Monthly Archives: July 2017

Tasting Room

Novo Brazil Brewing Company – Chula Vista San Diego

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I only made it down to Novo Brazil because I came back from a flight into Tijuana airport and was on my way north. To get there you have to take quite the drive as they are not just far south but also far east. Still, they are a great addition to the southern San Diego beer scene. I tried 8 beers when I visited and most of them were quite good.

The Chula Pils was fruity and crisp with a nice clean finish. A tasty hoppy pilsner. The berliner was a pilot batch so I wasn’t expecting much. It needs some work, lacks in complexity and has a mild tart finish. The Otay IPA was good and balanced in the classic West Coast style, resinous and fruity with some mild citrus kick. The beer was neither too malty or too bitter.

The Samba Haze was delightful, soft and fruity while not particularly bitter. Most lighter alcohol hazy beers don’t do much for me but I could have enjoyed many pints of this one. The Ipanema double IPA was solid. It hid the alcohol well though it had a bit of a sweet finish it lacked the strong alcohol bite or bitterness that often comes with this style.

The wine aged brett beer was solid for the style even if it could have dialed down the sweet aftertaste. It largely hit the notes I expect for the style. The Corvo Negro is a fantastic imperial stout with tons of coffee, no noticeable alcohol, and a smooth mouthfeel. The bourbon barrel aged version though, not so much. It seemed overly sweet with tons of molasses and didn’t taste like bourbon at all.

Overall Novo Brazil was an impressive spot with only a couple misses from what I tried. The two best were quite good and stand up to other local versions of the same style.

Top 2:
Samba Haze hazy pale ale
Corvo Negro Imperial Stout

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Tasting Room

Pariah Brewing Company – North Park San Diego

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Pariah opened up in North Park in between San Diego Brewing Company and Eppig brewing in a space designed for easy opening of a brewery. Pariah’s head brewer used to brew for Helms before he left to do his own thing. I stopped by for a few tasters to see what they are brewing. I had 4 tasters and overall they are off to a good start. They have a nice open tasting room that kept cool even on a hot day like when I visited.

The Mayor and Monk is a hoppy saison described on the board as a hoppy version of an abbey-inspired ale. The beer had plenty of ester character without being too sweet and featured some fruity malts and lightly floral hops. This was one of the best beers I tasted there. The Indie or Bust IPA, made in the style of the 11-Barrel IPA some other local breweries made to highlight independent breweries, was good and balanced amount of malts with fruity hops, medium bitterness, and some mild pine and resin.

My previous post had indicated Clearly Juicy was a malt bomb incorrectly. Though that was what my notes indicated from that time I decided to come back to give it a second try. Clearly Juicy is still not a juicy IPA but it is a solid west-coast style double IPA. The beer has a low malt base and notes of grape, resin, and pine with a sticky bitter finish.  It is a little sweet because of the higher alcohol.

The Dank Drank was resinous and classic west-coast style IPA. Resinous and mild notes of onion and red grape. It has a solid medium bitterness. The Dorcha stout had a nice mix of caramel and roast on the nose. On the taste it mixed nicely with burnt caramel, coffee, and toffee. This was nicely done and to-style.

I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have any sort of discount on the price of tasters for buying 2 or for buying 4 like you usually see. With a name like Pariah it is not surprising that they buck the local IPA trends for a more classic west-coast style approach. All 3 IPAs were either classic west coast to nicely balanced. Pariah has some solid beers and is a worthwhile stop for people living in the area. They don’t offer anything that stands out from the sea of other local breweries unless a stout brewed with umi is your thing.

