South Park Walkabout this Sat. 12/5

Reminder: South Park's annual Holiday Walkabout is this Saturday, December 5th. A good time to enjoy holiday lights, refreshments, music, specials and sales in the neighborhood.

Beer Week: Shaking Hands and Kissing Babies aka Meet the Brewer!

As you already know, San Diego's first ever Beer Week continues through this weekend. Here at the Ritual we are extremely excited to pair food with some of best beers in the world. Tonight we'll continue the trend by pouring Alpine Brew Co. 'Pure Hoppiness' on Cask and 'Duet' on tap. We'll also be serving BBQ Niman Ranch Pulled Pork Sliders (2) with sweet potato fries $8.50 in honor of the soon to be opened Alpine Brew Co. BBQ restaurant. Come in tonight and you'll have the pleasure of drinking with the brewer/owners of Alpine Brew, Pat and Val.

Tomorrow night, Saturday November 14th, the Ritual is serving our last dinner and pairing of Beer Week. New English Brewing is one of the newest additions to the San Diego brewing community. Simon Lacey the owner/brewer will be presenting 4 tasty beers paired with traditional English fare (6 pm: $40 + tax & tip) Please RSVP 619.283.1618 or info@ritualtavern.com

Cheers! from all of us at the Ritual :-

Saturday Night in South Park

Before (or after) dinner this Saturday night, check out the fun and festivity at some of South Park's favorite shops and stops:

* The Grove on Juniper -- 6th Anniversary Party, 6-9pm, Sat. 11/14.

* An Evening of Art & Shopping -- at Maeve Riley, Mythology (both on 30th St., just north of Juniper), and Junc Boutique (on Fern St., just south of Juniper).

NORTH COAST FLIGHT & KEEP THE GLASS

TUESDAY, NOV. 10

Starting at 5pm the first 72 people to order any North Coast beer get a free Keeper-Pint.

FLIGHTS OF SIX-5OZ BEERS FOR $15
Scrimshaw Pilsner, Red Seal Ale, Pranqster Belgian Golden Strong Ale, Brother Thelonious Belgian Abbey Ale, Le Merle Saison and Old Rasputin Imperial Stout

We'll be serving the VERY RARE and AWESOME
Bourbon Barrel Aged Old Rasputin 12th Anniversary Stout
AND
Red Seal CASK CONDITIONED on the beer Engine

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 11 CHIMAY KEEP THE GOBLET

Chef Aaron LaMonica gets crafty with
Chimay Red, White & Blue as he creates
Chimay Cheese, Beer and Food Pairings.
First 96 people get a Chimay Keeper-Goblet.

Beer Week Continues. . .

Saints and Sinners alike are welcome to partake in this Wednesday's San Diego Beer Week event at the Ritual: 4 courses of Lost Abbey beers paired with equally delicious food.

Beer Week Continues. . .

Ritual Tavern is excited about San Diego Beer Week, and our upcoming dinner and beer pairings! Tuesday November 10th we're pleased to offer a taste of London on 30th Street. Join Dennis Hartman of Fuller's for an enlightening presentation of the artfully brewed Fuller's beers paired with traditional English fare, including four beers and three food courses. Fuller's London Pride, ESB, 1845 and London Porter complimented by Roast Beet Salad, Roast Leg of Lamb, and Chocolate Pudding! $40 per person plus tax and gratuity. Call 619 283 1618 for reservations or email info@ritualtavern.com

Happy Beer Week from the Linkery and 30th Street

It's Beer Week! And The Nation's Best Beer Boulevard ain't gonna disappoint.

Probably the highlight of the week, from a 30th Street point of view, is the Green Flash Progressive Beer Dinner on Thursday...replete with a free hop-on/hop-off shuttle running up and down the three-oh.

As for us here at the Linkery...here's our lineup.

