Uncategorized

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…

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!

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 Black Lagoon 2019 and Sour Series: Apricot Blonde Sour! Both of these new releases will be available to-go in bottles for the first time at retail. Barrel-aged Black Lagoon 2019 was pre-sold on-line and was very popular, 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.

Our Black Lagoon Scottish Strong base beer won a Silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2015. Since that time Black Lagoon has largely been brewed for barrel-aging as the flavors meld so perfectly with the bourbon and oak tannins. This past summer, Bourbon Barrel-aged Black Lagoon won a Silver medal at the prestigious US Open Beer Championships up against the best barrel-aged scotch ales from the professional and home brewing ranks. This beer is a brewing team favorite and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do! Black Lagoon has a silky smooth dark malt character with rich caramel, toffee melding with 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 13% ABV ale to consume the bourbon flavors preserved in the barrel while pulling notes of coconut and vanillin deeper in the oak. After 31 months of maturing in the barrels, it was the right time to offer this beer for your glass.

Our Apricot Sour is the fourth in our wine barrel-aged, multi-souring agent (brett, pedio, lacto) fermented sour beers to come out of our Sour Series. In 2017, we brewed a blonde ale that went into a large number of wine barrels with a varying mix of inoculants (fermenting organisms). This release fermented with Apricot puree for several months before going into 375ml bottles for extended bottle conditioning. The resulting 7% ABV sour has a fresh apricot 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 couple years.

San Marcos tap list includes:
• Bourbon barrel-aged End of the World Imperial Oatmeal Stout 19′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Black Lagoon Scottish Strong 19′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Cuvee Collaboration with Nickel Beer Co 19′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Down the Line Barleywine aged on Orange Peel
• Bourbon barrel-aged Reserve Cuvee Blend #1  18′
• Bourbon barrel-aged No Hope for Rescue (NHFR) Double Imperial Stout 18′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Dangerous Undertow Belgian Dark Strong 16’
• Wine barrel-aged Peach Blonde Sour 18′
• Wine barrel-aged Apricot Blonde Sour 19′

North Park tap list includes:
• Bourbon barrel-aged Chocolate Imperial Stout aged on Fig and Dates 19′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Black Lagoon Scottish Strong 19′
• Bourbon barrel-aged End of the World Imperial Oatmeal Stout 19′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Fruit Party No Hope for Rescue (NHFR) Double Imperial Stout 18′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Coffee Rescue Buoy Imperial Stout 17′
• Bourbon barrel-aged Vanilla Storm Vanilla Coffee Imperial Porter 16’
• Bourbon barrel-aged Cuvee Collaboration with Nickel Beer Co 19′
• Wine barrel-aged Peach Blonde Sour 18′
• Wine barrel-aged Apricot Blonde Sour 19’

Both locations will also be rolling out some special limited gems so be sure to check the menu carefully when you arrive!

Mark your calendars for a fun event coming up at Rip Current on July 28th! Not only will we have food and special beers making an appearance, but it is also your first chance to experience two special packaged beer releases!

First, bourbon barrel-aged No Hope for Rescue Double Imperial Stout will be released in a new, smaller 500ml bottle.This crazy giant stout was aged in top shelf Heaven Hill bourbon barrels for 20 months allowing all the flavors of the Double Imperial Stout, oak and bourbon to meld harmoniously into a beer you won’t believe is 18.25%!

After producing a series of very popular hazy IPAs for the last year, we have listened to your feedback and are making a limited amount available in cans! Yes, we will be periodically releasing 12oz cans of your favorite draft-only beers starting on July 28th. Our first release is Foggy Nelson hazy IPA. This “foggy” beer features the highly sought after Nelson hop from New Zealand that blasts your palate with juicy tropical fruit flavors.

We hope to see you for an amazing summer bash and dual can/bottle release. Watch our social media feeds for more details over the next few weeks.

We are looking for a new member of team Rip Current at our San Marcos location. The Beer-tender is the initial contact for visitors to our tasting room. The primary function of this position is to guide guests in beer selection and enjoyment, while providing exceptional customer service. The position is part-time, and grow into more shifts for the right candidate. We are seeking an individual who is willing to cover shifts as needed in addition to their regularly assigned weekly schedule.

Please review the full description of the position located here before applying.

After 4 years of making draft beer for the San Diego County marketplace, we decided to put our beer in cans in 2016. Throughout 2017, we have been packaging our most popular brands in six-packs of 12oz cans and working to expand our distribution to make it easy for you to find our brews.

As this photo shows we now have six cans designed, and the first five have been available in the market for some time now. We hope you will ask for our beer at your favorite restaurants, craft beer/liquor stores and supermarkets, so we can continue to expand and bring our beer to your neighborhood.  We have over a 100 locations selling our cans across San Diego and Orange County!

Our brightly colored, outdoor activity themed cans include: Lupulin Lust Double IPA (green), Java Storm Coffee Imperial Porter (red), Bodysurfing Belgian-style Blonde (yellow), Choppy Surf Czech-style Pilsner (dark blue) and Off the Lip IPA (light blue). But wait that is only five, what about the sixth can? During 2018, we will be releasing additional beers in cans, so stay tuned for announcements.