Top 2:
Mayor and Monk
Dorcha Stout

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Brewery/Restaurant

Maui Brewing Company – Maui Hawaii

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It is becoming standard to suggest that going to the source to visit the brewery makes a difference. This difference is most obvious when you try Maui Brewing beers in Maui and compare them to how they taste in the mainland. Their Big Swell IPA is a standard West Coast style IPA inspired by the San Diego breweries but on the mainland you wouldn’t know it. I visited two locations, their brewpub out by Kahana and their main brewery location in Kihei. The beers were mostly the same but the atmosphere was drastically different in the two locations.
I did a small flight while I was at the brewpub and then had mostly full pours at the tasting room based on what I already tried. The saison was crisp and fruity with a dry finish, nicely done. The Big Swell IPA was an excellent classic West Coast style IPA with mild bitterness, citrus, tropical fruit, and pine. It was so much better than what I had on the mainland it was hard to believe it was the same beer. The pueo pale ale was a bit more malty than the Big Swell and more bitter. Though to style, I didn’t care for it.
At the brewery I had a couple of full pours of both the Vienna Lager and Pilsner they had on. The Vienna Lager was crisp and clean with a mild malt character. The Pilsner was also quite excellent. The Imperial Coconut Porter was a fantastic coconut bomb while I was at the brewpub where they served it on nitro. At the brewery it was enjoyable but a little more mellow on the coconut, but still a great beer. The Mosaic Double IPA was good but a bit bitter and sticky with not enough fruit notes from the mosaic itself.
Overall, every beer I had at Maui Brewing was well done and tasting great close to the source. If you are taking a trip to Maui and like a good San Diego style IPA, the Maui Big Swell should satisfy you as long as you get it fresh. The tasting room was a bit more quiet with more open space and food trucks than the brewpub though they are far enough apart that it is more likely your decision on which one to visit would come down to what happens to be closer to you.
Top 2:
Big Swell IPA
Imperial Coconut Porter

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Tasting Room

Toolbox Brewing adds more variety of beer

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When Toolbox first opened they had a variety of beers available including a milk stout, a pale ale, an IPA, and their various sours, kettle and barrel aged. At the time, the idea of eventually having an all brett brewery (brett stands for a form of wild yeast that is common in sours and wild ales) seemed extreme. I still think so, even though now I have gotten more familiar with the style of beer. Though I and many beer drinkers enjoy a good sour, there are still people who want a stout or IPA and who may visit Toolbox with their friends who enjoy sours. Now, some time later, they have brought back the traditional styles along with a line of North East style hazy IPAs, a sweet stout, and a barrel aged imperial stout.

This is a subtle shift because they still have their numerous core kettle sours and various barrel-aged sours. The change in the menu should help them attract a wider audience and over time convert more people to the delicious sour beer side as well. In my visit I tried a few of their new offerings and overall they were quite impressive. In total I tried their wild lager, hazy IPA, sweet stout, barrel aged stout, and hazy double IPA.

The wild lager had delicious fruity notes that blended nicely with earthy funk in the background. It was a crisp, clean, lager that I would enjoy having more of. The hazy IPA was soft and full of aromas while not too bitter. I enjoyed it though the galaxy hops came through with a lot more herbal notes than I expected, which I don’t particularly care for. The sweet stout was sweet with a thin body that presented just the right amount of chocolate and vanilla while finishing with a mild lactose sweetness.

The bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stout was sticky and thick with a fantastic balance of fudge, caramel, mild salt, and subtle bourbon. I was quite impressed for their first release of the style. The double IPA was hazy and started off with intense fruit and a mild acidic finish though I got some of the same herbal notes as I did from the single IPA that pushed me off. It had a properly thick mouth-feel and is well on the way to joining other local hazy offerings.

Toolbox succeeded in adding to their already impressive lineup of beers with their solid hazy IPAs and stouts to push them further past other Vista breweries in quality. They will go nicely along with Burgeon to bring hazy beers to the area.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Tasting Room

Scofflaw Brewing Company – Atlanta Georgia

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My trip to Georgia was mainly to visit some breweries in Athens, but since I was flying out of Atlanta it made sense to hit a brewery there before leaving. To avoid driving with too much beer, I kept to one brewery and so I went with my friend’s recommendation to try Scofflaw. They are in an area of Atlanta a bit North West of downtown, a ways away from anything. That didn’t stop people from coming out and enjoying beer though. The crowd was quite respectable.

During my visit their tap list was almost all IPAs with the exception of an imperial wit and a barrel-aged strong ale. All of the IPAs I had were quite well-done, juicy but not hazy, in the modern West-Coast style. I might have even brought back some cans of the IPA they had available if I could have done so while still buying the strong-ale bottles, but since I had to pick I got the strong ale. Your preference between the varioius IPAs they make will come down to your hop profile of choice. Their double IPA was also quite impressive, fruity, mildly sweet, and not really boozy at all.

The barrel-aged strong ale was good and medium body, mildly sweet, with a good mix of caramel and light whiskey character. It was also barely boozy despite the high alcohol content. I left with a bottle because it was quite well-done and the price was right. If you are in to the juicy (not hazy) style of IPAs, Scofflaw hits the spot nicely and should satisfy any hop-head who ends up in Atlanta.

Known for:
Come visit for modern-style IPAs and barrel-aged stouts

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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