* We're starting a day early, Thursday, with Alesmith Winter Yule on cask paired with fried green tomatoes (local, of course) and with Stone Ruination on cask paired with grilled Baja octopus and ginger chile dressing. I know that a lot of you won't read this before Thursday is done, but fortunately we'll have Winter Yule on cask Friday, too. It's an Imperial Red Ale, 9% ABV, hand tended by AleSmith's cask maestro Bill Batten.

Then the real stuff starts. I'm pretty confident that this week we're setting a benchmark for craft beer celebrations at a farm-to-table restaurant:

* Friday the 6th is Airdale Airlines Nite. This is just meant to be a lot of fun and showcase Airdale, which is a newcomer to the local brewing scene but worthy of being a San Diego brewery. We'll have their Pale Ale, Spiced Porter, and Dark & Stormy Tap on draft -- at $1 each for everyone dressed in their pilot or flight crew carb. I figure the place should look like something from "Only Angles Have Wings" (Howard Hawks/Clark Gable joint, Google it.)

* Sunday the 8th, all day and nite, is our Green Flash Smoke Out. We're super-sizing (in a non fast-food sense) our regular Smokehouse Sunday to include 6 GF beers on cask, and 5 on draft. The cask beers all have specific pairings, too, and they're avaliable for $8 for the dish of food and a half pour of beer. A couple unusual beers on cask include Hop-less, Green Flash's new gruit beer made with herbs instead of hops, and SuperFreak, Green Flash's Belgian IPA with wild yeast for sourness and aged in wine barrels. Green Flash brewer and loyal North Parkian Chuck Silva will be on the premises, we'll have sausages made from Green Flash's spent barley, and Max is also considering spit roasting a pig. Just 'cause. Here's the full menu.

* Thursday the 12th is the Green Flash progressive dinner. For this we're teaming up with our great neighbor restaurants on 30th: Sea Rocket Bistro, Ritual Tavern, Jayne's Gastropub, and (on 30th in spirit only) Blind Lady Ale House. At each location you'll find multiple Green Flash beers available with paired dishes always under $10 for the pairing. If you're really a hedon you can probably get up to 12 or 15 in total. Green Flash is running a hop-on/hop-off shuttle on 30th to make it easy to get to all the venues. As an added bonus, totally unrelated to Green Flash, Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing, who is an inspiration to all of us who love craft food and beverages, will be at Toronado right up the street that night, too.

* Saturday we're capping off the week with a reprise of one of our most successful beer events ever: Mad River Serious Madness 2. Mad River is a phenomenal brewery from Blue Lake, California in Humboldt County. We've been friends with them a while, and once again they are bringing 6 cask beers and 5 draft beers to bust out on Saturday at noon. It's very rare for Mad River to offer specialty brews -- they're known for their consistent and excellent lineup -- so this is an amazing opportunity for which we are very grateful. We'll have their bourbon stout, double brown, chile beer, pumpkin ale, wheat wine and more. And, of course, we'll have pairings for each of the cask beers, at $8 for the food and the half pour of beer. Check out the full menu.

* Every nite of beer week we'll have multiple cask conditioned beers (actually we have that every nite of the year), great craft beers on draft, lots of delicious food, and, you know, good wine and house made nonalcoholic beverages too.

* Totally unrelated to Beer Week, we're co-sponsoring a free showing of Food, Inc. at the Velo Cult Bike Shop on Saturday nite. It's a look inside the industrial food system that we at the Linkery are working to move beyond. We like the fun of what we do but we also don't forget that we're trying to develop a way of eating and living that you and we will be happy to be in touch with. Food, Inc is another step toward a world like that. If you're interested, come to Velo Cult (2220 Fern, it's basically 30th but randomly has a different name that block) by 7pm on Saturday nite. Some of us will ride up to the Link for dinner afterward.

Green Flash Hop-less(?!) on Cask at Sea Rocket

Beer without hops?! Yes it's true, Green Flash brewmaster Chuck Silva, with a little help from his friends, went way old school and cooked up a medieval style beer called Ancient Gruit. We'll be tapping the cask on Friday, November 6, at Sea Rocket Bistro to kick off San Diego Beer Week.

