Our first night in San Diego last week we visited San Diego Brewing for dinner and beer. SD Brewing is a favorite of my brother’s, and—like Stone Brewing—they offer an impressive taplist of beers as well as their own house beers. I’ve reviewed them before, back in 2004 (wow, five years already…), and I don’t have an extensive review this time, just several thoughts and observations.

I had two beers there: their own Old Town Nut Brown, and then an Alpine Pure Hoppiness. Also like Stone, there’s an impressive array of other San Diego-area breweries on tap. The brewing scene down there is tight.

(A quick note to Alpine Brewing: a website that suddenly blasts sounds at you—not so cool.)

The Nut Brown was very good, I thought. A bit sweet, nicely nutty with caramel and a touch of roastiness. It also bucks the general San Diego trend of massively-hopped beers.

…which of course is what Pure Hoppiness is all about. The other San Diego beer staple: the Double IPA. (Or “San Diego Pale Ale”.) Nice big hoppy kick in the teeth.

Wednesday night is also Wing Night; chicken wings are available in quantity for some absurdly low price like 10 cents or 40 cents a wing or something. They’re good, too; my brother ordered a basket and I had a couple. My own dinner was the French dip sandwich, which was okay but not great; I could’ve used more au jus and there was a lot of bread.

Overall, I give them good marks, especially for the huge taplist. Of course, it makes it hard to decide what to order!