Rock & Roll Happy Hour

Today's beer brings us lessons in Japanese Yuzu and how Shogun has blended 1st press Yuzu with a Blonde Ale to Create, Spring in Okinawa. A truly unique beer that's light, bright and citrusy, yet still balanced. William from Shogun also gives us a quick glimpse of what's to come with their first dedicated tasting room.

Getting into some of the new core beers from Shogun by Embolden, William brings another beer showcasing Matcha tea, but this version features a toasted Matcha called Hojicha and it opens up a whole new flavor profile for this lager style beer.

It's been months in the planning, after the last time William from Embolden/Shogun was in I knew we had to have him back in when they had more beer! Now Shogun has a full suite of core offerings that he's going to showcase through the week. First we start with the first Shogun beer Midnight In Tokyo, a Macha Hazy IPA that as you would expect is a little green in color and packs a whole lot of flavor.

One of the things we haven't touched on yet during our week with AJ and Bock in South Park, is how a lot of old world breweries names are synonymous with they style of beer they brew. For Kostritzer it's the German Black Beer, Schwarzbier.

Just because Bock focuses on Germanic style beers, doesn't mean they don't carry a full suite of some of the finest new world beers out there. Proof in point, we open up a Russian River Pliny The Elder and talk about the beer release from SanDiegoBeer.News and McIlhenny Brewing Higher 5 IPA you can try this weekend for the SanDiegoBeer.News 5th Anniversay party at Bock!

Coming off a weekend of Kolschs, AJ from Bock brings a Reissdorf Kolsch to share on a boiling Wednesday afternoon. She talks about the difference in the style and how to find out about the next big event.

Its nice to have a break from the San Diego Common (aka DIPA) and focus on some more traditional Germanic beers. Today AJ from Bock brings one of the more celebrated Pilsners from The Black Forest, Rothaus Pils.

It's no small order to replace a San Diego Craft Beer Instituion like Hamilton's Tavern but after the fire and SanDiegoBeer.News broke the story that Brian Jensen from Bottlecraft had taken over the space the excitment built over what would be reborn for Hamilton's ashes. Now we have Bock and AJ joins us all week to talk about what they are serving in the South Park nbhd, we start with their very own beer a Helles Bock that clocks in around 6% ABV.

If you're gonna go big, Friday is the day to do it. No doubt, Bay City Brewing when hard in the paint on thier 10th Anniversary Triple IPA. Blending all thier years of IPA brewing experience and (almost) every hop product known to humankind, they've crafted a big flavor expeirence with a very sneaky 10% ABV.

It's just hop candy! Bay City Brewings Ron Murkundy Hazy IPA it a true experience in hop flavor and drinking it might cause you to consider a velvet smoking jacket and a sweet-sweet mustache. I'm Ron Murkundy?

It's an oldie but a goodie! All San Diego breweries have their flagship IPAs and a majority of them revolve around 3 paritcualr hops. Bay City Brewing's Bay City IPA offers a little something else, that makes thier IPA stand out.

With such fuit extravagance this beer could only go by one name! A summer seasonal part of the Bay City line up, Ziggy Sourdust is a kettle sour with big flavors or Passion Fruit and guava with a perfect balance and a little surprise that Austin and Alex give us the details on.

The crew from Bay City is back in the house! It's a special week for them as Saturday they celebrate 10 years of making amazing San Diego Beer! Austin and Alex start things off light with a beer they've been tweaking for a while that's finally hitting the big time, Bay City Lager.

It's only fitting we wrap up our week with Jim from Home Brew Mart with a colaboration "San Diego Common" aka the Double IPA. This beer made a long side the crew at Julian Beer Co (who have quite the brewing provenace of their own) as a tribute to how home brewing starts for just about all of us with Garage Days Double IPA

There is a lot of brewing experience in the four walls of the Home Brew Mart, George tips the balance when it comes to that experience. If you know local beer lore then you know George had a hand in making the legendary recipe for Ballast Point Sculpin IPA. He also penned another fantastic IPA during his time with BP but since it was in tribute to a lost family memeber they let Home Brew Mart keep the recipe. Now, Oh My Stars IPA is one of their flagship beers on tap.

One of the nice things about not being held to a production schuedle is the abilit to have a little fun. That's exactly what Jim at Home Brew Mart is doing with this Pale Ale. Not quite an IPA but a well balanced hoppy pale ale with a very unique hop that has a very fishy name.

Calling all jam band and Monty Python fans alike! As we up our game with Jim from Home Brew Mart, we move up from session IPA to American Pale Ale that almost borders on IPA. It's a hoppy, yet light bodies take on a Pale Ale called Phishy Phishy Phish.