Hamilton's 3rd Anniversary Ale Hop-less (Ancient Gruit)

Hop-less Gruit is a collaboration brew at Green Flash Brewing between
Brewmaster Chuck Silva and Head Brewer, Ben Spencer, from Magnolia Brewing
in San Francisco. Under Chuck's careful guidance, Scot Blair and Dennis
Borlek from Hamilton's Tavern performed several of the brewing functions
like mashing in and grain out as well as adding herbs to the boil. That's
right! Herbs!! No hops were used in brewing this Old World Gruit Ale.
Instead we used Marsh Rosemary, Sweet Gale, Yarrow Flowers, Rose Hips,
Heather Tips, and Elder Flowers. These herbs provide the bittering balance
as well as a complimentary herbal sweetness to the rich barley sugar
character. The malt make up is very similar to a big brown ale and the aroma
is both sweet and savory making it a great option for pairing with many
flavorful dishes (think venison). Hop-less finishes at 5.7% abv.

Start San Diego Beer Week with a 4 course Dinner and a Show

To kick off San Diego Beer Week, Shmaltz Brewing Company and Ritual Tavern will team up to present a beer and food pairing dinner that you won't soon forget. For only $40.00, you will be treated to four delicious courses paired with four of Shmaltz Brewing Company's award-winning beers, you'll also enjoy an unbelievable performance by the Saint Twins, the world's first and only twin thought readers. Featuring both HE'BREW beers as well as Coney Island Craft Lagers (TM), this unique menu is inspired both by Jewish food culture as well as the age-old carny lifestyle. Join us for a night of food, freaks, and fun!

MENU*:

Pumpkin Soup
Candied Cranberry
Coney Island Freaktoberfest
***
Candied Apple
Kiwi sorbet
Coney Island Albino Python
***
Phyllo Wrapped Salmon Filet
Aparagus, red onion, cream cheese
Topped with sun dried tomato pesto
Over creamed spinach
Coney Island Lager
***
Chocolate Éclair
HE’BREW Jewbelation Bar Mitzvah

SPACE IS LIMITED SO RSVP SOON TO RITUAL TAVERN info@ritualtavern.com or (619) 283-1618

*Menu subject to change based on availability and whim of the chef. L'Chaim!!

BEER WEEK IS COMING!!!!!

Here we go, one of the best weeks (actually 9 days) on the calendar. November 6 - 15 the San Diego brewing community has put together a reason to get out and drink good beer. All over town restaurants, bars and taverns will be featuring amazing beer selections to celebrate craft brewing. Check out http://sdbw.org/ for all the details.

Alchemy will be featuring Wandering Aengus Cider, Stone Brewing Co. and Ommegang Brewery. Each night we will pair our tapa del dia with a beer from these three breweries...yum yum. Come on by, see ya soon.

Beer Wars!

It's pretty amazing to take a risk to create something great, and to share that creation with a lot of people. The craft breweries around San Diego have done that with their beers, and filmmaker Anat Baron has done that by making a movie about the beer industry and how craft brewing is seriously shaking things up.

We're having a special showing of the movie, Beer Wars, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Anat Baron and Chuck Silva of Green Flash Brewing. This is a unique opportunity to see the first screening of this film in the city of San Diego.

Anat's background, skill, and personality were able to get people to open up during interviews and tell it like it really is. From the annual beer industry convention in Las Vegas to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, this gives you a larger perspective on what happens in San Diego every day. Plus, our own Greg Koch of Stone Brew has some hilarious clips in the film that you won't want to miss! And if that's not enough, we'll also be showing a short DVD that Greg shot at the original airing in Los Angeles when the live panel discussion was filmed.

How to see the movie

The screening is limited to 40 people and will take place on the first Sunday of San Diego Beer Week, November 8th at noon at Sea Rocket. The cost will be $10. Come as early as 11am or stay late to enjoy some beer and lunch including local grass-fed lamburgers, line caught American tuna melts, and mushroom sandwiches.

