Rip Current Brewing

Go Against the Flow

Paul

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Barrel Blast in North Park

This final week of 2023, we are pulling together a menu of many of our best barrel-aged beers to help you ring in the new year. This list will be available starting on Friday (December 29th)! We hope you will join us to responsibly taste several beers from the attached menu and order some crowlers (or growlers!) to go. Yes, we are filling growlers with our barrel-aged gems as we ramp down Rip Current beers through December and into January. Stock up so you can enjoy these for the rest of 2024! Note this menu will change over time as you blow the final kegs!

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Final Barrel-aged Beers in San Marcos

As we approach our last day pouring in San Marcos, we are loading up the taps with our best vintage barrel-aged beers! Have you ever seen a larger list? Please come see us and sample responsibly and then take home a few crowlers of your favorites! We will remain open in North Park through the holiday season.

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Rip Current is Closing

We are sorry to post that we are selling Rip Current Brewing and will be closing both locations during December. The last few years dealing with COVID and the aftermath have been too financially challenging for us to continue. However, I’m pleased to say that another great brewery will be filling our space in San Marcos … Craft Coast (from Oceanside)! They make tasty award-winning beer, so I’m sure you will enjoy their new location when it re-opens after some updates.

In 2011, two home brewers from Quaff Homebrew Society of Barley Engineers San Diego Brewers Guild fulfilled a lifelong dream to open our own brewery. After the build out, we were so excited to open our doors in December of 2012. Guy Shobe and Paul Sangster oversaw Rip Current for many years and had help from so great people that were owners, employees or friends during those years. We are pleased that many have gone on to successful roles with other breweries on the west coast.


After 11 years, we will be closing our San Marcos location. It’s hard to sum up how appreciative we are to the many of you who came through our doors regularly and let us enter a small part of your life. We heard many great stories, shared some amazing beers and enjoyed getting to know so many of you. Thank you so much for your support over the years!

Our San Marcos location will be closing on Friday, December 15th. Paul be bartending that day and looks forward to pouring you a couple and perhaps filling some crowlers or growlers to go. We would love to get our beer into your refrigerators as they can’t stay in our cold room much longer.

The Rip Current North Park location will be staying open until Dec 30th, so we hope to see you there as well. Both locations will be pouring a bunch of our beers including quite a few vintage (rare) barrel-aged beers and offering to-go specials.

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San Diego Beer Week 23′

We hope everyone is enjoying San Diego Beer Week 2023! The final weekend of Beer Week (Nov 10-12th) is traditionally our massive barrel-aged beer event. This year is no exception, so we hope to see you at either our North Park or San Marcos location to enjoy our many barrel-aged beers on tap.

Last week, we released Cuvee Reserve #2 which will continue to be available through out beer week. In addition to Cuvee Reserve, we have a number of vintage favorites returning plus one more brand new beer! The new arrival is Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Grand Cru! Grand Cru is a term used in the wine and beer world and has a number of different detailed meanings, but they are along the lines of “top dog” or “best of the house”.

Rescue Buoy Grand Cru is a blend of four barrel-aged variants of Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout. This blend includes three different release years of Rescue Buoy that each were aged in different brands of bourbon barrels to maximize the complexity. This blend of Rescue Buoys were taken to the next level by the addition of End of the World Double Imperial Stout (which is a scaled up version of Rescue Buoy). The resulting elixir has a complex bourbon character with notes of chocolate, coffee, molasses, toffee, figs, dates and subtle oak character. Our extensive barrel aging periods have toned down the alcohol bite you might expect to find in a 14% beer from another brewery.

With that introduction, here is our barrel-aged beer tap menu for the event…

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Barrel-aged Reserve Cuvee #2 Release!

This year we are celebrating the annual San Diego Beer Week (Nov 3-12, 2023) with an amazing barrel-aged release. On Nov 3rd, we will be releasing on draft our 100% barrel-aged Reserve Cuvee #2. This masterful blend is comprised of robust ales that were matured in four prized barrels from our cellar. Some of the component beers have never been previously released! The result is a smooth, rich, semi-sweet beer with complex notes of chocolate, dates, fig, molasses, roast and of course a melding of four different bourbons! While the ABV weighs in at 13%, we think you will be amazed by how easy drinking and enjoyable this beer is from first to last sip. Be sure to ask about to-go crowlers!

