The Indie Beer Show

The first pop up event to support the #SDBeer Holiday Food Drive went down last Wednesday evening at My Yard Live. 9 representatives from SD Beer joined us for a friendly beer trivia contest for the entertainment of those that showed up to support the food drive, now in its 6th year.

A massive thank you goes out to Quiz Show Mania for providing the amazing game show system that we got to use!

We had contestants from My Yard Live , The Lost Abbey, Rip Current Brewing , Stave & Nail Brewing Company , Brewchive , Chula Vista Brewery Belching Beaver, and Rouleur Brewing Company and one winner took home the trophy and has bragging rights for an entire year!

As you visit breweries over the next few weeks, please take in some food to donate or donate a few dollars towards our effort to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

San Diego Beer Week has ended its 10 day run but that doesn’t mean the fruits of #SDBW are all gone. Esthela, with our original producer, David Martin, went Home to talk about our collaboration beer, Home of Indie, The Homebrewer/Home Brew Co., homebrewing, and friendship. George, Founder/Owner, Jacob, Head Brewer, and Liquor Store Mike join us for a live show during the release party for Home of Indie! It was incredible that we got to do another version last year’s SDBW collab with Jacob. I feel like we have a tradition going now! It’s a single malt and single hop, West Coast IPA, using Pure Idaho Malt and Nelson. The beer turned out great and will be around for a while, so get to the source and try it!

If you’re not totally beer weeked out, our first #SDBeer Holiday Food Drive benefit happens on Wed, November 13th at My Yard Live at 7pm. Nine brewery representatives will compete in a few rounds of beer trivia for glory (and your entertainment) in an effort to encourage you to bring out food for the SD Food Bank. Come have some fun, and if you can’t make it, hit up one of the other 30+ locations where you can drop off food to help those less fortunate in our city!

At first glance, we were welcomed into an unassuming room, the walls lined with full wine racks, a table and some chairs awaiting us, but soon we realized this was a unique space. Belching Beaver’s Tavern & Grill in Vista is built is what used to be a bank. In renovating the building, they made the wise decision to keep the bank vault, door included. They also used the safe deposit boxes as the conference style table.

This is one of the coolest places we’ve ever recorded a Show! We were joined by Heather Franchini, Production Coordinator, and Thomas Peters, Head Brewer at the Tavern. We have a great discussion about their repeated Alpha King success, SDBW, and all things Belching Beaver.

We throw in some of our favorite San Diego Beer week events, beer news, and a ton of laughter as the icing on this cake for your ears. Have a listen and then go kick beer weeks butt!

It’s the most wonderful time, of the beer!

San Diego Beer Week is right around the corner. The 11th annual celebration of all things #SDBeer happens from November 1st- 11th.

The Brewers Guild of San Diego invited us out to witness the canning of the mega collab, Capital of Craft (if you’re a Mug Club member, you saw) and sit down with Virginia Morrison (Board Member and Co-Founder of Second Chance Beer Co. and Alex Pierson (Guild Member and Co-Founder of Amplified Ale Works) to discuss the beer and hallmark events of #SDBW.

As you’re gearing up for the epic 10 days of beer week, make sure you download the SD Beer App – Apple or Android– or set SDBW.SDBeer.com as a short cut on your homescreen.

Have a listen and get stoked for the most wonderful time of the beer!

We are living our best lives over here at TIBS! For the second time, we all got to attend the Great American Beer Festival!  This is America’s largest beer festival with over 800 attending breweries and more than 4,000 different beers poured.

We start the show with Ann Obenchain, the Brewers Association’s Marketing Manager. We discuss GABF is overall terms, get those important statistics for you guys, and also talk about some of the things the BA does to help its members.

After our keynote interview we dive into a montage of spot interviews on the floor of the festival, we talk to St Arnold Brewing, Cerveceria San Pascual Baylon, King Cong Brewing, Briess Malt, and Broo Craft Beer Shampoo.

