Rip Current Brewing

Go Against the Flow

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Rip Current Sixth Anniversary Celebration

It is difficult to believe that more than 6 years ago the dream of two avid home brewers became true with the opening of Rip Current Brewing Company. Since 2012, we have explored beer styles from around the world while never loosing our focus on rad hoppy beers rooted in San Diego traditions. On Saturday February 2nd, we wish to thank all of our loyal patrons with our Anniversary Celebration event at both locations. This celebration recognizes both our 6th anniversary of brewing beer in San Marcos and our 4th year serving those brews in North Park!

This year we are opening the barrel-aged beer archive to bring back many of your favorites from the past while also welcoming several new additions to the family. When our doors open on Feb 3rd, we will be releasing a limited number of 3 new beers in bottle or cans plus pouring them on tap.

First, Barrel-Aged Down the Line Barleywine will be available in 500ml bottles. We aged this beer for 28 months to extract the amazing oak character from our first use Woodford Reserve bourbon barrels. The resulting 14.2% ABV English-style Barleywine offers a silky smooth balance of the complex oak flavors, residual bourbon and the underlying base beer.

Second, we are releasing 375ml bottles of our second barrel fermented and aged sour called Mango Blonde Sour. This blonde beer matured in barrels for over a year allowing the mix of Brettanomyces, Lactobacillis and Pediococcus that impart a somewhat funky and complex sour aromas and flavors. We finished the sour elixir by adding fresh Mango puree to round out your drinking experience.

Finally for you hop heads, we are releasing Lupulin Hazed Hazy Double IPA in 12oz 6-packs. Lupulin Hazed is the delicious result of our following the New England approach to brewing hazy IPAs using the hop profile of our flagship beer Lupulin Lust. At 9% ABV, this beer packs a punch but with very little noticeable alcohol and bitterness that might take away from the juicy citrus fruity aromas and flavors.

Each of the new beers will be available on tap plus a slightly different line-up of vintage barrel-aged gems. In order to help you decide which location to visit see the following partial lists:

North Park

  • 2016 Barrel-aged Vanilla Storm (Coffee, Vanilla Imperial Porter)
  • 2016 Barrel-aged Coffee Vanilla Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout
  • 2017 Barrel-aged Coffee Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout
  • 2017 Barrel-aged Mocha Mayday (Coffee, Chocolate Imperial Porter)
  • 2018 Barrel-aged Black Lagoon Scottish Strong

San Marcos

  • 2015 Barrel-aged Black Lagoon Scottish Strong
  • 2016 Barrel-aged Coffee Vanilla Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout
  • 2017 Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout
  • 2017 Barrel-aged Fruit Party No Hope for Rescue (Coffee Double Imperial Stout)
  • 2018 Barrel-aged Reserve Cuvee Blend #1

No advanced ticket purchases are necessary. We will be open for regular business, but event goers will also be offered the option to purchase a special discounted package which includes 4 8oz barrel-aged tasters (or standard pints), raffle tickets and discounts on other brewery items (growlers, beer, glassware).

 

 

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Barrel Night with Reserve Cuvee and Peach Sour Bottle Release

Both locations will be tapping a great selection of our vintage barrel-aged beers as a delicious backdrop to the release of our newest creations – Barrel-aged Reserve Cuvee Blend #1 and Sour Series: Peach Blonde Sour! Both of these new releases will be available to-go in bottles for the first time at retail. The Reserve Cuvee was pre-sold on-line and sold out within the first day, but we have a few cases remaining that will go on sale when we open the doors, so don’t wait or you will miss out on these great beers.

Reserve Cuvee Blend #1 features a complex palate of flavors imparted by the four barrel-aged components included in the blend. Every one of the component beers spent at least 18 months in fresh bourbon barrels! First, we used the bourbon barrel-aged version of our GABF medal-winning Black Lagoon Scottish Strong. This scotch ale provides the silky smooth foundation and contributes flavors of dark caramel, figs, oak tannins, and bourbon character.