The blend consists of equal parts:
– Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout aged 2.5 years in Weller barrels
– Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout aged 2.5 years in Blanton’s barrels
– End of the World Double Imperial Stout aged 3.5+ years in Buffalo Trace barrels
– Riding Giants Imperial Porter aged 4+ years in Four Roses Barrels

We hope you will join us to help celebrate craft beer in San Diego!

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10th Anniversary Barrel-aged Tap List

We are thrilled to be sharing with you this amazing list from our long-term barrel aging program. These brews will be pouring and available to-go in mini crowlers during the entire 10th anniversary weekend (while supply lasts).

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Rip Current 10th Anniversary Celebration

The weekend of March 24th-26th, we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary of serving you our wide variety of brews. This event celebrates our 8th year in North Park and 10th year at our brewing location in San Marcos. It has been your loyal patronage that has allowed us to be producing beer for this long, so we want to give a big “thank you” to everyone for all of the support!

In typical Rip Current style, we are breaking out some crazy vintage barrel-aged beers plus adding several new ones. We are particularly excited about the new releases which are based on our brewer favorite barrel(s) from each batch. When you see “Our best barrel” in the description, it indicates that we thought it had the best balance of the desired flavors, so we wanted to share it with you without any blending. Single barrel releases are the most challenging as each beer develops in it’s barrel in ways the barrel controls more then we do!

No advanced ticket purchases are necessary. We will be open during regular business hours at both locations for the event. We are also offering a special package including a multiple barrel-aged beer tasters and the 10th Anniversary glass (while supplies last).

We also will have a 10th anniversary limited edition t-shirt available for purchase. We don’t expect these will last very long, so get them while we still have your size.

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Barrel Bonanza 22′

For the closing weekend of San Diego Beer Week 2022, on Nov 11th we will be offering a huge list of barrel-aged offerings! This year we have chosen seven barrel-aged beers that used either bourbon, wine or rum barrels in the aging process. As part of this line-up, we will have two new barrel-aged beer releases. First, 2022 Barrel-aged Rescue Bouy Imperial Stout will be pouring along with 2022 Barrel-aged Buckwheat Old Ale (collaboration with Horus Aged Ales). These new releases will accompany four vintage barrel-aged elixirs from the past plus the return of our Raspberry wine barrel-aged sour. See below for the menu!

Both locations will be filling a very limited number of mini crowlers with your choice of either of the 2022 newly released beers. This is a great chance to share these beers with your friends, but please arrive early as these crowlers normally sell out very quickly!

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A Storm is a Brewing….

A storm looms on the horizon casting its shadow across San Diego county. Fear not… as this storm doesn’t bring foul weather, but rather is the release of a trio of Storm beers! On Nov 4th to kick off 2022 San Diego Beer Week, we are releasing a new batch of (extra Kona coffee) Java Storm, and the first ever batches of Coconut Java Storm and Hazelnut Java Storm! We also have some vintage barrel-aged beers lurking on a special tap, so be sure to ask the bartender what is available.

On the main barrel-aged tap, we will be releasing 2022 Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout! This year’s batch spent 3 years (yes, 36 months!) in amazing Heaven Hill bourbon barrels. Who else does 3 years? We would recommend getting a pour of Coconut Storm or Hazelnut Storm and doing a nice blend with Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy if you like coffee, coconut or hazelnut flavors in your barrel-aged beers.

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9th Anniversary Celebration!

It is hard to believe it was just over 9 years ago we opened our doors in San Marcos for the first time to share our first 3 brews with you. Fast forward to the start of 2015 when we proudly opened our second location in North Park. It has been our pleasure to serve you so many beers over the years, and we hope you will join us for our celebration of this monumentous occasion (ok, maybe its more special for us!)

On Fri, Feb 25th – 27th 2022, we will be putting on special beers all weekend at both locations. You can expect to see some vintage and new barrel-aged goodies (watch social media for the list). We hope you will enjoy the beers in our limited edition 9th anniversary glass.

