Tasting notes, fast facts, and expert reviews on every brewery in the San Diego region
By Bruce Glassman
By Bruce Glassman
Welcome to the Oceanside brewery boom. The latest entrant is a 14th-Century-inspired brewery located just over the line from Vista, in a light industrial office park that features larger-than-average interiors. Black Plague inhabits a big, black airplane-hangar-like space that offers plenty of room for groups and families to spread out. There’s a long bar, numerous large tables, and even a few cozier private areas.
The initial beer lineup includes a very satisfying and well-balanced imperial red called Atra Mors; a light, crisp pale ale (Why So Pale?); and many flavor variations of 1347, their signature West-Coast IPA. Though the menu includes 1347 with blueberry, pineapple, habanero, grapefruit, mango, chai, and blood orange, my favorite was the plain old hop-flavored original, which had an impressive burst of citrus and grapefruit hoppiness on the nose balanced by a round, mellow bitterness and a mouthfeel that was satisfyingly rich.
San Diego is all about great beer—and there’s an awful lot of it! We currently have more than 120 working brewery locations in our county, with an estimated 30-40 more in the planning stages. That’s a lot of breweries to sort through. So where to begin? Well, the answer is right here. If you want to plan any kind of brewery experience, The San Diego Brewery Guide is your most essential tool. Not only does it list the location and key information about every working brew house that’s open to the public, it also allows you to search for breweries that meet your specific criteria. Do you only want breweries in a specific neighborhood? No problem. Only want places that have patios for dogs? You got it. Do you want to keep your search limited to small or medium-sized breweries? Yup, we got that.
With so many breweries to choose from, we hope you’ll keep coming back to consult The San Diego Brewery Guide on a regular basis. Our ultimate goal is to make it easy for you to plan the perfect day or weekend of brewery tours and tastings in San Diego—and to do it time and time again. If you haven’t already, you’ll see that there’s nothing better than enjoying a great brewery-fresh beer right where it’s made.
So get out there and explore! Sip. Savor. Socialize. And get ready to be awed by some of the best brews to be found anywhere on the planet. Enjoy!
- Bruce Glassman
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