Modern Times Beer

Modern Times Beer came highly recommended by a fellow beer geek and lifelong family friend. He set high expectations before I even stepped foot into their tasting room. He raved about their beer and insisted that something different was happening here. With glowing reviews from a fellow brew brat, Modern Times leap frogged to the top of the list on my YOTB journey.

I assembled a rag tag team of beer lovers and visited Modern Times on a Friday night.  The Brewery and Tasting Room is situated amongst the classiest of establishments just off Rosecrans in the Sports Arena area. For those of you unfamiliar with this part of town, it’s home to several adult entertainment businesses including live entertainment, if you get my drift.

Modern Times is a massive warehouse hidden in a dark alley and completely missable unless you know what you’re looking for. The tasting room is set up inside the brewery in true SD brewery fashion. The people at Modern Times have done a good job of camouflaging the industrial warehouse and transforming it into a hip tasting room. From the tumbleweed chandeliers to the post-it note mosaic (yeah, you heard me right) the decor is nothing if not unique. The tasting room is separated from the brewery by the bar and bookshelves that house leather bound books and Modern Times merchandise, mostly T-shirts and sweatshirts. The bar itself is made up of granite slab resting atop stacks of leather bound books. As for the tasting room walls, it looks as if they assigned each wall to a different person and challenged them to cover it as creatively and colorfully as possible.  One wall is covered in comic book pages with a yellow MT logo proudly protruding from the pages.  A second wall is covered floor to ceiling in post-it notes to create an image of what looks to me like a lady and her monkey.  The third, and less demanding, wall is covered in pages from books (perhaps the books under the bar) with framed art over top the pages.  See for yourself…

Now for the beer. There were 6 beers available for tasting.  In a town where hoppy, high alcohol IPA’s run the show, Modern Times refuses to conform. Of the 6 beers available only one of them had an ABV above 8%. They offer their beers by the pint or as tasters. You can taste their 4 year round beers for $8.00 or $5.00 by the pint. Their special releases cost slightly more but they still don’t break the bank. I tasted all 6 beers that were available, starting with the year round brews and finished off with the special releases.

Taster of Year Round brews. From Left: Lomaland, Fortunate Island, Black House, Blazing World

Year Round Brews:
Lomaland – Saison (5.5% ABV) – A light yellow beer with snowwhite foamy head. It’s a crisp beer with high carbonation and citrus flavors. The taste is sweet with a light bitterness on the finish. This one was little light in flavor for my personal preference but it goes down the hatch easily and is a good place to start.

Fortunate Island – Wheat (4.8% ABV) – This golden honey beer with minimal head has hops on the nose. The hops won’t slap you in the face like some IPA’s do but their presence is known. It’s a well balanced beer with an earthy flavor. It’s as if an IPA and wheat beer got married and had a baby named Fortunate Island.

Black House – Coffee Stout (5.8% ABV) – This one was a standout for sure. It is all stout with a dark black color and a thin kahaki head. It has an obvious coffee flavor and mild dark chocolate with a silky smooth finish. It’s an easy drinking stout with full body and roasted malts. Fun fact – Modern Times is one of the only breweries to roast their own coffee which allows them complete control over the roasting processes and flavors.  This one is a must try!

Blazing World – Amber (6.8% ABV) – If you’re looking for a beer you have to eat, I found it for you. It doesn’t go down smoothly at first but it did start to grow on my by the time I finished my tasters. I’m not sure I could handle an entire pint. It’s a reddish/dark carmel color with a marshmallowy head. It’s heavy in hops and if you close your eyes you’d think it was an IPA, not your typical Amber.

Special Releases:
Southern Islands – IPA (6.8% ABV) – Besides Black House, this was my favorite beer of the bunch. It is a golden honey color with big fruit flavor like the Saison but more complex. It has almost a tropical flavor to it with hints of pineapple and tangerine but somehow they managed to keep the sour out. It has a creamy light body with a silky smooth texture. Another must try!

Lost Horizon – Double IPA (8.5% ABV – I must admit to you that by the time I go to this beer the previous five had influenced me too much to give it a fair review. It’s a cloudy red color with lots of head. I noted that I liked it but that’s about as far as I got with this one.

