This place looks familiar, I thought as we turned into a business park I’d been to numerous times. The Carlsbad campus is home to two small breweries, Arcana Brewing Company and On-The-Tracks Brewery. This, despite being off the city’s commercial center. It’s almost inconceivable that these operations have managed to find success here (particularly with the questionable beers being produced at one of them), but lo and behold, they’re still there, and so is another interest that went in a few doors down from OTT last year, Guadalupe Brewery (5674 El Camino Real, Carlsbad). That was when I first wrote about owner Raul Deju, a brewer with experience south-of-the-border, who decided to kill his killer commute and give suds-making a go on his side of the border. Since then I’ve tasted a number of his beers, but that’s not why I was visiting the brewery on this day. Good thing—since trying house-beers isn’t allowed at Guadalupe.
Did that last sentence inspire a raise of your eyebrow? A brewery where customers aren’t able to taste the beers—that’s a new one on me. This factoid is made additionally confounding by the fact Deju and his wife Lisa have constructed a full tasting room behind the homebrew shop in which their nano-brewery is installed, Carlsbad Brew Supply. In it, a bar with comfy stools and a large mounted flat-screen await the sampling sect. All they need now is clearance from the City of Carlsbad to share the labors of their love with visitors. For now, all they are allowed to do is sell growlers of beer to-go, which requires a bit of a leap of faith without the ability to taste-test. So, by the time I got to Guadalupe, I’d already tasted through some beers with the Dejus off-site, and found them rather nice.
If you are a fan of Mother Earth Brew Co.’s ubiquitous Cali-Creamin’, a vanilla-infused cream ale, it’s a safe bet you’ll enjoy Guadalupe’s El Vanillo. It has slightly more body to it, but is comparable to Cali, which has proven so popular it accounts for roughly half of the MEBC’s total output. I could see this taking on a similar flagship role for Guadalupe. Many of Deju’s beers are augmented by familiar edibles. The addition of watermelon to a saison takes it from a traditional farmhouse flavor to something more akin to a Belgian-style tripel. He also brews a blood orange pale ale and a hazelnut porter. The latter is pretty straightforward and in keeping with its English roots, while the pale was probably the least impressive of the beers I tried—something tasted a little off there. The most striking beer of the bunch was an IPA by the name of Tepache. Brewed with Mosaic hops, it came on strong with bright notes of pineapple and mango followed by a bittersweet finish. It didn’t necessarily come across as an India pale ale—especially not in the San Diego definition of that style—but it had plenty of hoppy merit.
On the specialty-beer front, Deju also has a line of barrel-aged and sour beers. I tasted one by the name of Xokok, which he infuses with various fruits. At last year’s San Diego Brewers Guild Festival during San Diego Beer Week, I tasted a version flavored with blueberries and liked it so much I went back for seconds. This time around, the beer’s featured ingredient was tamarind. I am not a fan of that sour fruit, but in the beer, it works. That said, Xokok Tamarindo had nothing on its blueberry predecessor. But either are worth a try…as soon as you’re able to try them (which should be relatively soon). For now…beer beer everywhere and not a drop to drink.