San Diego? Believe It.

Our buddy Dave took home First Prize in the “Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer” division on Sunday at the Del Mar Fair’s Home Brew competition. Dave’s offering, a Christmas-time beer “Mull It Over” bested some 40+ other entrants. The irony is that Dave doesn’t even like that particular beer and his entry of “MIO” was a not-too-clever way to simply unload it on some unsuspecting judges, so we will take some credit and pride(?) in telling Dave at our office Christmas party this past year to give himself some credit because we rather liked it. (btw, the other ribbons Dave is sporting were for some of the labels on beers he submitted in other categories).

We’ll try to dig up the article and link to it but a couple of months back when the Craft Brewers Association was meeting here in San Diego, ratebeer.com ranked the 100 best beers on the planet and 19 were made right here in the San Diego area. Yeah, not too shabby.

So how did this come about? How did San Diego, home base to the Pacific Fleet and corrupt city politics become this hot bed of beer, craft beers and home-brewing?

We think there are 3 reasons and they are as follows in no particular order:

1. The weather and San Diego's own Coastal sensibility. San Diego is the most outdoor-living, active and sporting-minded of all the places in this country we have lived or visited. All that running around and one’s going to work-up a thirst. And what does one drink when one is thirsty and outside? Certainly not those watered-down macro-lagers…. Us Diegans have far more sophisticated palates. Despite our sleepy Navy town image, we represent West Coast sophistication quite well, though, in a completely unpretentious and down-to-Earth manner. We like beer…. Good beer.

2. Temecula Wine Country. Until very recently, Temecula Valley, just a little over an hour north of San Diego, was dominated by smaller, family-run wineries. The small-scale intimate feel of these wineries definitely feeds the Do-It-Yourself mentality of one who wants to make their own alcoholic beverage. And since wine doesn’t engender the same sort of fraternal and communal bonds (“Honey, I’m getting’ together with the boys for a few wines” has never been uttered for a reason), beer was the logical choice for those who want to produce, consume and most importantly, share their own alcoholic beverage.

3. The Bio-tech Industry. As San Diego has become a leader in bio-tech so has it become a leader in home brewing and the link is undeniable. Many of these same chem and bio geeks who work in the bio-tech industry by day are the same guys spending their evenings and weekends home brewing, tinkering with IBUs and pH levels. And our anecdotal evidence- gathering certainly suggests that San Diego home brewers tilt towards white, middle-aged, professionals more so than their younger, more under-employed counterparts from Portland and Seattle.

So there you have it. 3 ironclad reasons why San Diego is quickly becoming the U.S. capitol of home brewing. Of course, we could be completely wrong but we doubt it.