Toronado, Toronado. There, I said it twice!

My wife told me the coven of grad students was going on about this place. If all their castings are this good, I'll have to pay closer attention.

My former and now defunct favorite beer joint was the Liar's Club in Pacific Beach. It was a true dive bar. Where we'd opt to sit on the railed in porch to avoid the odor of cleaning solution and spilled festering beer that is so unique to dive bars and mexican dance clubs. The kitchen was a screened off area of the bar. The bathroom had the tub communal urinal. All these things added to the character of the place. They had a great selection of unusual beers on tap and made a great tuna melt sandwich.

Toronado is not Liar's Club. It doesn't smell. The kitchen is a bonafide kitchen. It's clean and organized with space enough. Maybe I'm getting too old, but these are things I've become accustomed to. Toronado seems to appreciate this. A t-shirt for sale read "Too clean? Too bright? Too Loud? Too f**king bad!" It still has an edge, though. That edge is called beer. All over the walls are signs and beer paraphernalia. There are around a hundred vintage looking metal beer signs. I couldn't find one that was just oil or some such to fill space. Get a load of the two cask pump handles mounted on the bar and the two large glass door refrigerators full of all manner of beers.



It's not incredibly obvious how it works, though the bartender/server was happy to help out. On the far wall from the door are chalkboards with menu items and specials. Overhead, over the bar, is the list of beers on tap. In red are the breweries, and underneath written in black are the corresponding beers. Also, somewhere on the bar (or ask the BT) is a list of the bottled selections. Find what you want and order at the bar. (In case you forget where to order, it says so on the chalk boards)




Toronado has beer. The beer has beers. There were beers walking other beers on leashes. There are around 34 beers on tap, unique and good beers.



For example, I had the Allagash Curieux and my wife had Foret Saison. When you ask for the beer list, you will be presented with an, approximately, 8 page list of their bottled beers. From that I had a Reineart Flemish wild ale. Exhausting your options here would be akin to seeing all of the Smithsonian.

They had a short but satisfactory menu. Additionally, there were specials. When we were there they had a list of about 6 types of sausage plates to choose from. I had a cheeseburger. It was good with the proper amount of grease and cheese, cooked to my liking. Simple and quite satisfying. My wife had a grilled cheese that she said was quite good.




The one drawback to the place is the parking. It's street parking and pretty popular due to shopping and apartment complexes in the area. The directions on google basically take you to the back of the building. Just stay on 30th street, you'll see it.

There's a patio out back, but I didn't get a chance to check it out.

If you're a beero, beer aficionado, beer connoisseur, or new to the whole thing, you should go check this place out. If you're looking for someplace to play beer pong and drink as much as you pee, this isn't the place for you.

Because San Diego micro brews rock!

The Great American Beer Festival was held this weekend. San Diego county kicked-ass. Of California's 39 medals won in the competition, 14 were from SD County. Check out the article from Sign on San Diego.

Just this for now

Oy! What a day. I've found a replacment for the recently defunct Liar's Club. Liar's Club was an outstanding dive bar down in Pacific Beach. (Is that a contradiction in terms "outstanding dive bar"?) Liar's Club had a great selection of beers on tap and several in bottles. This new place, this new wonderland, is called Toronado. A long list of most excellent beers on tap and an even longer list of bottles on hand.

I've got a few beers to talk about and some pictures of Toronado. But, my apologies, that's it for now. All this beer tasting has worn me out.

Alaska Princess Cruise and Beer.

I recently went on a cruise in Alaska. Princess shows their beer menu choices online. It's not pretty. The menu listed the usual light beer swill. The best I could hope for was Dos Equis. I was distraught. I grumbled when I got up in the morning just thinking about it. A whole week surviving on light lagers. I wasn't sure I could do it. "It was only the room service menu" became my mantra.

I dug around on the internet and found one blog, just one, that mentioned they may have Alaskan Brewing Company beer. I was hopeful but dubious. I had it in my mind that these cruises were a cash cow that they milked with rough hands. Every drink you get that isn't juice, water or coffee, you pay for. Beer, wine, soda, you pay for it. About, $4 to $6 dollars per beer. So naturally, they would only have beers they could make the most money off of.

Well, the fact that you have to pay for them all is true. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see a few other beers on the menu that I hadn't expected. One was Franziskaner Weissbier. I usually had to point to it on the menu. Either I wasn't pronouncing it correctly (I did well enough), or it doesn't get ordered very much. The wait staff generally stared at me like I was trying to get them in trouble.

The other beer I was somewhat happy to see on the menu was Guiness. This was much easier to order. They'd heard of this. They'd seen commercials. It was real.

Not on any menu that I saw were, indeed, the Alaskan Amber and Summer ales. Pretty generic by microbrew standards, but more than sufficient to keep me from a light beer induced fit. These were generally found on the decks during certian times. There would be a staff member behind a large bucket of ice with drinks in it, among them were the Alaskan beers. I didn't think to order an Alaskan beer while I was at dinner. I'd bet it was available, but I have no proof.

All in all, the cruise was a very enjoyable trip. I don't mean to pan the waitstaff, they were outstanding on all accounts. They just weren't familiar with the beer list.

Another way to beat the light lagers was to trek to one of the several brewpubs in various places. I recommend the Skagway Brewing Company. They had a really nice IPA, stout, and porter. The fries were fantastic and came with a side of ranch dressing.

So fear not fellow beer-o-file, it can be done.