A good night out always starts with an Awarness Management plan and and Awarness Management Session IPA. Jim and the crew from Home Brew Mart have created a fantastic session IPA that cuts back on the ABV but none of the flavor and allows you to plan your evening accordingly.

The legendary Home Brew Mart in Linda Vista is bringing the Home back to Home Brewing! Jim joins me all week to talk about what they are brewing now that they have seprated from Ballast Point. We start by going back to Jim's Wisconsin roots with a homage to Spotted Cow, a beer they call, Dream Vacation in the Dells.

A porter in Summertime? Yep! Dan from Little Bird Brewing has flexed the balance in his beers and it shows with this Coco Bird Coconut Porter. With just enough coconut flavor and aroma to balance out the maltyness of the beer you get a perfect drinkabale balance in warm or cooler weather.

Warning: things are about to get a little heady into the brewing process, which is alright! Dan From Little Bird Brewing breaks down his thoughts an ideas when it comes to making the popular Hazy IPA with Hazy Bird Hazy IPA.

In today's beer world most people will reach for a light yellow beer when it's hot out. But a long time before now there was another light in body but flavorful and dark beer that people would reach for, the ESP or in this case an English Pale. Dark on color but huge on both flavor and drinkability Little Bird Brewing's West Kensington will transport you back in time where it would all "start in a tavern" and still keep you refreshed.

Community is a big thing for Little Bird Brewing, being right in the middle of a neighborhood. It's a meeting place, a place to tell stories, a place to get away for a bit or just get to know your neighbors. No surpise the people who are always there are just as important as the beer. Today's beer the Nestor IPA takes its name from a beloved regular who loved this beer.

That little space on the corner of Thorn St & 32nd has going through a lot of changes and it's currently being reinvented again. This week Dan from Little Bird Brewing talks about the transition from Thorn St Brewing and what to expect in the tasting room at Little Bird. We start with something he knows a lot about, a Mexican Style Lager called Solita.

Can a snooty cocktail like an espresso Martini be "pinkies up" but still uber-crushable? The way Smile Spirits puts it together it 100% can be. Wrapping up the week with another 7% ABV beverage that is lighter then your massive 15% canned cocktail. The Smile Espressso Martini isn't the end of the night, it's the start of your afternoon.

Don't let the "Spicy" in the Smile Spicy Vodka Mule put you off. A recipe that came from batching cocktails as fast as you could pour them out and realizing that when the peppers don't sit on the liquid for long you get all the flavor and none of the punch!

It's been a Summertime favorite for me the Lemonade Tea Vodka. When you're out and it's hot its just the right about of sweet to tea and at 7% ABV you can have a few with out worrying about taking a nap on the 12th hole.

It's harder then you think to put a simple cocktail in a can. If you've been to a bar ever, you know that a cranberry vokda is an absoulte staple. It's flavorful, delicious and gets you where you need to be. But, sometimes when you try and put a delicate flavor like cranberry in a can it can come off a little like cough syurp. Smile hits a homerun with with their Cranberry Vodka Soda, that taste like you just ordered it from your favorite hole in the wall.

Mitchell happend to be in the studios after a Last Call a few weeks back and we all "had a taste" of what Smile Cocktails was doing. Honestly, we all had a blast! So, this week Mitchell is back for a feature of his own. Smile fills that void between 10% cocktials and 5% seltzer and we start with the extremly popular Pineapple Orange Vokda Soda.

Coming from a background in coffee and beer the beer that Dan from TapRoom choose to end the week with its hitting home. The Breakfast Klub Vol. 2 is a beer with 4 different versions each sporting a different coffee varietal and I will tell you this 10% AVB beer could change the way you do brunch forever.

It's a West Coast IPA in the same way Moria was just "a mine." As Dan from TapRoom continues to show off what he can do with hops, he goes back to back with West Cost IPAs but MoonWabbler is most certianly in a class all of it's own. He digs into why and why this beer belongs on your table next time you're at TapRoom having a meal.

The hoppy love-fest continues today as we move from hazy beers to a Gold Medal winning West Coast IPA. A New Zealand hop focused WCIPA called Modern Love is a liquid love letter to San Diego's hop obession.

I should have been running the mics before we started today's beer, Dan from TapRoom is like having a secret brewers notebook filled with the best versions of past styles. Today we get into one of the most popular beers at TapRoom, PB Hazy. It' pays homage to the original Hazy beers that made their way to the West Coast from New England.