We haven’t forgot you hop heads, so will have the return of Caught in a Rip Triple IPA! Our monster triple IPA will be available on draft and in 4-pack 12oz cans.

On tap, we have some exciting beers including our first ever Blanton’s barrel-aged beer. End of the World Double Imperial Oatmeal Stout spent 2+ years in these rare barrels and is tasting incredible despite its dangerous 15.4% ABV.

We will also be releasing 500ml bottles of Storm Break Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter. We used the Daybreak coffee beans from Steady State Roasting Company lightly sweetened by Tahitian and Indonesian vanilla beans! Get these bottles while you can.

Both locations will have great food items available all weekend. We are excited to have a new Rip Current retro surfing shirt available, so be sure to ask about it before they are gone!

In San Marcos, we will have some special things occurring during the event:

Friday – We are stoked to welcome our friends from Steady State Roasting who provided the coffee beans we used in the Barrel-aged Storm Break release. They will be pouring from 4-7PM their amazing Daybreak Blend cold coffee and have cans available for purchase. From 3-8PM we will have El Canelo serving up some yummy authentic Mexican tacos!

  

Saturday – We will have our raffle happening where you can win: hats, growlers, shirts and rare vintage bottles. Raffle tickets are available for $1 each or as part of the drink “package” (includes the anniversary glass and drink tickets). Dropouts Pizza will be with us from 1-8PM to pair their amazing pizza with the many beers pouring. In the evening from 6-9PM, we are happy to welcome back the Johnny Deadly Trio to rock out the evening.

  

Sunday – Some of us prefer it a little more quiet when doing our barrel-aged sampling, so on Sunday we will still be pouring our amazing line-up and have the Deli Dudes making sandwiches from 1-6PM.

 

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Join Our Team!

Deliver Driver/Brewery Assistant Job Description

Rip Current Brewing Company in San Marcos, CA is currently seeking a motivated, hard working individual to join our team as a delivery driver and brewery assistant. The position is full-time Monday-Friday (with rare weekend events). This is an excellent opportunity to get into an entry-level brewery position and learn all facets of beer production!

Responsibilities:

● Deliver kegs and cans to accounts and our satellite Tasting Rooms using company delivery vehicle
● Assist in brewery and cellar tasks on a regular basis including cellar work, packaging, etc
● Pickup/Deliver items to events, shipping partners, suppliers, etc
● Stock cold rooms weekly
● Maintain inventory and delivery records
● Maintain a clean and organized vehicle and warehouse environment

Qualifications:

● Must be 21+
● Must have a clean driving record
● Forklift certification a plus
● Mechanical aptitude a plus
● Must have a strong work ethic
● Must be organized
● This job requires the ability to lift and move 55 pounds at a time, lift and move 165 pounds (a keg) using the appropriate tools and techniques, and work in a warehouse environment consisting of loud noises and hot and humid environments for long periods of time

*Please send your resume and cover letter to Jobs@RipCurrentBrewing.com with the subject line “Delivery Driver/Brewery Assistant.”

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Barrel Kick Out Event

For the kick out (closing) weekend of San Diego Beer Week (Nov 12-14), it is time to share some old favorites from our barrel-aged beer cellar plus introduce a couple new ones! Both locations will be pouring 6 barrel-aged creations based on a variety of beer styles from imperial porters to double imperial stouts. These beers have spent extended time maturing in the barrel. When was the last time you had a beer that was aged in fresh bourbon barrels for over 30 months? How about seeing 4 of them available to choose from at the same event? We don’t believe in rushing the process and hope you will enjoy these amazing elixirs.

Click here for the barrel-aged beers we will have on tap!

We hope you will try a flight and enjoy a delicious meal with our food partners.

In North Park, we will have our Craft House kitchen team  creating some incredible food to pair with your dark beer samplings all weekend.

In San Marcos, we are stoked to have a different food vendor and musical performance each night, so see the schedule below. Please watch social media for exact times for each partners arrival.

