Every year, San Diego Magazine celebrates the “Best Of San Diego” with a special issue devoted to all our city’s outstanding businesses. This year, as part of that effort, the magazine wanted to highlight the incredible contributions our brewers have made to San Diego’s industry and identity.
In preparation for the Best Of issue (on newsstands July 29), magazine staff reached out to three of our most-celebrated breweries—Fall, Eppig, and Coronado—and asked them to participate in a three-way (of the brewing kind). The idea: each of the three breweries would collaborate with the others and each would devise a beer that would best represent that brewery’s unique identity.
Coronado Brewing Company will contribute a classic West Coast IPA (7.0 percent ABV) featuring a dank blend of Simcoe, Cascade, Chinook, and Centennial hops. According to Coronado’s Head Brewer, Mark Theisen, the IPA will have loads of resinous pine and ripe stone fruit flavors with a lingering, dry finish.
Eppig Brewing will be offering their Hoppy Pilsner (5.5 percent ABV) to the mix. This light-bodied West-Coast-inspired lager is dry hopped with Simcoe; brewers Nate Stephens and Clayton LeBlanc have devised it to be crisp and dry, and bursting with a bright, hoppy aroma.
A fruited Berliner Weisse (4.3 percent ABV) will be the Fall Brewing selection. Brewed as a traditional kettle sour, but untraditionally lagered with a Czech lager yeast, this unique beer will be filtered and then fruited with 15 locally grown watermelons to sweeten and balance the tart flavors. Owner Dave Lively says he’s looking to create the perfect pool beer; a “light and crisp crusher,” as he puts it.
The collaboration beers will be available beginning in July. First taste will be on July 8 when Eppig debuts its pilsner on draft during a special Happy Half Hour podcast recording. The big collective public debut will be on July 19 when Coronado introduces the three canned beers—with can design spearheaded by Fall’s Dave Lively—at a special event hosted at the tasting room in Bay Park. On July 20, Fall will be pouring the Watermelon Berliner Weisse at its North Park tasting room. All three beers will be poured at San Diego Magazine’s Best of San Diego party on August 16 at Liberty Station. Cans of all three varieties will be released to retail outlets throughout San Diego on July 19.
3 Breweries Make Beers with San Diego Magazine
Photo: Todd Warshaw
