Beer Tourism - Orange County California

Man, work sucks, but sometimes you just have to make the best of it. Crappy trip this week to SoCal for a PITA site..might as well hook it up with some good beer.

Work issues aside, I started off my two-night trip in style by hitting up Hi-Time Wine Cellars in Costa Mesa. As this was my first experience in a beer store in California, I was a bit overwhelmed. The good news is that we get most of the Stone beers in GA, so those are immediately off my radar...or are they? The only Stone beers that I have not been able to find in GA are the 2011 collaborations...I have had 3 or 4 at this point (thanks to work travel), so I picked up some TBA to round off the series (i think i am missing only one other). On to bigger and better...after a brief conversation with one of the employees, I was led to the shop's FiftyFifty stash, and scored a Elijah Craig 18-year Eclipse...pretty pleased with this purchase, despite the sticker shock. Next up, I grabbed a Deschutes Stoic and a Ballast Point Sculpin (the later of which is for hotel consumption). 

Then I did some work...work, work, work...and then lunch:

My second stop was about 40 miles east of Costa Mesa...Riverside, CA. I hit up a nice little shop called La Bodega...talk about exceptional selection. These guys had Euros like I have never seen before...all sorts of off the wall stuff....and tons of glassware, to boot. Again, service was outstanding, and I received many recommendations for local brews. I ended up walking out with an AleSmith Decadence, a Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel Cognac (again, major sticker shock) and a Heretic Evil Cousin.

Again, more work stuff happened here...a BUNCH of work stuff, really...

My final stop for the evening, prior to retiring to the hotel, was for dinner. My choices were relatively limited, seeing as I was (am) staying in Garden Grove, less than a mile from Disneyland (pictures of the nightly fireworks didn't really turn out well when taken from a cell phone), but again thanks to Ba, I hit up the OC Brewhouse at the Orange County Hyatt..apparently their gig is to serve local brews on draft. I had some decent fish tacos and sampled some fair Ballast Point brews: Yellow Tail (pale ale, Ba score 3.75) and Calico (amber ale, Ba score 4.0). While not off the charts, these beers are certainly worthy of a good session if they were local to GA.

Once back I decided to hit up my sessionable purchases...first up was Heretic Evil Cousin...an Imperial IPA (gratuitous balcony shot).

 This is Heretic's west coast-style IPA...in brevity, it smells sweet, but is bitter as hell. This is normally not an issue for me, but, damn. At 7 bucks its worth a try, but Evil Cousin is far from sessionable. My understanding is that this is a relatively new brewery, and I think they are on the right track, but this beer didn't cut it for me. My Ba score was a 3.5...maybe another shot at it could prove different, but for now, this is where I am...

I finished off the evening with the Ballast Point Sculpin that I picked up at Hi-Time.

This is easily one of the best IPAs that I have had...perfectly balanced, nicely sessionable..overall, a complete success. Sweet on the aroma, hop forward, but not bitter...its just that damn easy...I wish this was available in 6s and in Georgia...it would make my day/week/month/year...ohtheguilt Ba score 4.75 out of 5.0.

More to come...