We close out our festival interviews with a group of discussions with medal winning breweries that include Port City, Kern River (Brewery Group of the Year on top of 4 medals), Lost Abbey, Kilowatt, Claremont Craft Ales, JAFB Brewery, and Two Roots.

It’s hard to convey how ginormous GABF is but I will say this, if you have a chance to attend, it will blow your mind! Here is one unique episode for you guys!

In the Halloween  spirit, Pariah Brewing Co. is teaming up with The Good Seed Food Company for a Spooktacular Beer Pairing. It’s a self guided pairing of small dishes with taster size beers that will only set you back $20. There was little risk of these entities coming together for something ordinary, and they over delivered. Are you ready for bugs and beer pairings?

Chef Chuy worked with Jesse Smith to establish what beers worked with what insects and then they turned that experiential data in to a mini pairing meal, just for you. I have to say, if you’re on the fence about eating insects, this is a great way to dip your toe into the creepy pond; Esthela was a champ and ate all 4 dishes! These plates, while featuring different bugs, aren’t extremely insect forward, flavor wise. They have done a great job at balancing flavors and textures with these dishes. Think of it as Bugs and Beer 101.

I hope you’re all adventurous eaters as you listen to us sample this pairing and discuss the strangest other things we’ve eaten in our lifetime. If you’re bored, throw us an Itunes rating!

We are super stoked to be celebrating our first anniversary here at TIBS! It wouldn’t be possible without you guys, the greatest fans on Earth, so, thank you!

The fine folks at North Park Beer Co. were incredibly nice to us and made us one of the freshest kegs of Hop Fu! to ever leave their building. The great people that made the fine decision to join us for our party/live show drained that keg in less than 2 hours! We also grabbed a giant tray of Stupid Wings from The Good Seed Food Company, they were devoured in even less time!

Currently, I’m sitting in our hotel room outside of GABF with roughly 45 minutes before we can go into the Friday night session, which gave me just enough time to get you guys this episode! Next week (or so), we’ll have an episode from the largest beer festival in America!

Enjoy listening to us talk about our first year, Esthela and I had a blast recording this show with a gathering of some of our favorite people laughing and drinking with us! I hope our gratitude for your support comes through, but just in case THANK YOU to every single person that has ever listened to The Indie Beer Show!

It’s a special time in beer currently, wet hop season! You just asked yourself, “why do we care?” Well, you care because you’re the type of indie beer person that loves beers you can only get once, and there are a lot of opportunities for that right now!

We collected a handful of currently available wet hop beers, brought in Liz Bauer from Glacier Hops Ranch, and had delightful time talking about them. Did you know that there are a few hop farms, here in San Diego? You do now!

If you pay close enough attention, you’ll notice that I was off my game and was inaccurate in almost every statement of where certain hops are grown, I have no idea why, but I’m thankful for Liz’s patience in correcting all of my mistakes.

Have a fun time making fun of me in your head why you listen and once again, thank you to Liz for joining us!

The CA Craft Beer Summit is a 2 day educational convention put on by the CCBA. This year celebrated to 30th anniversary of the CCBA! The convention culminates with a giant, California beer festival featuring over 600 breweries and 1800 beers. That happens to be the largest beer festival on the West Coast.

We are thankful that we had the chance to attend. I found many of the seminars informative and really enjoyable. In particular, 2 speeches hit home with me, Dr J. Jackson-Beckam’s (BA’s director of Diversity) session titled “Stop ‘Doing Diversity!’ Build an Inclusive, Equitable, and Just Workplace that Drives Success” and Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery on “Reality vs. facsimile” in the American Food Culture and the Implications for Craft Beer.

This week’s show is focused on standout moments from both of these speakers; I hope you enjoy this unique episode!

If you are reading this on release day, 9/23, and can’t make our First Anniversary Show Party tomorrow, be sure to leave us a voicemail at 619-698-7038 that tells us your favorite moment from the first year of TIBS! We’ll play them all on the anniversary Show!