Made the trip to San Diego and was able to experience the beer scene. Thanks all who had input and recommendations. Had a great time.
Got a flight at Pure Project. Place was packed! Small operation with a huge local customer base and high demand it seemed. Would be surprised if they don't expand somehow, based off of what I saw.
The beers were great, they were able to provide a nice mix of options. The Sunset Crush cream ale with strawberry (left) was unique and well done. Chocosaurus Rex (far right) was a good heavy hitter. Cool label designs and merch there too. They also had this stuffed animal sloth hanging from the ceiling.
This picture is of a double IPA I had at one of the Modern Times taprooms, they had a few! They just opened the outside portion here very recently. Awesome setup, and excellent beers. I noticed a good amount of breweries there served beers in this style glass.
Don't judge, but we went into a hard kombucha place after having lunch at this brewpub Tiger! Tiger! (Which I recommend... and they also had a house-brand brewery for some beers). June Shine was the name of the place. Cool taproom setup. Tried a couple options, this one in the picture had some charcoal in it, which gave it this distinct look. Midnight Painkiller, actually pretty tasty:
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[img]<br /><br />After hiking around the Torrey Pines reserve, we felt like we deserved a beer. Randomly looked at what was nearby and found this California Wild Ales place. Taproom in a business park, 100% sour beers. Was a great experience as we walked in and were the only customers (initially). Got to spend a while talking with the sole worker on site and learning more about them. Recommend this for sour beer fans if you're in the area. They made everything in fairly small batches, so no telling what would be around. Their tart Meyer lemon sour was my favorite (left).<br /><br />
<br /><br />They also had a cool label and sticker:<br /><br />
<br /><br />After that, we had some beer and a snack at Gravity Heights, a brewpub operation. Really, really good food and beers. Had a west coast IPA here that was a pinnacle representation of the style.<br /><br />
<br /><br />I didn't include everything in this post, just some highlights. All in all was a great trip. Fun to explore a city and beer scene for the first time. Didn't have time to make it to certain places like Lost Abbey, etc. One thing that was great advice on here and from others was that you really need to visit places on a "neighborhood by neighborhood" basis. It is a large area with not always easy transportation between sections.<br /><br />As of right now, for a beercation recommendation, I would rate Asheville higher, but you can't go wrong with either! I mean, I got to spend another afternoon at Torrey Pines on the golf course, and you just can't help but enjoy this view and setting.<br /><br />
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