{"id":13219,"date":"2016-03-17T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T15:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/?p=13219"},"modified":"2016-03-16T23:44:48","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T06:44:48","slug":"beer-touring-border-x-brewing-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/2016\/03\/17\/beer-touring-border-x-brewing-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Beer Touring: Border X Brewing Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"borderx_02\"<\/a>The first two stops on my #southbayuprising tour in Chula Vista were to breweries that had been open less than a year. Neither were stellar, but some forgiveness can be applied to such youthful operations. In my opinion, Bay Bridge and Novo Brazil aren’t ready for prime-time, but there’s hope that they\u2019ll improve their processes in the near future.<\/p>\n

The same considerations cannot be applied to Border X Brewing Company<\/strong><\/a> (2181 Logan Avenue, Barrio Logan)<\/em>. This business, which brews in Otay, has been in operation since the beginning of 2014, and has operated a Barrio Logan-based tasting room since the first-quarter of that year. In short, they\u2019ve been around long enough that\u00a0all fine-tuning should be completed, and all excuses should have gone the way of early shortcomings.<\/p>\n

\"borderx_04\"<\/a>Just five beers were available on the day of our tour, so we ordered one of each and ran through them in a logical order. First up was Gran Hefe, an unfiltered German-style wheat ale. It had very little flavor, aroma or carbonation. The best part of hefeweizens are generally the yeast-borne flavors of banana, citrus and\/or clove\u2014none of which showed up in this beer. Next up was a\u00a0golden stout with a slight hint of nuttiness. For the most part though, this beer was just sugary and grainy. It lacked the roasted malt or coffee bean presence needed to make this light-colored beer drink or taste like a stout.<\/p>\n

\"borderx_01\"<\/a>An India pale ale dubbed IPA #001 was peachy but also a bit sweet. Its hoppy nose was its best feature, but as far as taste goes, it would be a challenge for this beer to hold up\u00a0against the county’s legendary IPAs. I also had high hopes for Abuelita, an 8% alcohol-by-volume chocolate stout, but even with all its roastiness and dark malts, butter permeated the beer\u2019s finish.<\/p>\n

Our top pick of the day was\u00a0Border X\u2019s hibiscus-reddened Blood Saison. Earthy and floral, its flavors of pomegranate, cherry and cranberry were lovely. Still, one solid offering out of five\u00a0isn’t good, especially for a business that\u2019s been brewing for two years.<\/p>\n

\"borderx_03\"<\/a>On the aesthetic front, Border X boasts a great-looking facility. Seriously, with artistic touches everywhere — many paying homage to the culture, businesses, figures and creators within the local community — it is pretty close to perfection from a micro-regional perspective. One could spend hours examining the chalk-style art on its black walls, the hand-crafted items bearing Border X\u2019s skull logo, the colorful main bar-top and the guest art in the rear seating area. It\u2019s creative, stunning and fun. And if art appreciation isn\u2019t one\u2019s cup of tea, there\u2019s a nice little outdoor area out back with space for lounging and a grill setup to bring tasty, Barrio-friendly food into the equation.<\/p>\n

I must say, though, that the service during our visit was disappointing. When we entered, the place was nearly empty, and we went straight to the bar. One other patron had been\u00a0served, yet we waited two or three\u00a0minutes to even be greeted.\u00a0The bartender had presumably seen us, as we were standing just feet\u00a0from him. Maybe the service is better on other days, but we felt selectively ignored.<\/p>\n

As much as I want to believe in and tout the #southbayuprising, right now I can only laud props on the bars that are fueling the region\u2019s craft beer fire. The breweries involved in this uprising are trying to mount a revolution armed exclusively with weaponry and ammunition manufactured by Nerf. For now, I\u2019ll keep my fingers crossed in the hope\u00a0that the best of intentions and clear passion will soon translate into better products from South Bay’s breweries.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: In his day job, Brandon works as the marketing manager for Miramar\u2019s AleSmith.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first two stops on my #southbayuprising tour in Chula Vista were to breweries that had been open less than a year. Neither were stellar, but some forgiveness can be applied to such youthful operations. In my opinion, Bay Bridge and Novo Brazil aren’t ready for prime-time, but there’s hope that they\u2019ll improve their processes […]<\/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":[1353,2569,1701,376,2360,442,1387,391,1983,2459,1010,2591,1681,2588,1439,1637],"class_list":{"0":"post-13219","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-barrio-logan","12":"tag-beer","13":"tag-border-x","14":"tag-brandon-hernandez","15":"tag-chula-vista","16":"tag-craftbeer","17":"tag-hefeweizen","18":"tag-indie-beer","19":"tag-ipa","20":"tag-logan-avenue","21":"tag-novo-brazil","22":"tag-otay","23":"tag-san-diego","24":"tag-west-coaster","25":"entry","26":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdtr4y-3rd","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13219","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=13219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}