Friday 12th:

                     

Saturday 13th:

                

Sunday 14th:

               

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Wakeboarding Wheatwine Wednesday

On Wed, Nov 10th we are celebrating San Diego Beer Week with the release of Wakeboarding Wheatwine and its cousin Bourbon Barrel-aged Wakeboarding Wheatwine!

Wheatwines are a less common style that are an American offshoot of the traditional British Barleywine. The largest difference is the heavy use of wheat instead of malted barley.

Our 10% ABV Wakeboarding Wheatwine uses massive amounts of wheat malt to give it a full body and a smooth flavor profile. We complemented this wheat base with several specialty malts to impart notes of caramel, toffee and honey. The final beer was mostly barrel-aged in Heaven Hill distillery barrels and the limited remaining amount was stored away in kegs for this release event.

Now, after nearly 4 1/2 years from its brew date in 2017 both variations are ready for your enjoyment.  The barrel-aged version introduces notes of bourbon and barrel-character (oak,  vanillin, coconut) from the extensive aging process. Despite the huge 12% ABV, barrel-aged Wakeboarding has matured over the years leaving it with a smooth complex character, more restrained alcohol bite and warming at the finish. We hope you will join us and sample both variations of the wheatwine. This will allow you to compare and taste the flavor impact of the barrel-aging process.

In San Marcos, while you are enjoying the wheatwines, this is a great opportunity to pair it with the amazing BBQ from Carolina Mike’s! The bourbon barrel flavors are a masterful pairing with their savory BBQ sauces. Our North Park location will have our amazing food line-up for your culinary pleasures.

Since it is a Wednesday, we will also be holding in San Marcos our weekly Prize Trivia. This will be a true testing of your trivia skills, so be sure to enjoy a plate of BBQ to help absorb the high ABV beers on tap.

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Totally Stratacal Beer Release!

On Nov 5th, we kick off San Diego Beer Week 80s style (bad mullets aren’t encouraged!). We are releasing one of our most popular hazy brews … Totally Stratacal! As the name hints, we load it up with radical amounts of the popular Strata hop resulting in a beer with juicy tropical (passionfruit, mango) and citrus (apricot, grapefruit) aromas and flavors.  You might also see something special on our barrel-aged beer tap, so be sure to ask the bartender what is pouring.

While you are in San Marcos we hope you will enjoy a bodacious pie from our friends at Dropouts Pizza while rockin’ to the tubular tunes from James Isaac. At the end of the night after a few gnarly brews, we hope you will take home a 16oz 4-pack of Totally Stratacal and forgive us for all the 80s slang.

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Barrel Blast 21′ is Coming!

We are stoked to announce Barrel Blast 21′ that is happening this weekend (9/18-19). We will have a special curated list of vintage spirit-barrel aged beers pouring at both of our tasting rooms plus a new twist on a recent favorite! Over the weekend, San Marcos and North Park will offer differing barrel-aged lists, so we encourage you to visit both locations (on different days :)). Check out what will be on tap at each location:

On Saturday, we will be offering a discounted drink package including 5 BA taster tickets and 3 raffle tickets. We will be raffling off a number of items including branded merchandise and several rare vintage bottles, so be sure to stick around and win some swag! Ask your bartender for time of the raffle. Extra raffle tickets will be available for $1 each. We expect to have most of the beers still pouring on Sunday, but we hope you won’t wait if you have one beer you have been anxious to try!

If you are joining us in North Park, of course we will have our amazing Craft House cooking up some special dishes to go with all the barrel-aged beverages all weekend.

In San Marcos, we have several different food vendors coming over the weekend who will be offering some amazing cuisine for your dining pleasure. We hope you will enjoy a nice meal and desert as a pairing to your barrel-aged gems. This could help absorb some of the high alcohol, but we recommend you come with a designated driver or a way to get you home safely without driving. See below for the day and time window for each food provider:

Saturday 12-8PM

Saturday 6-8PM

Sunday 12-8PM

If that wasn’t enough, we also are thrilled to have live music all weekend. We hope you will enjoy the rock’in tunes of:

Saturday 4-7PM

Sunday 3-6PM

As an added bonus, we will be filling 20 (total per location) 12oz mini-crowlers designed specially for our micro barrel-aged releases. These will be filled with the new Coconut Rye Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout (only). This is your only chance to take this amazing beer home to share with friends! Get them while you can as they won’t last long (per person limits apply).

