There’s no getting around it—San Diego Beer Week is going to look a lot different this year. Many events that have taken place year-after-year will be scrapped due to an inability to conform to health and safety regulations related to COVID-19. But some businesses are finding ways to keep traditions alive. One of them is O’Brien’s Pub, which is able to utilize patio and extended outdoor space to offer socially distanced beer dinners and themed events featuring specialty beers. One of those is called Back County Night, which takes place the first Friday of Beer Week (which will run from November 6-15 this year) and features far East County interests from El Cajon, Alpine and Julian.
In previous years, Alpine Beer Co. has played a major role in these festivities, but with the company’s founding family no longer a part of that business, which was purchased by Green Flash Brewing in 2014, that wasn’t in the cards. That interest’s father-and-son duo, Pat and Shawn Mcilhenney, are hard at work getting their new venture, Mcilhenney Brewing, off the ground, but haven’t yet reached the point where they have beer. Rather than throw in the towel, Shawn enlisted a little help from some of his many beer-industry friends.
“When we realized we wouldn’t have our own beer to tap for the annual Beer Week kickoff at O’Brien’s, we asked them if they would be OK with us bringing in some collaboration beers,” says Jamie Mcilhenney, Shawn’s wife and a longtime employee of Pizza Port. “Of course, the first place we thought of was Pizza Port OB since it’s been my home away from home for 10 years and Head Brewer Matt Palmer makes great beer.”
“Matt and I decided we were going to make an IPA. It seemed like a style that’s in our wheelhouse that will please the masses,” says Shawn. “Then came the hop discussion. We ended up agreeing on Strata and Australian Enigma as the stars of the show with Citra in a supporting role.”
This beer, which goes by the name Clear Skies Ahead and comes in at 6.8% alcohol-by-volume (ABV), will make its debut ahead of Beer Week this Friday, October 30 at 11 a.m. at Pizza Port Ocean Beach. That just so happens to be the same day that Pizza Port will release its popular Bacon and Eggs imperial coffee porter in cans at all of its Southern California locations.
At Back Country Night, which will begin at 5 p.m., Friday, November 6, Clear Skies Ahead will be on-tap along with So Fresh and So Green, a 6% ABV wet-hop Strata strong pale ale Shawn brewed with Chris Gillogly at North Park’s The Original 40 Brewing, and 79 to Alpine, a 7% IPA brewed with Strata and Idaho 7 hops at Julian’s Nickel Beer Co. with Brewmaster (and co-owner of O’Brien’s) Tom Nickel. The evening will also feature core and specialty offerings from Nickel Beer and El Cajon’s Burning Beard Brewing.
“Every single San Diego Beer Week to-date has included an event with our long-time friends and brewing legends Shawn Mcilhenney and his parents, Pat and Val. There simply could not be a Beer Week at the pub without the Mcilhenneys kicking it off,” says O’Brien’s co-owner Tyson Blake. “Shawn has been making beer worth celebrating for a long time and we are super-excited to kick-off Beer Week 2020 with the Mcilhenneys and other longtime friends in the house. Better yet, we all get to enjoy the benefits of their shared passion for beer on tap. It’s a tradition that continues and always will.”
Pizza Port OB is located at 1956 Bacon Street in Ocean Beach, and O’Brien’s Pub is located at 4646 Convoy Street in Kearny Mesa