Beer Trippin’ in California. Part 4 – Pizza Port

No beer trippin’ report in San Diego would be complete without a visit to at least one of the Pizza Port locations.  The original Pizza Port was founded in Solana Beach in 1987, by owners Vince and Gina Marsaglia.  Vince began using the restaurant’s extra space to experiment with homebrewing.   5 years later in 1992, a 7 BBL brewhouse was installed and the brewery was born.  In 1997, Tomme Arthur took the reigns in the brewhouse and the rest is history.

Since then, Pizza Port has grown to 4 locations (with 1 more on the way), opened a bottle shop in Carlsbad (offering 600+ of the best beers available in the San Diego area), named 2003 and 2004 Small Brewpub of the Year at GABF (Solana Beach) and 2009 Large Brewpub of the Year at GABF (Carlsbad) and opened a production facility in San Marcos, CA.  The brewpubs have also taken home numerous GABF and World Beer Cup medals.  Tomme Arthur has since moved on to become Director of Brewery Operations at Port Brewing and co-founded the The Lost Abbey line of Belgian influenced beers in 2006.

Each Pizza Port location offers a wide variety of beers brewed on-site, plus a lineup of guest taps from some of the world’s top craft breweries.  The great selection of beers, ranging from west coast hop bombs to authentic Belgian ales, is sure to satisfy even the most hardcore beer nerd.  If you can’t decide which location to visit, let the beer do the talking.  The Pizza Port website has a webcam feed showing all of the beers pouring at each location.

The close proximity to the beach and the laid back vibe, combined with a tasty menu and a ton of great beers, makes Pizza Port one of our favorite places to visit in the San Diego area.  Pizza Port shows no signs of slowing down, as they’re currently working on a new location in Bressi Ranch (near Carlsbad).  I guess we’ll have to add it to the list for next time.

On this trip, we only had the time to visit Pizza Port Carlsbad, but we’ve visited the other locations in the past and encourage you to try them all.  Here’s a handful of pictures from our recent visit.

Cheers!

February 19, 2013 | Categories: Beer Trippin', Brewery Spotlight, Pints in Pictures, Uncategorized | Tags: great american beer festival, large brewpub of the year, pizza port, pizza port bottle show, pizza port carlsbad, small brewpub of the year, tomme arthur, vince marsaglia, world beer cup | 1 Comment