Lightning Brewery, of Poway, CA celebrated their third anniversary. I had a good time! Lightning really did it right with a small venue, a good selection of brews from a variety of, mostly, local breweries. I say mostly local, because Karl Strauss was there. The locals that were there included Airdale, Alesmith, Ballast Point, Coronado, Green Flash, Lightning [of course], Port, San Diego and Stone.

The next business I am about to mention isn’t a brewery, but actually a pizza restaurant. Sweet Home Chicago Pizza was there selling slices of their delicious pies, I did get a bonus slice of pie for this mention!

Now onto the good stuff: BEER! Here is what I had and my thoughts:

Airdale Bombshell Belgian [8.3% ABV]: Beautiful golden, straw yellow with a clean white head. The appearance draws your nose close to it in order to take in a slight sour yeast aroma with some esters. As I take my first sip, I detect a smooth mouthfeel of mellow esters and a gentle sourness that finishes clean. I will be revisiting this one again. I chatted with Tony [Owner] and David [Brewmaster] for a few minutes. It’s good to get to know the people behind the brews your are drinking. Cheers guys!

San Diego Hopopotamus: This, cleverly named brew drew me in for the HOPS in its name. It turned out to be amber in color, with an off white head and light lacing on my plastic taster cup. In the aroma I could detect a battle waging, one between HOPS and yeast! I was picking up strong HOPS and a slight sour sourness, that I would attribute to the yeast. The taste was no surprise at this point, yes, MORE HOPS! At first I wasn’t sure if it was so hoppy that is was sour or that the yeast was actually giving off the sour notes in the aroma and the taste.

Lightning Barrel Aged Amber [8% ABV]: It took me awhile before I mustered up the courage to get this one. I had a few or five beers before this one and it had cought my eye early on. The aroma of sweet fruits came to mind as I drew the cup to my nose. The appearance was that of a standard amber ale with a thin white head. Upon the first taste, the oak barrel really came through, along with a bonus flavor. Not sure what kind of barrels were used to age this amber, but it really came through in the flavor. The bourbon or whiskey really added a bold complexity to the already powerful amber.

I had other brews, but I didn’t take any notes on them. One was the Sculpin IPA from Ballast Point [7%]. The rare Sculpin and I have a special bond. It was my first beer review here on CoreBrewing.com. It was good to revisit a beer I hadn’t had in 10 months again. I also had the opportunity to taste Green Flash’s Hop Head Red. This is a bold, hoppy amber that will knock your socks off! Some of the other brews I were Stone Ruination [7%, I'm a fan, of course!] and Lightning’s Old Tempest Ale [9%].

One thing that really impressed me was the beer bread, yes, you read that right! Beer bread! They use the spent grains from each of their brews to make this beer bread. Very good and a must have!

SDAA, San Diego Astronomy Association was there with some very nice telescopes. They had filters on all of them so that people could look at the sun. I got to see some solar flares, it was pretty cool! Now I really want to buy that telescope!!! I’ll be looking these guys up for future engagements. Telescopes, beer and cigars…sounds like a pretty bad+ass time!

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Tags: Airdale, anniversary, beer bread, Lightning, recap, San Diego, SDAA

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