Next, we added 3 unreleased barrel aged beers to build out the flavor framework. Barrel-aged End of the World Double Imperial Stout was added to contribute coffee, dates, toffee, and molasses character along with a deeper bourbon richness. Barrel-aged Buckwheat Old Ale adds a complex dark honey and buckwheat flavor and sublime oak tannins. Finally, Barrel-aged Wakeboarding Wheatwine imparts a rich toasty malt flavor and a full body with some bourbon spiciness. The resulting cuvee blend has a very broad array of flavors challenging your senses with every sip while finishing with a mellow warming from its 14% ABV as it goes down.

Our Peach Sour is the first in our wine barrel-aged, multi-culture (wild yeast and bacteria) fermented sour beers to come out of our Sour Series. In early 2017, we brewed a blonde ale that went into a large number of wine barrels with a varying mix of inoculants (fermenting organisms). Our first release roughly 18 months later incorporates peach puree. The resulting 7.4% ABV sour has a fresh peach aroma and flavor with complex lactic/acidic sourness and hints of funk from the brett yeast. This sour is well balanced in part by using a restrained amount of fruits, so the fruit would not cover up the hard work done by the bacteria and wild yeast over the last 18 months.

San Marcos tap list includes:
• Bourbon barrel-aged Reserve Cuvee Blend #1
• Bourbon barrel-aged Black Lagoon Scottish Strong 18′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Fruit Party No Hope for Rescue (NHFR) Double Imperial Stout 18′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Mocha Mayday 18′ (NHFR with chocolate, coffee and ancho chiles)
• Bourbon barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout 17′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Dangerous Undertow Belgian Dark Strong 16’
• Wine barrel-aged Peach Blonde Sour

North Park tap list includes:
• Bourbon barrel-aged Reserve Cuvee Blend #1
• Bourbon barrel-aged Black Lagoon Scottish Strong 18′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Fruit Party No Hope for Rescue (NHFR) Double Imperial Stout 18′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Mocha Mayday 18′ (NHFR with chocolate, coffee and ancho chiles)
• Bourbon barrel-aged Chocolate/Vanilla Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout
• Single (best) barrel-aged Storm Imperial Porter
• Bourbon barrel-aged Vanilla Storm Vanilla Coffee Imperial Porter 16’
• Bourbon barrel-aged Dangerous Undertow Belgian Dark Strong 16’

The North Park location is able to also pour guest beers, so you can expect to see some amazing barrel-aged beers from our colleagues at other breweries around town.

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Barrel-aged Reserve Cuvee Blend #1 Bottle Release

On Friday, November 9th, both tasting rooms will be selling the remaining (after the brief on-line bottle pre-sale) 500ml bottles of Bourbon Barrel-aged Reserve Cuvee Blend #1 for $18 (plus tax and crv). We don’t expect the remaining bottles to last long, so be sure to arrive early to taste it on tap and buy your share.

Reserve Cuvee Blend #1 features a complex palate of flavors imparted by the four barrel-aged components included in the blend. Every one of the component beers spent at least 18 months in fresh bourbon barrels! First, we used the bourbon barrel-aged version of our GABF medal-winning Black Lagoon Scottish Strong. This scotch ale provides the silky smooth foundation and contributes flavors of dark caramel, figs, oak tannins, and bourbon character.

Next, we added 3 unreleased barrel aged beers to build out the flavor framework. Barrel-aged End of the World Double Imperial Stout was added to contribute coffee, dates, toffee, and molasses character along with a deeper bourbon richness. Barrel-aged Buckwheat Old Ale adds a complex dark honey and buckwheat flavor and sublime oak tannins. Finally, Barrel-aged Wakeboarding Wheatwine imparts a rich toasty malt flavor and a full body with some bourbon spiciness. The resulting cuvee blend has a very broad array of flavors challenging your senses with every sip while finishing with a mellow warming from its 14% ABV as it goes down.

