Sunday, November 05, 2006

Beer Travel: Hamilton's Tavern - San Diego, CA - Pictures Added :-)

Another Update! Somebody left some pictures for us. These are from the grand opening. Thank you! Grand Opening Pictures at Hamiltons (Go to Flickr - Click Me!) Update! OK, I've had a chance to recover from two trips and I'm ready to spill the beans about Hamilton's. Actually it all started at Liars Club. I'll cover that trip in a later post. As luck would have it during that visit I met Tony Jaeggi who works for Stone. Tony mentioned Hamilton's Tavern. He assured me it was worth a visit while I was in San Diego. I didn't think Tony would steer me wrong so I headed to 1521 30th Street,San Diego,CA 92192 in the South Park area of San Diego. It was pretty easy to get to. Even at night. I could hear the music from outside. I opened the door and found a relaxed crowd listening to Led Zeppelin. Inside I could see the bar on the left, some tables around the place, a pool table and a shuffle board table against the far right. I immediately noticed the beer and wine lists on the chalk board. The following is a list of the beer I sampled that night. Somehow I managed to forget to get a picture of the board before I left.
Coopers Vintage Extra Strong Ale Bear Republic Racer 5 Ballast Point Sculpin - North Star Pale Ale Alesmith Indian Pale Ale Speedway Stout Evil Dead Red
Every one of these were very impressive. I would have to say the Speedway Stout, Sculpin and Coopers Extra Strong (bottle) were among my favorites. One of the problems I have when tasting this many beers in one session is overloaded taste buds. The IPAs are so hoppy that they can really leave your taste buds shredded (in a good Southern California way of course). This will prove to be a theme with all of my stops in San Diego. While I was tasting beer and listening to a whole Led Zeppelin CD on the jukebox, I met a few people. Dave was the first to sit down next to me. He told me about the neighborhood and the local bar that was here before Hamilton's Tavern. At one point Dave introduced me to the man the tavern was named after. According to Dave the next door neighbor, Mr. Hamilton, had been the inspiration. A little later a young man, Dennis, sat down on the other side of me. I soon found out he worked at a wineshop in downtown San Diego. I also found out that he used to live near my home in South-Eastern Pennsylvania. Small world! As I was preparing to ask for my check Dave introduced me to the owner, Scot Blair. Scot talked to me about the Tavern, beer, breweries, home brewing and California among other things. He also insisted I taste more of the local beer and retrieved some samples. As we talked I found out one of his favorites was the Cooper's Vintage I listed above. This was the first time I tasted this beer. It is delicious! Thanks Tony for the tip! Thanks Scot for the hospitality! Keep up the good work. :-) Original Post Ok...4 for 4...nice! Without giving too much away it was great. I'll post more later. Meanwhile, you can find the BA entry here.

3 comments:

Bryan Kolesar said...

Sounds like a great find. Relaxed atmosphere, cool people, great beers, friendly ownership...who could ask for anything more?!

Adam said...

I only wish I had some pictures of the place. I guess was having too much fun enjoying Hamilton's to even think about it.

S. Blair are you out there? Do you have any photos you could share? Perhaps one of the tap board?

Anonymous said...

http://flickr.com/photos/pesotum/sets/72157594349583940/

photos of Hamilton's tavern