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Our Barrel Blast Closes Out Beer Week!

Each year we like to help celebrate San Diego Beer Week with a huge barrel-aged beer night featuring our best cellared barrel-aged beers. This year the event will last an entire weekend! That’s right we will be pouring EIGHT spirit barrel-aged beers plus a wine barrel-aged sour for the entire weekend at both of our locations (while supplies last).  This year’s line-up will include two beers that we have never released before plus our new beer/wine hybrid Wine Grape Sour. We also have a 2-day old batch of Off the Lip IPA plus a couple hazy brews for you hop heads.

Both locations will be offering food as we are thrilled to have the Pizza Trolley food truck serving up brick oven pizza and salads in San Marcos. Thanks to COVID we will be outside, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the amazing tunes. On Saturday in San Marcos, we are stoked to have the return of the Gin Pistons band. They rocked the house at our anniversary party, so can’t image a better group to have at our barrel event.

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Mixed-Culture Wine Grape Sour Release!

After multiple years of maturation, we are thrilled to welcome the newest addition to our mixed-culture Sour Series … Barrel-Aged Grape Sour! On Thurs, Nov 12th you are cordially invited to join us for tasting this amazing new sour on tap at both locations.

The creation of a barrel-aged sour can take years to allow the various fermenting organisms to convert the sugars and other compounds into a bouquet of funky and sour aromas and flavors plus alcohol. Our Grape Sour started its journey as a blonde ale that was placed in a red wine barrel with a collection of multiple strains of brewers yeast, brettanomyces, pediococcus, and lactobacillus. Over the following years, the beer had matured to the right balance of sourness and barnyard-like character. The next step to make this a beer/wine hybrid we added 100 pounds of Cabernet Franc grapes to each barrel to round out the final flavor. A re-fermentation ensues resulting in the final beer that presents a pleasant melding of flavors from the barrel, grapes and the underlying sour beer.

We made this complex sour in collaboration with our friends and neighbors at La Fleur’s Winery. They are making fantastic wines and have a tasting room just down Grand Ave from us in San Marcos, so were a natural partner for this beer/wine hybrid beer.

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Is 2020 the End of the World?

2020 has been a challenging year for all of us, but does that mean this is the end for humanity? We don’t think so, however their is no point in leaving anything left to chance.

Back in 2016, we brewed up an insanely huge stout with roasted malts, oats, molasses and honey that we planned to long term age. Most of the batch went into bourbon barrels for nearly 3 years and was released last year to rave reviews. But what happened to the remainder?

Please join us on Friday, Nov 6th for the release of (non-barrel aged) End of the World Double Imperial Oatmeal Stout. This 4 1/2 year-old, 13.5% monster stout is smooth, complex and delicious yet very dangerous. It features complex aromas and flavors reminiscent of molasses, toffee, coffee, dark chocolate, figs, dates, raisons and plums.

If you still have a bottle of the Barrel-aged End of the World Stout and want to do a proper side-by-side you are welcome to bring in a bottle, no corkage fee! For those arriving when we first open in San Marcos you might find a small number of barrel-aged bottles available to purchase!

 

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Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy on Presale Tomorrow!

After 28+ months maturing in bourbon barrels, we are excited to announce our first ever release of Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout in 500ml bottles! Rescue Buoy is our flagship Russian Imperial Stout that has recently received several prestigious awards including Gold at the California Craft Brewers Cup and a Bronze at the Great American Beer Festival and US Beer Open Championships!

We took this award-winning elixir and patiently aged it in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels for over 28 months. This allows the rich chocolate, coffee, toffee, caramel and molasses flavors of the beer to meld with the vanillin, coconut notes imparted by the oak barrels. The residual bourbon notes round out the complex flavors offered by this 13.5% ABV masterpiece.

Starting Friday, October 9th at 10:00am PDT, you will be able to pre-purchase up to four 500ml (16.9oz) bottles of Barrel-aged Rescue Buoy for pickup at either our San Marcos brewery location or North Park tasting room. We suggest buying several bottles for your cellar and open one each of the next few years to appreciate how it evolves with time.