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Triple IPA Can and Tap Release Night

This is our yearly release of Caught in a Rip (CIAR) Triple IPA! This year we decided to go one step farther and release CIAR’s brother Caught in a Haze (CIAH) Hazy Triple IPA. Both CIAR and CIAH will be available in 12oz cans as well as on tap! Six-packs of either triple IPA are $15.99 (plus tax and crv). Both Triple IPAs weigh in at 11.5% ABV and have a huge hop aroma and flavor. We repeatedly add our favorite hops (e.g. Nelson, Galaxy, Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe, …) to make the resulting beers have a massive citrus, tropical and stone fruit and background pine-like aroma and flavor.

CIAR is our West Coast-style monster Triple IPA that is blonde in color with noticeable hop haze and finishes crisp and dry with a significant bitterness on the finish to balance the alcohol sweetness. CIAH is a New England-style Juicy Triple IPA that is hazy blonde in appearance and is more-full bodied with a juicy fruity profile then its brother CIAR. CIAH is low in bitterness to allow the fruity sweetness to shine through.

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Introducing Our Sour Series Peach Blonde Sour

We have always been big fans of a well made barrel-aged sour beer, so in early 2017 we decided to allocate separate space in the brewery to start up our sour program. Like our barrel-aged clean (non-sour) program, these beer require significant time typically between 8-12+ months to develop and mature in the barrel before they are ideal to release. We purchased a large number of wine barrels and inoculated (adding of fermenting organisms) each barrel with varying proportions of wild yeast (brett) and bacteria (pedio and lacto) to achieve a complex blend of different acids causing sourness and complementary funk/barnyard/horse blanket (yes, this is how judges describe the flavors) from the brett.

After a long wait, it is time to finalize each sour beer, so we taste and blend the barrels that have our target flavor profiles and add any final ingredients. In this case, we added peach puree and then wait again for the beer to mature. Finally, we bottle and keg the beer and again wait for it to naturally carbonate.

After a long wait, we are stoked to announce the launch of our Sour Series and its first constituent Peach Blonde Sour! The resulting 7.4% ABV sour has a fresh peach aroma and flavor backed by complex lactic/acidic sourness melded with subtle notes of funk from the brett yeast. This sour is well balanced with all the flavors present by not adding excessive amounts of fruit that could cover up the hard work done by the bacteria and wild yeast over the last 18 months.

On Monday, November 5th our North Park location will have the initial pouring and this will be followed on Thursday, November 8th with the second tapping of the Peach Sour in San Marcos. Finally on Friday, November 9th, we will release 375ml bottles of Peach Blonde Sour for purchase for $14 (plus tax and crv). This is a small batch release, so we expect it to sell out quickly. Get your tasty piece of Rip Current history and while your here also pickup some bottles of Bourbon Barrel-aged Reserve Cuvee Blend #1!

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Introducing Murky Malarkey

On Wednesday, November 7th, we will be releasing our latest hazy IPA in our line-up, Murky Malarkey. It uses the super-popular hops – Idaho 7, Mosaic and Citra to create juicy citrus and stone fruit aromas and flavors while imparting very low bitterness. Unlike our previous hazy IPAs, this beer uses a special hybrid yeast that imparts a tropical fruity (pineapple-like) flavor to the beer to complement the orange, tangerine and apricot from the hops. Be one of the first to try this new hazy and let us know which hazy is your favorite.

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Barrel-aged Black Lagoon Bottle Release on June 30th

 

After 2 years maturing in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels, we are thrilled to announce the release of our latest batch of Bourbon Barrel-aged Black Lagoon Scottish Strong on Saturday, June 30th! It will also be available on draft until the keg kicks.

Black Lagoon is our popular Scottish-style Strong Ale (AKA Wee Heavy) that has won many awards in international competitions including a Silver medal at the prestigious 2015 Great American Beer Festival and the 2018 California State Fair.

