Going a Bit Zooey

Up before the crack of dawn, we were excited to go see what San Diego had to offer. We drove down to Point Loma to catch sight of the Lighthouse, the coast, and a great view of the city. Unfortunately we weren't able to get to the lighthouse (park didn't open until 9AM), but the other views were fantastic. The Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery was on the top of the hill and it certainly added to the site. But we needed to go to our first destination, San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park.

When I think of San Diego, I've always thought of the zoo, and what better place to stretch your legs than to walk around the park. Jess loves animals, and she was excited to see the new baby Panda, so after our motorcoach tour (by the way, do that part early since all the animals are out first thing in the morning - great call Jenn!) we stood in line to catch a glimpse. Unfortunately, the new born was hiding when we visited so we took the moving sidewalk up to the polar bears (my favorite of the park). No worries, Jenn used her phone to watch the San Diego Zoo panda cam to see when the baby was back with her mom, and we were able to get back in line to see the sight (my do they play rough). I was able to pop into the tree house restaurant while Jacob checked out (we are checkers by the way) the elevators and sample a Karl Strauss Red Trolley Ale on draft. It was a long day, and we were getting hungry, so we headed off to one of Jenn's favorite restaurants, the Old Spaghetti Factory. But before we did, Jenn let me take the family to a San Diego beer Mecca called Hamilton's Tavern (http://hamiltonstavern.com/).

The Hamilton's Tavern is located SE of Balboa park, in the middle of a residential neighborhood, and doesn't look like much from the outside. The bar is consistently listed in Draft magazine's top 100 beer bar list, and was a must for a beer lover's trip to San Diego. So while Jenn and the kids stayed in the car, I did a bit of checking of my own. The place reminded me of Mahar's only bigger (it had a pool table). They offered a limited food menu, highlighted with house packed sausage with hops in the mix, but showcased a ton of local beer. I started with a Russian River Row 2 Hill 56 on draft, a world class pale ale that was named after the hop yard in Yakima, WA where the hops were found to make this beautiful beer and draft magazines top 25 beers for 2012. I also got to sample a Ballast Point Wahoo Wheat Thai, Chili, Lime and Ginger, a specialty brew that had a delicious low heat burn on the palate. Finally, I went with their house brew, Green Flash Hamilton's Tavern Palate Wrecker on draft, once brewed solely for their anniversary but now bottled for the nation. An imperial IPA loaded with hops, it was properly named. I did all my sampling in less than 15 minutes, and then we headed downtown for dinner.

Jenn and I are on an Old Spaghetti factory world tour (we had stopped by on Oahu and in Phoenix), since it has reasonably priced Italian food that the kids like and for us it just screams that we are on vacation. I got the pasta with two sauces, a rich meat sauce and their house special Mizithra cheese and brown butter, to go with a Ballast Point Yellowtail on draft. We were getting tired though (damn jet lag), so instead of walking around the Gaslight Quarter (we were coming back on Wednesday) we went to check another beer joint, Tiger! Tiger! (http://tigertigertavern.blogspot.com/).

Tiger! Tiger! is the sister bar of the Blind Lady Alehouse, and was new to Draft magazine's listing this year. We parked the car at a Von's and I went again to check it out. They were offering their own brewery (Automatic) beer, so I tried the White Riot and the Cape Town Pale Ale. Both were good, but not fantastic, so I instead ordered a pint of Mother Earth's Peanut Butter Imperial Stout on draft. Before you start judging, this beer was excellent, the PB went real well with the chocolate roast of the heavy stout. I made it back to car (under 10 minutes this time), and Jenn asked what was the hurry? She had gone in and got the kids some Red Box movies and was chatting with her dad, and sent me back out again (she is the love of my life). This time I went 3 blocks in the opposite direction to Toronado (http://www.toronadosd.com/toronadosd.com/Welcome.html).

Toronado is repeatedly a top beer destination in San Francisco, but I had high hopes for there second location. They kept the split door gimmick, having the top half open to look in and the bottom part closed, which threw me off initially. But I overcame (no I didn't climb over), and went to this spacious bar. A family would be welcome in this space, which I wouldn't necessarily say about the previous two stops. I sampled the Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous dry hopped with Amarillo and Cascade hops on cask, and then chose the Alaskan Perseverance ale on draft. Perseverance was brewed to celebrate brewing in Alaska for 25 years, and is a deep, rich Russian Imperial Stout (you know you can see Russia from Alaska) that weighed in 9% ABV. I had a great time, but made it back to the car (although I would not recommend beer jogging).

It was a great first day in San Diego, and I had high hopes for the rest of the week. – 6311/13542

“The mouth of a perfectly happy man is filled with beer.” – Egyptian Proverb