Other surprises include:
Refuge Brewing Company’s Blood Orange Wit, a wonderfully tart and dry wit with a subtle orange flavor balanced by a nice hop bitterness. Diane, the brewery’s events director, was happy to explain their beers and even offered us seconds without taking one of our drink tickets.
Golden Road’s Cabrillo Kolsch, a clean and smooth beer (almost lager like) with just a touch of noble hop bitterness that makes this a perfectly refreshing summer beer. Laurel, the brewery’s pub manager, was on hand talking about the beers, their cans, artwork and the future plans of the brewery, making the visit to their booth the highlight of the festival.
The Brewery at Abigaile’s Sir Charles Mild. A nice traditional English mild that isn’t short on flavor. English specialty malts dominate this lightly hopped deliciously light (3% abv) beer.
Belching Beaver’s (one of San Diego’s newer breweries) Beaver’s Milk Stout. Despite their comical name, this newer brewery is producing some super clean beer. Beaver’s Milk is a great example of what they are doing. A true-to-style milk stout, with coffee and roasted malt on the front end, diminishing to malty sweetness at the back. Smooth.
And before you hop heads call for mine, we did taste some fantastically good IPAs and DIPAs. My favorites were:
Valiant Brewing Company’s Jericho a full-bodied Imperial IPA that weighs in at nearly 11% abv. This is a well-balanced big beer with both a wonderful hoppy aroma and bitter finish. It’s a dangerously strong beer, so well-balanced you don’t notice the high abv. I also really enjoyed their Octave and Criterion.
Black Market Brewing’s Rye IPA. This has been one of my favorite beers at the OC Brew Ha Ha for the last couple years running. Another well-balanced hoppy, malty IPA with a distinctly spicy rye flavor. Rye makes up 20% of the grain bill and as Aaron told me once it’s “a pain in the ass to brew, but worth it.”
Ninkasi’s Total Domination IPA really fantastic full-flavored Pacific Northwest style IPA. Rich and malty balanced with 65 IBUs coming from Summit, Amarillo, and Crystal hops. Delicious and bit more subtle than most IPAs.
Finally, Pizza Port’s Early Rhizer, a fresh-hopped American Pale Ale. There is something about fresh-hopped beer that I really like. Being fresh, the sharpness of the hops is mellowed allowing a bit more of the malt to shine through, but retaining the hoppy characteristics pale ale lovers enjoy.
All in all it was a wonderful day, and everyone involved should be commended for their hard work and dedication to craft beer.