Black Lagoon has a silky smooth dark malt character with rich caramel, toffee and hints of chocolate and dark fruits. This beer is ideal for extensive barrel aging to round out the spectrum of flavors with bourbon and oak-derived goodness. We don’t rush the barrel-aging process, allowing our beer to blend in the bourbon flavors preserved in the barrel while extracting notes of coconut and vanillin deeper in the oak.

Come try it on tap and buy a bottle to go! This is a limited bottle release, so please don’t wait as they will go fast!

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Rip Current Racks-Up Awards at International Beer Competitions

Rip Current Brewing (Rip Current) recently won several awards during the World Beer Cup and the San Diego International Beer Festival and for its German-style bock and pilsner beers.

Rip Current’s Breakline Bock won a bronze medal May 3 at the World Beer Cup, a prestigious competition with more than 8,000 entries from 2,515 breweries. Breakline Bock is a German-style dark lager featuring a rich, dark malt flavor—yet, it finishes semi-dry, so it can be consumed by the liter-glass at festivals. This style is one of the most difficult to brew, making it especially significant to achieve a world-class example.

Winning entries were blindly judged by a panel of beer experts from 33 countries. Because the competition was worldwide, this means judges considered Breakline Bock to be among the best in the world.

“We are excited to announce our victory in the renowned World Beer Cup, which is our first, but are confident will not be our last,” said Rip Current Co-founder and Brewmaster Paul Sangster, adding that the brewery was one of only six Independent breweries in San Diego County to earn a medal. “We are proud and humbled to have won a medal in this fiercely competitive category—especially considering how many quality German-style bock beers were entered, including many from Germany.”

Just a couple days earlier, Rip Current’s Breakline Bock also won a silver award at the San Diego International Beer Festival—which included over 1,500 entries from 260 breweries.

During that competition, Rip Current also claimed a gold award for its Delaminator Doppelbock, a doppel (double) sized, higher alcohol-by-volume (ABV) beer that is a more dark-malt-forward version of traditional bock. Lastly, Rip Current won another silver award for its Choppy Surf Czech-style Pilsner, a bohemian pilsner lager with a complex graham cracker-like backbone supporting an herbal hop aroma and flavor.

This is the third year in a row that Rip Current has amassed one of the highest medal counts of any brewery at the San Diego International Beer Festival.

“This year we had another very strong showing at the San Diego International Beer Festival, which really speaks to the fact that our team at Rip Current is continuing to make world class beers of many diverse styles,” said Sangster of the brewery, which just celebrated its fifth anniversary. “We invite everyone to help us celebrate at one of our tasting rooms with some of our award-winning beers.”

All of Rip Current’s award-winning beers are available this week at their tasting room in San Marcos at 1325 Grand Avenue, suite #100, and in North Park at 4101 30th Street.

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FiftyFifty Brewing Tap Takeover & Meet The Owner @ Rip Current North Park!

On Sunday, November 5th from 2-8PM, we are thrilled to welcome our friends from FiftyFifty Brewing Company of Truckee, CA to our North Park location. They are bringing an amazing line-up of their core and specialty program creations, including two rare variations of the world famous Eclipse Barrel-aged Imperial Stout!  Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to try so many of their beers on tap and to speak with FiftyFifty’s owner Alicia Barr.

We will have the following beers on tap (while the kegs last):

Eclipse Imperial Stout aged in Apple Brandy Barrels

Eclipse Imperial Stout aged in Maple Barrels

Spring Fever Blonde Ale (2015 and 2016 GABF medal winner)

Donner Party Porter (2012 World Beer Cup medal winner)

Session 267 Session IPA with Azacca Hops

Brewer’s Intent Series: Ferme de Montagne Barrel-aged Saison

 

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Rip Current Brewing’s Barrel-aged Beer Blast!

Each year our bourbon barrel-aging cellar produces some amazing beers that we gradually release when they are ready. Our philosophy is to allow the beer to stay in contact with the barrels for at least a year, so it extracts some of the complex, yet subtle flavors from the barrel. This requires patience and a generally slower release cycle, but we believe you can taste the difference. This year we produced the most barrel-aged beers in our history, and we hope that will continue into the future.

