Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email


2013 July 24 • Wednesday

Ah, San Diego. Once again my brother and I found ourselves there for Comic-con, beer and food. My first stop was the Toronado and my first beer Pliny the Elder. This is often my first beer whenever I go to the West Coast. The second beer was Dank Matter, an excellent double IPA and the second anniversary beer from Beachwood Brewing. I was hoping to encounter their System of a Stout, the stand-out beer from last year's San Diego adventure, but no such luck.

After that it was time for lunch at Carnitas' Snack Shack. Excellent place. Stick with the pork. The triple-threat pork sandwich (pork loin cutlet, pulled pork and bacon), carnitas tacos and pork-belly appetizer were amazing.

Rabbit flautas sounded like a good idea but didn't do much. The steak sandwich might be good but can't share the stage with those pork dishes.

Then it was con time. As usual it was fun to be in a sea of happily engaged humanity.

As Tom Spurgeon noted in his blog, one of the best things about the con is how beloved it is by its attendees.

The big disappointment was not being able to get into the Godzilla Encounter, which sounds like it was really great. I tried. I went to the booth, followed the Twitter feed (creating a Twitter account for that sole purpose), did everything they said to do but failed to get in. It was probably a once in a lifetime sort of thing and I'm very sorry to have missed it. (Part of the problem was not finding out about it earlier.)

Bar number two was Hamilton's Tavern, where once again we visited Pliny the Elder. Then it was on to Stone Brewing's Company Store, where we tasted (among other things) their newest collaboration, w00tstout, on tap.

After that it was dinner time at Ritual Tavern, or would have been if a neighboring construction project hadn't shut down their gas line, leaving them unable to cook. They gave us free pizza from a place across the street and of course they had great beers on tap.

On day two I thought I'd see if there was any chance I could get into the World's End panel. Nope. Didn't really expect to and wasn't particlarly disappointed. Wandered around the hall for a bit before getting bored. The few hours I'd spent there on the first day were almost enough.

So it was off to another great beer and food place, Tiger! Tiger!, where the wood-fired shishito peppers and sublime BLT were my favorite meal of the trip.

Day three started with a visit to the San Diego Record Show.

I was expecting something like the WFMU Record Fair but it was much smaller and most vendors didn't make much of an effort to organize their wares. I found a surf record I didn't have, though.

Finally we paid homage again to Stone by going to their new bistro brew pub place, in a former naval training center in Point Loma. It's similar to their Escondido location, though not quite as nice. But it's still amazing! There is nothing like this in New York or anywhere else I've been.

We had several beers that were brewed on the premises, my favorite being Matt's Thrill Rye'd IPA and second favorite their Call It What You Want imperial hefeweizen.

We're already looking forward to returning next year!