{"id":13203,"date":"2016-03-15T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T15:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/?p=13203"},"modified":"2016-03-15T05:12:04","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T12:12:04","slug":"beer-touring-bay-bridge-brewing-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/2016\/03\/15\/beer-touring-bay-bridge-brewing-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Beer Touring: Bay Bridge Brewing Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"baybridge_03\"<\/a>As I\u2019ve disclosed in the past, I spent most of my formative years growing up in the South Bay. All of them, in fact, if you count Encanto. Before getting my first job in Kearny Mesa and having reason to branch out, I knew nothing of San Diego north of Interstate 8, but I knew Chula Vista, National City, Imperial Beach and Lemon Grove like the back of my hand. Thankfully, there’s now a\u00a0small but growing influx of breweries and beer bars\u00a0popping up in the old neighborhoods, billed as a movement with its own spiffy hashtag\u2014#southbayuprising.<\/p>\n

Recently, a small group of knowledgeable beer enthusiasts and I spent a day visiting the three breweries currently contributing to that uprising\u2014Bay Bridge Brewing Company<\/strong><\/a>, Novo Brazil Brewing Company<\/strong><\/a> and Border X Brewing Company<\/strong><\/a>. I\u2019ll admit to being really excited and even hopeful. Nothing would make me happier than to see this part of San Diego awash in fine, local suds, and I already know that South Bay’s\u00a0Machete Beer House<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(National City),\u00a0Third Avenue Alehouse<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(Chula Vista)\u00a0and taqueria \u00a1Salud!<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(Barrio Logan)\u00a0are bringing quality, local ales and lagers to areas below the 8. So off we headed to Chula Vista.<\/p>\n

\"baybridge_02\"<\/a>Our first stop was Bay Bridge Brewing Company. Brought to the mostly residential southwest area of Chula Vista by the mind behind The Brew House at Eastlake<\/strong> (which operated from 2007 to 2012 before folding), it\u2019s a second go-round. The Brew House was a brewpub while Bay Bridge is a more standard industrial park setup. The motif is Jimmy Buffet with a side of tiki hut hula. It\u2019s none too fancy, but a step above most venues of its type. High tables and chairs are an upgrade and the bar area is well done. Service is friendly and it would seem Bay Bridge has its fair share of regulars, which helps the place feel more complete.<\/p>\n

We started a sampling of nine beers with an unfiltered wheat called Wolf Canyon, which could certainly win\u00a0over American adjunct lager drinkers, something that absolutely must be considered in a city so highly saturated with the demographic. Next up was a Horchata wheat beer that screams Chula Vista and, with a light sweetness and potpourri-like nose, was pretty good. Our next beer,\u00a0a blonde ale, smelled and tasted like butter, which is an undeniable sign of diacetyl, a flavor compound excreted by yeast that some beer drinkers can pick better than others. Diacetyl becomes unpalatable in high concentrations, and it\u2019s a sign of poor fermentation conditions or yeast health.<\/p>\n

Everyone in my party picked\u00a0up\u00a0diacetyl in the\u00a0Palomar Pale and America\u2019s Finest Amber as well. I had actually tasted this amber ale several months back while dining at a Bonita restaurant called Romesco<\/a> <\/strong>that offered the beer on-tap. At the time,\u00a0the beer was more amber in color and tasted fine.<\/p>\n

\"baybridge_01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The best beers of the day included an Irish red ale that had some nice, subdued hoppiness to it, but in my opinion just needed a bit more maltiness to help balance things out. Ditto a \u201cred India pale ale\u201d that wasn\u2019t red. My favorite beer of the day was the oatmeal stout. Creamy with big milk-chocolate presence on the palate, this should be one of their year-round beers. Star of India IPA was low on aroma and demonstrated a blunt bitterness in the finish, yet it had good flavors of orange and grapefruit.<\/p>\n

And with that, we were off to our second brewery of the day. Check in tomorrow for that report.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: In his day job, Brandon works as the marketing manager for Miramar’s AleSmith.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I\u2019ve disclosed in the past, I spent most of my formative years growing up in the South Bay. All of them, in fact, if you count Encanto. Before getting my first job in Kearny Mesa and having reason to branch out, I knew nothing of San Diego north of Interstate 8, but I knew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[368,369,1],"tags":[1353,2569,2480,376,1732,2575,2360,442,2581,1387,390,2577,2580,2572,2582,2459,1010,2573,2158,2571,1681,1744,2574,2579,2570,2578,1637,2576],"class_list":{"0":"post-13203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-beer-news","7":"category-beer-styles","8":"category-san-diego-beer-beverage-news","9":"tag-sdbeer","10":"tag-southbayuprising","11":"tag-bay-bridge","12":"tag-beer","13":"tag-beer-touring","14":"tag-bonita","15":"tag-border-x","16":"tag-brandon-hernandez","17":"tag-brewhouse-at-eastlake","18":"tag-chula-vista","19":"tag-craft-beer","20":"tag-diacetyl","21":"tag-eastlake","22":"tag-encanto","23":"tag-imperial-beach","24":"tag-indie-beer","25":"tag-ipa","26":"tag-lemon-grove","27":"tag-machete-beer","28":"tag-national-city","29":"tag-novo-brazil","30":"tag-oatmeal-stout","31":"tag-romesco-baja","32":"tag-salud","33":"tag-south-bay","34":"tag-third-avenue-alehouse","35":"tag-west-coaster","36":"tag-wolf-canyon","37":"entry","38":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdtr4y-3qX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}