San Diego Beer Week: Top 5 Events Worth The Drive South

Sarah Bennett

Tasting glasses from the Brewer's Guild Festival

To most Angelenos, San Diego is the kid sister of SoCal cities. But to beer lovers, San Diego is Mecca. Ten years ago, when L.A. was still trapped by endless Bud and Miller tap handles, San Diego brewers were over-hopping their suds, blowing palletes (and minds) and defining an entirely new west coast style of beer-making.

Last Friday marked the start of the 4th Annual San Diego Beer Week, a 10-day extravaganza that grew out of hundreds of other locally organized beer events to become one of the most sought-after beer weeks in the country. Like L.A. Beer Week, there will be rare kegs, special meet-and-greets and a large-scale beer festival, but unlike ours (which is in its infancy by comparison), SDBW will feature more than 500 events at dozens of bars and restaurants throughout the county, showcasing beers from San Diego's 50-plus groundbreaking breweries.

In honor of SDBW, we took a trek down south for this impressive event's first three days and talked to the locals to figure out which of this week's coming events are totally worth the drive.

5. Green Flash Flanders Drive 10th Anniversary Beer Release, Monday, Nov. 5:
This San Diego Beer Week is a special occasion for Green Flash Brewing Company, one of the region's biggest brewers, as it marks a full decade since the crew began making its groundbreaking IPAs, stouts and West Coast-style Belgian ales. Each night of the 10-day Beer Week, Green Flash's tasting room will be tapping one of its anniversary kegs (yes, that includes its 10 year-old American strong ale) with the special 10th Anniversary beer going on during the Flanders Drive Release Party tonight. A rare barrel-aged experiment from this San Diego brewery, the sour Flanders red-style beer (named after the street of the new, larger brewery) is sure to be one of Green Flash's most delicious. Tickets $50. 6 - 9 p.m., Green Flash Brewing Co., 6550 Mira Mesa Blvd., San Diego.

Sarah Bennett

Societe booth at the 2012 Brewers Guild Festival

4. Societe the Apprentice. Bruery the Master, Thursday, Nov. 8:
When two ex-brewers from The Bruery in Placentia left to bring their craft to San Diego, the beer scene down south took notice. Touted as one of the most anticipated new breweries in the entire county, Societe opened earlier this year with a lineup of solid IPAs and well-balanced Belgian-style beers. Since this is its first SDBW, Societe is in hyperdrive with events planned nearly every day. The event at Urge, however, stands out as a worthy drive because it will not only be showcasing the talents at Societe, but also pay homage to the place where they honed their skills -- a brewery that in itself originally took influence from San Diego. We love when things come full circle. 5 p.m., Urge Gastopub, 16761 Bernardo Center Dr., San Diego.

3. The Flavors of Yeast (Part 2), Saturday, Nov. 10:
Yes, "yeast" is a really gross word to say, but it is one of only four main ingredients in beer and its impact during the brewing process not to be underestimated (a wise brewer once explained yeast's role as such: it eats the sugar, poops alcohol and farts CO2). During the last weekend of SDBW, San Diego's White Labs will once again be presenting a daytime event that exposes the nuances of different yeast strains with a set of saisons each brewed with a different strain of yeast and an info session with expert Neva Parker. White Labs today makes most of the world's commercial yeast and tubes of its beer-making organisms and the company now has a brewery and tasting room on site where they share their scientific beer-speriments. 2 - 4 p.m., Sea Rocket Bistro, 3382 30th St., San Diego.