Be sure you reserve your bottle before they are gone. Details are at: https://ba-rescue-buoy.eventbrite.com/

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Both locations now open for on-prem sampling and to-go!

As we gradually exit the COVID-19 restrictions, we are stoked to announce the re-opening of our San Marcos and North Park tasting rooms for on-prem drinking (without a food requirement) and to-go service. In San Marcos, we are very excited to introduce our new 23×40′ outdoor patio! You can enjoy the gentle outdoor breeze all while under our amazing sail shade. Big thanks to our friends at Wholesale Shade (a San Marcos company) for the fantastic product!

We are implementing social distancing and strong sanitization processes at both locations to help keep our employees and of course our customers safe. Please be sure to wear your masks when not seated and be courteous to those seated around you, so we can all continue to enjoy public sampling without spreading the virus. We have several new batches of your favorite beers pouring including Off the Lip IPA and Lupulin Lust Double IPA from last week! Both of these fantastic batches are available in 6-packs or crowler/growler fills! You can look forward to several new beers (including a light and a dark lager) coming out later in June as we ramp up production.

 

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We are hiring!

We are looking for several part-time Beertenders for our location in North Park. Are you customer focused, and ready to serve award-winning beer?
If so, please send your CV/resume and when you are available to work to jobs@ripcurrentbrewing.com!

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Rip Current Online Store

Online Store

As part of our efforts to help keep everyone healthy while ordering our beers for consumption at home, we have launched an on-line store where you can pre-order beer and merchandise to-go. Our e-store allows you to pre-pay for the transaction ahead of time! We also are offering e-gift cards at a nice discount. Please visit us at:

http://ripcurrentbrewing.square.site

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Triple beer release coming on Feb 15th!

In conjunction with our 7th Anniversary Celebration, we are releasing three new bottle/can beers. Beware the bottle count on both barrel-aged beers is low so they won’t last for very long.

First, the Wine Barrel-aged Blonde Sour is our first ever non-fruited sour release. This release comes from a single wine barrel that we thought showed the most compelling sourness and funky profile, so wanted to highlight the flavors without any other fruit additions. This beer was fermented and aged in wine barrels with a mix of Lactobacillus, Pediococcus and Brettanomyces that impart a variety of acids and funky character to the final beer. A very limited number of 375ml bottles will be available for purchase and the remainder will be on tap.

Next, we didn’t want to forget our loyal hophead patrons! We are stoked to be 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. We wanted to focus your experience on the juicy citrus fruity aromas and flavors.

Finally, Vanilla Storm is our ultra-exclusive Imperial Porter brewed with fresh Kona coffee and aged with Madagascar vanilla beans. This amazing beer has complex notes of coffee, toffee, chocolate, molasses and of course vanilla. For our anniversary release, we have aged Vanilla Storm in the one amazing bourbon barrel for 33 months allowing for a melding of bourbon and oak flavors in perfect harmony with the base beer. Because this batch was born from a single bourbon barrel, an extremely limited number of 500ml bottles will be available with the rest going on tap. Sorry we didn’t produce enough to offer a pre-sale, so come get it while you can!

 

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Caught in a Rip Triple IPA Release

One of our favorite times of the year is our annual release of Caught in a Rip Triple IPA. For several years we timed the release with San Diego Beer Week, but this year we decided to have it come out when the famous Pliny the Younger releases from our good friends at Russian River Brewing. We will be releasing 6 packs of 12oz cans when our tasting rooms open on Valentine’s day. We hope you love it as much as your valentine’s day partner. What a perfect gift for Valentine’s day!!??

Caught in a Rip is the biggest hoppy beer we brew. It is packed full of our favorite hops from around the world. The list is too long to repeat, but the featured hops are mentioned on the label. At 11.5%, it is truly a huge west coast style IPA balancing the hints of sweetness from the ethanols with the bitterness and overwhelming aromas and flavors from our extensive, multi-stage dry hopping process. While this IIIPA is a beast our patrons routinely remark how incredibly drinkable it is, but please enjoy with caution or you will feel like you are caught in a rip current!