed the cooler space of the bottle shop so hadn't been ordering much lately. Sucks for me, but I got some good stuff overall.