Modern Times is another win for San Diego. It’s a young brewery, only open for 6 months, but it’s already establishing itself as force to reckoned with. They do not serve food but they invite you to bring your own take out or order delivery. Well behaved children are welcomed but no pets (I know, that seems backwards to me too). They fill growlers with a pressurized (read: superior) pour and they will even fill other breweries growlers as long as you purchase a one size fits all Modern Times Koozie for your growler for $10.00. However, their growlers only cost $6.00 so I’m not sure there’s any benefit to bringing your own growler.

One last fun fact before I leave you. As if their low alcohol, high flavor beers weren’t enough to distinguish themselves from other craft breweries they are distributing their beer in retro cans, which many will argue are superior to bottles. But that’s another blog…

Bottoms Up!

-Amatece

Belching Beaver Brewery

Alright people – Time to get back to the Breweries, well, sorta. The last couple of posts have been a departure from breweries but not to worry, I haven’t forgotten YOTB’s mission. The Belching Beaver is brewery located in Vista with a tasting room in North Park. And by North Park I mean the El Cajon Boulevard region of North Park, not the super hip 30th & University area.  I believe my exact notes regarding the location were: “Interesting part of town. Yikes.” However, being a resident of Downtown San Diego, I opted to check out the North Park tasting room rather than trekking up to Vista on a school night.

Parking wasn’t difficult to find (mostly street parking) but the tasting room did strongly warn us not to park in the empty parking lot adjacent to building. Apparently the owners of the lot tow people on the regular, even after hours. Jerks.

Why Belching Beaver you ask? As soon as I learned that you could order burgers from Crazee burger next door and have your food delivered to you in the tasting room, Belching Beaver moved to the top of my Brewery list. What more could you ask for: A decent burger and local craft beer from a Vista brewery without even getting the 5 North – sign me up!

I met a group of friends at the tasting room on a Wednesday night of what just so happened to be San Diego Beer Week. Upon arrival the tasting room was pretty empty but quickly started to fill up with people from an organized beer tasting group. I’m not sure if they coordinated their event with the tasting room or if their presence was a surprise but either way the Belching Beaver was not prepared for them.  There was one girl working behind the bar the entire night serving a full tasting room – roughly 50 people. Bless her heart, she worked her butt off, but there was no way she could keep up with 50 people’s thirst for beer. Maybe it’s just me but if I were running a BREWERY during San Diego BEER WEEK I might staff up – just sayin’.

Most of their beers were offered in 8 oz pours for $3.00 – $4.00 or 16 oz. pours for $5.00 – $7.00. They also offered 4 oz. Taster Flights: Pick four beers for $7.00 or pick six for $10.00 (add $1.00 for premium beers, indicated in yellow).

There was a group of about 6 of us so we were able to sample nearly everything they had available. We ordered a variety of tasters and of course some full size beers when we found the ones we liked (and were able to place an order). However, for some of the premium beers it made more sense dollar-wise to order a few 8 oz pour rather than a flight of tasters. Here are some of the highlights:

Pumpkin Spice (I’m sure this one is seasonal) – If it’s even possible, this beer smelled better than it tasted.  It had a spicy, cinnamon-y aroma that the flavors didn’t live up to.

Peanut Butter Stout – Now this beer is as advertised! It really did taste like a someone put a dollop of peanut butter in my beer. It was tasty, smooth and malty, but no hops. I’d call it interesting, not amazing. It was the kind of beer that you have to have one of, but at the same time, one is all you want.

Farmhouse IPA – Yum! This one was my favorite. It was darn a good IPA. The hops were present without overpowering the flavor. I made sure to note: Dad’s gotta try this. Now you know it must be good!

A few honorable mentions go to Nutty Buddy, Me So Honey (Chris’s favorite, although I’m pretty sure he just liked the name), and Tail Slapped.

Belching Beaver Taster – 6 beers

Overall Belching Beaver is putting out some unique beers with interesting flavors. They seem to lean more towards the darker beers (stouts and brown ale’s) and IPA’s although not exclusively. I appreciate their sense of humor and creativity in naming their beers. They don’t take themselves too seriously and it translate into the experience. If I came across their beer on tap at a bar I wouldn’t hesitate to order it. In fact, if you’re looking for some Belching Beaver near you, click here to see if a restaurant or bar in you neighborhood is carrying it!

Belching Beaver is definitely a do-over (in fact, I think some of our group went back the very next weekend!) although I’d hope to have better service the second time around. It’s a comfortable place to hang out, a fun beer tasting expereince and you can’t beat the convenience of the next door burger delivery service!

Bottoms Up!

-Amatece