Email your name and phone number to dennis@searocketbistro.com to RSVP or give me a call at 858-663-7752.

See what else we have going on during Beer Week here.

Horror Trailers at the Whistle Stop

We will be screening our fourth annual horror trailers this Thursday, October 29th at the Whistle Stop Bar. The show starts at 9pm. Come and be horrified by all the greatest moments in film horror history with a specific focus on American 80's and Italian horror. Heads explodes, zombies fight sharks, trash roams the streets and more. If you haven't decided on your Halloween costume yet, this is the place to be inspired. View the trailer below for a taste of what's to come. We'll have an intermission set by new-to-the-San-Diego-scene NUDE BOY. We can't believe how fun this is going to be.

Autumn arrives on 30th Street

Fall is in the air and we're celebrating the fact at Sea Rocket with our good friends from Airdale Brewing Company. We'll be featuring three of their beers on tap this weekend and Chef Christy will be preparing a special menu to go with them. We'll have Butternut Squash Soup paired with Afterburner Amber Ale, Autumn Roast Pork Stew with Homecoming Spiced Porter, and our Chocolate Stout Cake with the Dark and Stormy Imperial Stout. Three course with beer for just $25!

Airdale Afterburner, is a beautifully balanced amber ale. Combining a rich, malty aroma and flavor with the subtle, lingering character of perle and amarillo hops, Afterburner delivers a winning combination of sweet and bitter. This beer is a rich ruby red color with a creamy head. Notes of caramel and toffee invade the palate while finishing with a smooth bitterness. At 5.3% alcohol, Afterburner is a supremely drinkable beer while maintaining a full-flavored approach. Amber Ales tend to be more approachable than their pale ale cousins.
5.3% ABV / 34 IBU's / 18 SRM
Airdale Homecoming, is a classic brown porter spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. It starts with hints of espresso on the nose and a light malt sweetness with faint traces of chocolate and vanilla. Caramel notes come through as well. The Holiday spices are faint, allowing the porter's flavor to dominate while the spices enhance the chocolate notes. A light-bodied beer, the finish is smooth with a subtle hoppy bitterness. A wonderful warming effect makes this beer a perfect holiday treat! Available from October thru December.
5.5% ABV / 25 IBU's / 35 SRM
Airdale Dark & Stormy, is an American Imperial Stout. This beer starts with a pleasant aroma of coffee and cocoa. A gourmet flavor of bittersweet chocolate surrounds the tastebuds and melds with the full-bodied beer to make this sensation last and last. Not too dry, not too sweet, Dark & Stormy blends the two into a wonderful semi-sweet taste. The high alcohol imparts a comfortable warming feel, but is perfectly balanced with the flavors and aromas. A nice coffee bitterness lingers on the finish, enticing you to take another sip.
9.5% ABV / 50 IBU's / 65 SRM

Want even more fall specials? How 'bout Coronado Brewing Company's Red Devil on cask? It's an imperial amber ale that is literally a double version of the Mermaid Red - twice the hops, twice the malt for a big, bold red ale.

Ritual Tavern: Tuesday Flight/ Thursday Cask

Ale Flight Tuesday

Last Sunday Ritual offered a flight of seasonal/autumnal beers. The response was so great (nearly went though a case of Smashed Pumpkin) we're doing it again today, Tuesday October 20th. Get your hands on three tasting size goblets and sip Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin Ale with Natural Flavor, Belzebuth Blond Ale with a frightening 13% alcohol content, and the seasonal release from Eel River, Organic Salient de Scotia Brune.

Cask and Oyster Thursday at the the Ritual: Ballast Point Sculpin IPA

Each Thursday the Ritual Tavern features cask ale* from San Diego’s best craft breweries and fresh shucked local Carlsbad Aqua Farm oysters. This week we’re featuring the 2009 GABF Silver Medalist in the American Style IPA category. Chosen from 134 entries, Sculpin IPA is one of the best beers to come out of San Diego, aka, the best beer city in America! Great in the bottle, it’s even better on cask.
Join us, won’t you?


