The last thing we did on our San Diego trip was the thing I wanted to do most….our trip to Stone!
When I think of craft beer, Stone Brewing is one of the first breweries I think of. They are like the Bruce Lee of brewing. They took a look a traditional craft brewing at the time, and tossed all rules and tradition out the window. Setting themselves apart from the rest, they are true icons of the craft beer movement. This was the nicest brewery I’ve ever been to. It was sort of hard to find the place, not because it was complicated direction-wise, but the building looked like some cookie cutter office park and we had initially driven past it. Parking was almost impossible as the lot was totally full. Once we got in, it was like stepping foot into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Ok maybe not that extreme….but I was pretty happy. The eating area is amazing with a huge outdoor section in a lush Japanese garden that actually had trails which led to little social areas with fire pits, chairs, mini bars, it was awesome. We sat down outside, each table having one of those heaters in case it was a bit chilly. I wanted the beer on cask which was some sort of special IPA with ginger (if I remember correctly), but they were out of the cask. I was upset..but not really, there were tons of beers to choose from. The cool thing about stone is that they carry other craft beers from other brewers. I was in the mood for a cask brew….
I was able to find several different IPA’s to enjoy and we also sampled some others. You were able to get sample flights of basically whatever you wanted.
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| The food was average, not bad at all, just not “amazing”. The portions though were truly American. |
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| In the back, you can see where the trails go off into the Stone wooded wonderland. It’s amazing to see something like this when you see that the brewery is just some business park. |
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| I wish every table I sat at looked this way. |
The visit to Stone was pretty awesome. I was not leaving San Diego without stopping here! The Merch Shop was pretty nice as well an reasonably priced. I picked up a shirt and cap and Nicole picked up one of these:
