The former (obviously rather controversial - but then, what are blogs for?) blog was a little sidekick from my trip to San Diego (America's loveliest city, according to deepest conviction of the pilot landing us there), the WBC judging and Craft Brewers Conference. Now of course, you might actually be more interested in what I did over there, and what my impressions were. So let's enlighten you, having stayed on the homefront.

First, let's talk about culture shock. OK, the I(I)PA's are a bit of a shock, but then I was more than prepared for them (I was less prepared for some US brewers quixotical idea that there's such a beast as a "Belgian I.P.A."!!). If my good friend Bert Van Hecke (head brewer at NLDC) on one evening got a "now that'll do!" experience - refusing to touch anything else but those declaring themselves "bland" - myself I experienced rather a habituation - I started to find some IPA's rather bland, if that's conceivable.

But my real culture shock lay elsewhere. It started upon descending from the plane, Sunday evening around 21.15 (that's 9.15 PM in archaic reading), were I stood in boating jacket and trench coat, whilst people flocking in were in shorts and shirtsleeves, baseballcaps on their sunburnt heads. And the next morning, when I saw - for the first time in my life in the wild - a colibri hovering over a bananaflower, I realised I was REALLY further away from home, than I'd ever been before. Even the gorgeous smell of pinetrees I remarked when debarking at Seatac two years ago couldn't compare to this.

That next morning, in a gorgeous sunshine, that drove most of my fellow countrymen diving for shade, my pal Carl Kins had already done his best to throw us fledglings into the deep, as his touringcar was waiting (fully booked!) for a first tour around San Diego County, to search for some good beer. As this tour was open to all judges, we got our uprooted feeling at once, with brewers present from exotic locations as South Corea or Down Under present… A real World Beer Cup event.

With 4 Dutchmen, as well as 6 or 7 Flemish aboard, however, English was far from the only language spoken - it served more as lingua franca than anything else. Entre parenthese, I must have met more babblers than realised. There was Jos Brouwer, Lode Swinkels on the bustrip, and later during the week, I met Brian Butenschoen, Dr. Bill, Logan, but I'm sure there must have been more, even not counting the brewers. On the bus, however, there was the first meeting in person with Josh Oakes, head honcho from the Ratebeer "Beer"team, with his lovely MIO - what WBC can achieve in personal contacts!

Under the blazing sun, we found ourselves soon in desert country, heading towards San Marcos. I must say that the way American micro's can pack themselves in these prefab industry development hangars will never cease to wonder me. Not that it doesn't look efficient - even when I got the impression that Port Brewing is already bursting at the seams. Well, one look around Tomme's magical vats (in the closed "In hic Brettanomyces nostrum fides" compartment) says it all. Equally surprised I was by the sheer undending stream of samples, from the multitude of vats behind a row of taps. Bear with me, British cask handles are infinitely more stylish, but nothing beats American variety.

I'm stating the obvious, when I say that the beers at Port Brewing were the best of the week. One expects nothing but excellence from Tomme, and by Jove, didn't he comply! Not to mention his generosity - in fact, this tour was just a way of first contact, as later that week, he gave a stupendous reception and dinner for an untold number of people, literally filling every square inch of the brewery still unoccupied… THE discovery - no doubt the best beer I had those 7 days - was the "Veritas" (apparently Veritas 002, for the devotees), a mixbeer that was simply mindblowing. Another crazy thing was that the brewery was working in full - but manned, sorry, femaled by my neighbour Hildegarde van Ostaden, whose shining yellow brewing boots marked her out from a mile. Imagine travelling 10.000 clicks to find your next-door neighbour at work!

But time was pressing, and when I had a highly illegal pre-try of Bel Proximus, call me Isabelle, we had to hop on the bus for getting to a location not that far away, were Green Flash Brewing has established its Pennates. A try of their WestCoast IPA, the former evening in the hotel bar had prepared me for the top. I had quite some good beers, but the WC - IPA remains unchallenged in their portfolio, in my opinion. And they were the first to display the fact, that in my maybe not all too humble opinion, a brewer as Tomme is a real exception, in the way of really digging Belgian beer. In most other Californian breweries, "Belgian Style" seems to be an excuse of letting all temperature control, both at mashing and at fermenting, run amok. If we ought to do that over here, we wouldn't be world famous, IMO.

Anyway, Green Flash was again such an hangar with a wall with taps. Impressive. Their generosity couldn't be faulted neither; apart from all the free beer, they even had provided snacks and titbits. And if to prove that there's always better, we found ourselves, now under a near unbearable heat (at least for a Belgian refugee from winter) at Pizza Port Carlsbad, were another of those Californian magicians, Jeff Bagby, supplied us with beer à gogo and pizzaslices or chicken wings at cost price, until WE were bursting at the seams. I liked Jeff's dark beers mostly.

By then, time had caught up with us, and we had to return to Town & Country resort, piece of Eden sandwiched between a freeway and the San Diego Trolley line, for the judges' orientation session. A tradition that seems to get more genial everytime I experience it. More retrouvailles with people whose faces had gone blurred - Jan Suran from Czechia, Lauren Salazar from Fort Collins, Chris Swersey, the boss himself, etc. As well as a face put upon the brewer from Le Trou du Diable, whose name I had often encountered on the Québec BBB-equivalent, Bièropholie.

Afterwards a reception, around one of the many pools at the resort, more good beers, and in order not to deficit ourselves, we packed ourselves into a cab, and drove off for O'Briens, on the turf of our friend Tom Nickel, whom I usually meet in Sint Niklaas… Hectic were the doings there, so I settled on the porch, slowly savouring the last liquid comforts in a bewildering beery day.

The first of many…

Joris

28th April 2008

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