Finding community at the Craft Brewers Conference

The annual gathering focuses on education and the bubbling craft-beer industry

I’ve attended enough conferences for various industries to know how commonly they’re transparent marketing machines, but the focus of the CBC was broadly on education.

Monday, April 16,2012
Beer & Chees

Lounging at Leroy’s, Coronado’s other beer pub

A place worth crossing an ocean for (provided you do so via a relatively short bridge)

By Ian Cheesman

There is something oddly transformative about traveling over the Coronado Bridge. It’s like a portal to some mythical Pleasantville, U.S.A., complete with bright azure skies and the vague sense that a degenerate like me will be deemed unwelcome by locals. It’s the perfect mix of beach weather and social anxiety that compels me to tackle a delicious craft brew.

Monday, March 19,2012
Beer & Chees

The Public House is a pub worth hoarding

I really don’t want you to know about this La Jolla beer dispensary

By Ian Cheesman

I really don’t want to tell you about The Public House. I know journalists are largely defined by sharing information, but it’s a simply not in my best interest to put customers between me and this establishment’s exquisite wares.

Monday, February 27,2012
Beer & Chees

San Diego and the annual Pliny the Younger harvest

Is Russian River’s triple IPA worthy of the hype?

By Ian Cheesman

There’s one annual happening that never fails to cause San Diegans to lose their collective shit. Come every February, a mystical beer of legend appears from uncharted lands to the north—the triple IPA to rule them all, some say.

Monday, February 6,2012
Beer & Chees

An exploration of beer for breakfast

Our expert sounds off on how to pair beer with the most important meal of the day

By Ian Cheesman

What would a worthy breakfast meal composed only of beer look like?

Monday, January 16,2012
Beer & Chees

Big food and big beer collide at Sublime Ale House

Finally—a restaurant brave enough to use bacon!

By Ian Cheesman

Sublime Ale House’s menu is awash with similarly stomach-coating comfort food, which is precisely the ticket for anyone mounting an assault on the 48 tap handles.

Monday, December 26,2011
Beer & Chees

A lightning review of two SoCal holiday ales

Our resident beer nerd takes this season’s beers to task

By Ian Cheesman

By the time you read this, the holiday season will be drawing to a close. Soon we’ll have only the cold comfort of lackluster holidays like President’s Day to look forward to. I love deifyin

Monday, December 5,2011
Beer & Chees

Beer and wine meet for the ultimate grudge match

An annual pairing dinner casts the deciding vote

By Ian Cheesman

The four previous cage fights split victories evenly, meaning I was party to judging the gustatory rubber match. Here’s my play by play.

Monday, November 14,2011
Beer & Chees

A sneak preview of Green Flash’s newest brew

San Diego beer maker offers a taste of its future and past

By Ian Cheesman

The inspiration for this beer was either drawn from nHinkley’s great respect for classical brewing traditions or a Dr. nWho-sian desire to combat beer injustices across time and space.

Monday, October 31,2011
Beer & Chees

A guide to San Diego Beer Week

Our rundown of the must-drink events of 2011

By Ian Cheesman

As much you yearn for my elegant prose, San Diego Beer Week needs no introduction. It’s equal parts celebration and phenomenon, a phenobration, if you will.