Happy Hour: $3.50 Taps / $1 off select glasses of wine
(Cask Ale not included in Happy Hour pricing)
5:30 -7:30pm Tuesday – Saturday
3:30 – 9:30 Sunday


*“Cask-conditioned beer, often referred to as 'real ale', is brewed from only traditional ingredients and allowed to mature naturally.

The unfiltered, unpasteurised beer still contains live yeast, which continues conditioning the beer in the cask (known as 'secondary fermentation'); this process creates a gentle, natural CO2 carbonation and allows malt and hop flavours to develop, resulting in a richer tasting drink with more character than standard keg ('brewery-conditioned') beers.

Real ale is always served without any extraneous gas, usually by manually pulling it up from the cellar with a handpump (also known as a 'beer engine'). This is the traditional way of brewing and serving beer; only a few decades ago did filtered, pasteurised, chilled beer served by gas become normal.” http://www.cask-ale.co.uk/us/realale.html

Chargers on the big screen at Sea Rocket

We'll be showing the Monday Night Football game on the big screen television in our front room tonight. All our San Diego County draft beers will be just three bucks during the game, plus we'll have barbecued ribs, sloppy joe's and cole slaw too. Of course we'll also have plenty of fresh local seafood as always. Come by and support the local team, local breweries and local foods tonight!

Ballast Point Sculpin on Cask at Sea Rocket

I just tapped a cask of Ballast Point Sculpin IPA, and I must say it's one of the finest beers I've ever tasted.
Ratebeer.com calls it the 5th best IPA in the world.
Ballast Point says:
The Sculpin IPA is a testament to our humble beginnings as Home Brew Mart. Founded in 1992, the Mart continues to be a catalyst for the San Diego brewing scene, setting the trend for handcrafted ales. Inspired by our customers, employees and brewers, the Sculpin IPA is bright with aromas of apricot, peach, mango and lemon. Its lighter body also brings out the crispness of the hops. This delicious Ballast Point Ale took a Bronze Medal at the 2007 Great American Beer Festival in the Pro Am category. The Sculpin fish has poisonous spikes on its fins that can give a strong sting. Ironically, the meat from a Sculpin is considered some of the most tasty. Something that has a sting but tastes great, sounds like a Ballast Point India Pale Ale.
Come by and try a glass tonight!
Also serving fresh, local opah, swordfish, lobster dip (local spiny lobster), oysters, clams, mussels and much more tonight.

Flights of Fancy: Oysters, Beer and Jazz)

Gypsy jazz guitar returns tonight to the Ritual.  Daniele Spadavecchia
has a new venue in our acoustically rich wood paneled dining hall.
You may have seen him play at Urban Solace, the Farmer’s Market in
North Park or at Zia’s Bistro in Little Italy.    Its great to have
lively acoustic guitar back again on the first and third Thursdays of
each month.  

This week’s cask is Old Curmudgeon Imperial Porter from Rock Bottom La
Jolla.    It took a Silver Medal home from the 2009 San Diego
International Beer Competition in the Smoke Flavored & Wood Aged Beer
category.  

Raw Fanny Bay and Mt. Simon oysters are available tonight.  Our entrée
special is Honey Mustard Salmon Filet with organic German butterball
potatoes, cherry tomatoes and sautéed leeks.  Organic Scarlet Apples
are baked into cobbler for dessert.  

Join us on Sunday for a flight of seasonal beers.  Get your hands on
three tasting size goblets and sip Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin Ale with
Natural Flavor, Belzebuth Blond Ale with a frightening 13% alcohol
content, and the seasonal release from Eel River, Organic Salient de
Scotia Brune.  