It's been 5ish years in the making to get Dan from TapRoom in the Alt 94/9 studios but we made it happen! All week we're diving into the beers he's cranking outta the North Park brewery. We start with a throwback collaboration with Living Haus Brewing outta Portland Oregon that takes inspo from a San Diego favorite from a few years back.

At the begining of the week Mo from Deft Brewing said they focused on three regions of beer styles: British, Germanic and Belgian. Up to this point we've yet to see a Belgian, so Mo is making up for lost time with a 10% ABV monster Belgian Quad called DeftCon 4.

It's one of the hottest days in July (so far) and Mo from Deft Brewing brings a Porter?! It's OK, Porters happen to be one of my favorite styles of beer and at one point in history more common then you're standard IPA. We get into a little history and a little style with Deft Brewing's Dawn of the Deft Porter.

Mo from Deft Brewing threw down the gauntlet AGAIN! What at first glance I thought was going to be another malty beer, he flipped the table and threw some hops at me. DeftHopt Red is one of three different inspirations for Deft Brewing's IPA offereings and like the beers showcased before is a real treat in a glass.

Mo from Deft is flexing the brewery's style prowess yet again with a beer I'm not sure we've ever had on the program before or at least not under the name Scottish Export. MacDeft is a oddly satifying malty summertime beer, malty sweetness on the nose but a dry a flavorful finish.

It's kinda of like the "secret beer garden" of San Diego, tucked away in a small corner of Bay Park, Deft Brewing has been cranking out fantastic beers for more then a few years and they aren't just all IPAs. This week we explore a bunch of differenmt styles coming out of Deft and we start things off with their best selling Bay Park Blonde Ale.

Just because it's Summer, doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy a nice bold Imperial Stout. Another Nickel Beer Co award winner Constantine Imperial Stout rounds out the week as Tom brought some Nibble chocolates to pairing along with this robust yet easy drinking stout.

With the roots O'Brien's has is Futbol it only makes sense for Tom and Tyson to team up for a Nickel Beer Company and San Diego Brewing colab, Raise the Cup IPA!

This beer seems to keep popping back up on the show and for good reason, a medal winner at the beer fest and magical anytime beer Carlsbad Crush from Burgeon is true San Diego favorite. SD Fair Craft Beer Experience Curator Tom Nickel even has a very surprising comparison.

Tom and Tyson drop by with another award winner that you can find at the San Diego Craft Beer Experience at the SD Fair this year. OB Brewing is not a brewery that will be pidgon-holed into a single IPA sytle of brewing, they make a vast array for styles one of them perfect for the fair or the ocean breeze, Rooftop Hef.

Summer is here along with the San Diego County Fair and with that a brand new Craft Beer Experience curated by Tom Nickel and Tyson Blake. All week these to icons of local beer will showcase what you can expect to enjoy when you head to the fairgrounds, starting with an award winning beer from Tyson's on San Diego Brewing Company, San Diego Gold.

Wrapping up a week worth of breweries you'll find at Rhythm & Brews this June 28th we end with "The Party Planner" Kylie from Pure Project! We get one more sample of what to look forward to with a crushable San Diego beer that is a staple for summertime, Tropical Mist.

The song goes the first cut is the deepest, but when you put you hand where it doesn't belong that cut might take a pinky. Atleast that's the case for Roadies head brewer Peter. To mark the event and give a little levity they named their latest Hazy IPA Deepcuts. It's balance makes this a perfect festival that you can enjoy at this year's Rhythm & Brews.

Another person who has seen their fair share of Rhythm & Brews Festivals Kris from Prey Brewing was a part of the SDBG and helping with the planning of the event before COVID shut it down. Today he drops by the studio to talk about his experiences and preview what Prey Brewing will be pouring June 28th!

Burgeon Beer just dropped a brand new tasting room in Vista, so it makes sense to feature them today for the Rhythm & Brews festival! Pouring a staple to their line up and a beer you'll find at the festival, we toast to a Tuesday with Carlsbad Crush.

It's finally back after a long post COVID hiatus the San Diego Brewers Guild has brought back the Rhythm and Brews festival on June 28th! All week we're featuring different breweries who will be pouring at the event. We start the week off with the brewery that originated the festival, Mother Earh Brewing.

This week has been all about Duck Foot Brewing's 10 anniversary on Satruday but it's also been about their breweries diversity. One of the things that head brewer Matt excells in making true to form fresh Belgian style beer in San Diego. His take on a Belgian double shows off why this is such a popular style of beer across the pond.

At first glance the baloon dogs on the label of Duck Foot Brewing's Sour on Love is innocent enough, untill you look closer....kinda like this beer a Berliner weiss style with a metric ton of fresh pink guava and mango.