After the barrel-aged bottle and tap release, we save a small amount for us to enjoy 🙂 and a few kegs to bring each one back for a curtain call during our San Diego Beer Week barrel event! We think this year’s list might be the finest we have ever assembled and challenge you to taste them and let us know what you think!

This year’s barrel-aged beer blast will occur on two different dates, so you can hit both!

North Park – Friday, November 10th
San Marcos – Saturday, November 11th

We are stoked to offer the following tap list:

2017 Woodford Reserve Barrel-aged Black Lagoon Scottish Strong
2017 Coconut Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout
2017 Barrel-aged Dangerous Undertow Belgian Dark Strong
2016 Coffee Vanilla Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout
2016 Barrel-aged Vanilla Storm Coffee, Vanilla Imperial Porter
2016 Single Barrel-aged Storm Imperial Porter
2015 Barrel-aged Black Lagoon Scottish Strong

All of these amazing gems from the past will be pouring until the keg kicks. We expect several to go pretty fast so plan accordingly.

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Coconut Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Bottle Release!

On November 6th, both Rip Current locations will release Coconut Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout! At the start of each locations’ tasting room hours, we will be offering of this amazing small batch beer on tap and in bottles to-go!

After 15 months slumbering in Heaven Hill and Woodford Reserve barrels, we introduced Bourbon Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy (BARB) in October. We aged a small amount of BARB on freshly toasted coconut chips and the results were amazing. Rather than just drink it ourselves, we decided to bottle some up and to have it on draft during beer week! That is right, you can try it on tap (while the keg lasts!) and then buy your bottles to go.

Rescue Buoy (the base beer) has received several medals in the Imperial Stout category including at the 2017 Los Angeles and San Diego fair international beer competitions! Coconut Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy leads with a burst of coconut followed by bourbon, molasses and chocolate aromas and flavors. The mid-palate satiates your palate with dark malt character including: dark chocolate, molasses, fig, dates and hints of coffee. The finish reminds you of the start with a return of coconut and bourbon hints of oak barrel tannins.

This was a small batch, so we are not doing pre-sales. We have a very limited run of bottles that will be sold on a first come, first satisfied basis.  We don’t expect they will last very long, so don’t wait.

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Caught in a Rip Triple IPA Release during SDBW

On Friday November 3rd, San Diego kicks off its annual salute to craft beer by hosting San Diego Beer Week (ok, its really 10 days but who is counting).  We are very proud to be a member of the San Diego brewing community and take this opportunity to make something special for our patrons to help with the celebration.  This year, we are introducing our crazy hop monster, Caught in a Rip Triple IPA on the opening day of beer week.

Caught in a Rip is an 11.2% beast of a San Diego-style IPA featuring all of our favorite hops from both hemispheres. Seriously, we have hops from Australia, New Zealand and of course the USA to maximize the complexity of this very fruit-forward IIIPA.  Despite its huge ABV, this beer is light blonde in color and has a clean, bone dry finish that is only sweetened by the amazing fruit flavors from the hops.

If you haven’t tried it, be sure to stop by our tasting rooms during beer week. We only make this beer once a year, so you don’t want to miss having your share.

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Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Bottle Release!

After 15 months slumbering in Heaven Hill and Woodford Reserve barrels, we are stoked to announce the release of Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout in wax-dipped, 22oz bottles AND for sampling on tap starting Oct 20th! This year’s Rescue Buoy has received several medals in the Imperial Stout category including at the 2017 Los Angeles and San Diego fair international beer competitions!

The bourbon barrel-aged Rescue Buoy has a silky smooth dark malt character featuring dark chocolate, molasses, dark fruits (prune, date, fig) and coffee, all surrounded by complex bourbon flavors and oak tannins with fleeting notes of vanillin.

Come try this amazing beer while it lasts and take a few bottles home to enjoy with friends later.