Beer Week:
San Diego’s first ever beer week is just around the corner.  We are
starting the week with Shmaltz Brewing & Coney Island dinner on
Friday, November 6.  This four course dinner event will feature new
releases from the brewery, Freaktoberfest and Jewbilation 13, paired
with fantastic Ritual courses.    We’re also hard at work collaborating
with the breweries on the final details for our other beer week
events.  

OKTOBERFEST | Stems, not Steins, at Alchemy!

Raise your stems, not your steins, for a unique San Diego Oktoberfest dining experience!

On Thursday, October 15 at 6:30 p.m., South Park restaurant, Alchemy, will be cooking and pouring a special Oktoberfest Wine Dinner. The evening will feature a traditional German menu along with exclusive German wine pairings from Patrick Ballow of Free Run Juice.

Guests will be treated to five different wines to complement four courses of classic German fare including Brautwurst with house red cabbage sauerkraut, roasted venison with herb speatzle and strudel made with fresh Gravenstein apples, candy almonds and German Tslit cheese.

Tickets are $41 per person. Seating for this event is limited. For more information or to R.S.V.P, please call Alchemy at 619.225.0616 or visit www.alchemysandiego.com. Full menu below:

Alchemy Oktoberfest Menu

10.15.09

Executive Chef ~ Ricardo Heredia Wines ~ Patrick Ballow

Reception

Sekthaus Solter 2006 Riesling Brut Sekt, Rheingau

First Course

Kartoffelsalata

Baby Potato / Bacon / Red onion / Beer Mustard dressing / Capers

Josef Rosch 2008 Leiwener Klostergarten Kabinett Riesling

Second Course

Brautwurst

House Red Cabbage Sauerkraut / Green apple slaw

Stefan Gerhard 2005 Hattenheimer Hassel Spatlese, Rheingau

Third Course

Hirshbraten

Roasted Venison Shank / Juniper Jus / Herb Speatzle / Sheep's milk Cheese / Pretzel

Robert Konig 2007 Assmanshauser Hollenberg QbA trocken, Rheingau

Fourth Course

Strudel

Gravenstein Apples / Candy almonds / German Tslit Cheese

Dr. Loosen 2004 Urziger Wurzgarten Auslese Riesling

National Ups

In case anyone didn't see it, Men's Journal called 30th Street "easily the nation's best beer boulevard." We appreciate the recognition!

Find the colors of fall, including Red, Gold and Brown, at the Ritual.

AleSmith brews Evil Dead Red for your enjoyment during this time of year. If you want “Vivid mahogany color . . . Rich, chewy, toasty, malty flavors perfectly balanced by a moderate hoppy bitterness." (AleSmith), this is your pint. The Ritual is serving EDR cask conditioned!

Marty Mendiola won another Gold Medal last month at the Great American Beer Festival. Longboard Brown took the top honor in the English Style Brown Ale category. You can enjoy a pint from a fresh keg of Longboard from Rock Bottom La Jolla with us.

Our kitchen is sending out flavors of fall as well. Find the aroma of Niman Ranch Short Rib in the air, and you’ll be tempted to enjoy this entrée doused in rich beefy red wine demi glace.

In addition to our oyster offerings, we have Duck Chowder featuring pulled duck confit, Fried Calamari, and later this weekend; Crab Cakes.

We will also introduce new entrees including Chicken with Sundried Tomato and Artichoke heart in a White Wine Sauce, and Gruyere Mac and Cheese Gratin. You can also treat yourself to Julian Apple Crumble topped with Vanilla Ice Cream.

The latest issue of Men's Journal named San Diego as the best beer destination City in the US, noting our wealth of breweries and, of course, 30^th Street. We’re planning to make San Diego’s first ever Beer Week an event to remember. These are the evenings we have planned at the Ritual:

Shmaltz Brewing and Coney Island Lager Dinner Friday, November 6

Fullers Griffin Brewery Dinner Tuesday, November 10

Lost Abbey Dinner Wednesday, November 11

Green Flash Progressive 30th Street Dinner Thursday, November 12

New English Brewing Dinner Saturday, November 14