Craft Beer San Diego (Pt.1): Where Even Chains Strive to Tread

 Bine & Vine, in San Diego's Normal Heights neighborhood,
operates as one of the best beer & wine bottle shops in the area

It's impossible to deny San Diego's status as a craft beer mecca: as I type, the region is on the verge of 140 total breweries, While the abundant sunshine that San Diego is known for was more than enough reason for our visit, this particular status provided the proverbial foamy head of affirmation on our "where shall we go?" destination stein.

However, it's easy to forget that, at least by California standards, this area was late to the party. Tom Acitelli's all-encompassing book on the emergence of the U.S. craft beer scene, "The Audacity of Hops", noted for several decades up until 1989, beer choices for the local consumer were either U.S. big beer adjunct lagers or their Mexican counterparts (Corona, Tecate, etc.) As detailed by Acitelli himself, "the craft beer movement...seemed a world away; the odd Anchor (Steam Brewing) tap or six-pack the only glimpse a San Diegan might catch of it."

Gonna' Soak Up The Sun: Sauntering into San Diego

California's Central Valley seems to stretch on forever while on Interstate 5

One downside that I have discovered about moving to the Columbus area (one that my spouse warned me about) was the area's high ranking in the cloudy day charts: in fact, it rates as one of the Top Ten Most Cloudy Cities in the United States.  As my spouse further explained, by the month of February, any chance to escape for more sunny climes, even for a few days, is a welcome one.

Well, this year provided us the perfect opportunity: a planned big family gathering in San Francisco gave my spouse and I a prime opportunity to add on a few extra days for some extra sun-drenching. After a quick look, San Diego seemed to be a prime hunting ground for this quest, and a warm temperatures on departure day seemed to portend a good few days ahead.