Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Bitter is back at Bay City Brewing
How can a hoppy beer stand out in a city full of good IPAs?
A flight on the patio of Bay City Brewing
About 100 new breweries have opened in San Diego over the past five years, posing a significant challenge to any craft beer brand trying to distinguish itself. At least one has proven no slouch at getting attention.
Since it opened in 2015, the sign for Bay City Brewing has been easily to spot from the 8 freeway. The Point Loma made do for awhile, but in 2017 really stepped it up. With the San Diego Gulls playing across the street at the Sports Arena, the brewery partnered with minor league hockey team to release Power Play IPA, cementing its status as a pre- and post-game beer destination for hockey fans.
Later that year, it partnered with the San Diego Tourism Authority to produce the city’s “official destination beer” (a session IPA dubbed 72 and Hoppy). It also enlisted a public relations firm, which aggressively pitched brewery updates to beer media. The effort paid off. From 2016 to 2017, Bay City tripled its beer production — from 375 to 1136 barrels — earning it a spot on Brewing Association’s list of the 50 fastest growing breweries in the nation.
I’ll admit to being surprised by that one. During that time, I found beer quality to be inconsistent, and rarely if ever spotted it outside the tasting room.
However, after reports last summer that Bay City had hired a new head brewer, I started revisiting that dog-friendly tasting room, and found the brews more consistent. If I was out to nitpick, the lagers still weren’t as crisp as I wanted them to be, and I found the tannins in a coffee stout too acidic. But the hoppy beers had something else going on.
As a rule, San Diego brewers have gotten pretty damn good at making IPAs. Fans can always cite a few exceptionally good or bad ones, but most at least pass the smell test: clean, crisp, and pleasantly aromatic. It’s testament to the collaborative spirit among local brewers that has made everyone better beermakers.
But in terms of marketing, it creates another hurdle. With thousands of distinct San Diego IPAs produced each year, it’s that much harder for any one in particular to stand out. Surprisingly, the hoppy ales at Bay City were standing out. More surprising, they did so with bitterness.
Of course, bitterness has always been a defining characteristic of IPAs, particularly in the early 2000s, when brewers pushed bitterness boundaries to reach 100 IBUs. Bay City’s ales aren’t anywhere near that — they’re mostly around 40 or 50, and Power Play measures around 65 IBUs.
But I found a compelling distinction in the bitterness of these beers: the presence of diesel aroma in the hops.
Most San Diego IPAs offer a similar palette of hop flavors: usually citrus, pine, and tropical fruit. As beer drinkers have collectively become accustomed to these flavors, we look for the arrival of new hop strains for excitement, such as cannabis flower in currently trendy Strata hops.
Diesel may not sound as immediately awesome as, say, stone fruit, but they’re both right there alongside the aforementioned aromas in the Brewers Association guidelines for a pale ale or IPA. Diesel just hasn’t proven as popular. Some drinkers are more or less sensitive to it, and some consider it undesirable.
I sensed it in Power Play IPA, the Bay City pale ale, and even a couple of hazy IPAs, which characteristically aren’t very bitter. I found pine, resin, and tropical flavors swirling around in them as well. But the diesel kept commanding my attention. It was offputting at first, but reminded me of the offputting way piney hops first caught my attention in 1990s IPAs.
I barely notice the bitterness in most IPAs these days, so I’ve found myself returning to seek it out. Partly to make sure I hadn’t imagined it, partly because I found myself wanting more. Just like that, Bay City’s beer has my attention. I wonder how it will play with lacrosse fans, now that new major league lacrosse team San Diego Seals calls the Sports Arena home?
Here's something you might be interested in.
Bitter is back at Bay City Brewing
How can a hoppy beer stand out in a city full of good IPAs?
Bitter is back at Bay City Brewing
How can a hoppy beer stand out in a city full of good IPAs?
A flight on the patio of Bay City Brewing
About 100 new breweries have opened in San Diego over the past five years, posing a significant challenge to any craft beer brand trying to distinguish itself. At least one has proven no slouch at getting attention.
Since it opened in 2015, the sign for Bay City Brewing has been easily to spot from the 8 freeway. The Point Loma made do for awhile, but in 2017 really stepped it up. With the San Diego Gulls playing across the street at the Sports Arena, the brewery partnered with minor league hockey team to release Power Play IPA, cementing its status as a pre- and post-game beer destination for hockey fans.
Later that year, it partnered with the San Diego Tourism Authority to produce the city’s “official destination beer” (a session IPA dubbed 72 and Hoppy). It also enlisted a public relations firm, which aggressively pitched brewery updates to beer media. The effort paid off. From 2016 to 2017, Bay City tripled its beer production — from 375 to 1136 barrels — earning it a spot on Brewing Association’s list of the 50 fastest growing breweries in the nation.
I’ll admit to being surprised by that one. During that time, I found beer quality to be inconsistent, and rarely if ever spotted it outside the tasting room.
However, after reports last summer that Bay City had hired a new head brewer, I started revisiting that dog-friendly tasting room, and found the brews more consistent. If I was out to nitpick, the lagers still weren’t as crisp as I wanted them to be, and I found the tannins in a coffee stout too acidic. But the hoppy beers had something else going on.
As a rule, San Diego brewers have gotten pretty damn good at making IPAs. Fans can always cite a few exceptionally good or bad ones, but most at least pass the smell test: clean, crisp, and pleasantly aromatic. It’s testament to the collaborative spirit among local brewers that has made everyone better beermakers.
But in terms of marketing, it creates another hurdle. With thousands of distinct San Diego IPAs produced each year, it’s that much harder for any one in particular to stand out. Surprisingly, the hoppy ales at Bay City were standing out. More surprising, they did so with bitterness.
Of course, bitterness has always been a defining characteristic of IPAs, particularly in the early 2000s, when brewers pushed bitterness boundaries to reach 100 IBUs. Bay City’s ales aren’t anywhere near that — they’re mostly around 40 or 50, and Power Play measures around 65 IBUs.
But I found a compelling distinction in the bitterness of these beers: the presence of diesel aroma in the hops.
Most San Diego IPAs offer a similar palette of hop flavors: usually citrus, pine, and tropical fruit. As beer drinkers have collectively become accustomed to these flavors, we look for the arrival of new hop strains for excitement, such as cannabis flower in currently trendy Strata hops.
Diesel may not sound as immediately awesome as, say, stone fruit, but they’re both right there alongside the aforementioned aromas in the Brewers Association guidelines for a pale ale or IPA. Diesel just hasn’t proven as popular. Some drinkers are more or less sensitive to it, and some consider it undesirable.
I sensed it in Power Play IPA, the Bay City pale ale, and even a couple of hazy IPAs, which characteristically aren’t very bitter. I found pine, resin, and tropical flavors swirling around in them as well. But the diesel kept commanding my attention. It was offputting at first, but reminded me of the offputting way piney hops first caught my attention in 1990s IPAs.
I barely notice the bitterness in most IPAs these days, so I’ve found myself returning to seek it out. Partly to make sure I hadn’t imagined it, partly because I found myself wanting more. Just like that, Bay City’s beer has my attention. I wonder how it will play with lacrosse fans, now that new major league lacrosse team San Diego Seals calls the Sports Arena home?
Comments