Fall Brewing – North Park Neighborly

In February, I ventured to North Park to visit Fall Brewing, at 4542 30th Street. Fall has become a neighborhood favorite hangout, attracting a packed house by early afternoon on my President’s day visit. Co-founders Ray Astamendi and Dave Lively took the name from the idea that they had fallen in previous experiences in the brewing business. I talked with sales manager and Bay Park Resident Larry Monasakanian about Fall Brewing’s history, direction, and of course, craft beer.

Fall opened in November 2014, with Astamendi as head brewer. Building on his previous commercial experience, he designed the layout of the facility to achieve a clean work flow for the brewer. His handiwork is visible from the tasting room. Lively had extensive experience in graphic design in the San Diego skate, surf, and music scene. They were coworkers at a previous brewery who wanted to “get it right” with a neighborhood craft brewery. The goal is to brew clean, classic, consistent, and drinkable beers. Part of getting the classic recipes perfect is getting the water chemistry correct for the style. A reverse osmosis unit built into the brewery aids that. The beer line up reflects a desire for variety, but since this is San Diego, hoppy beers are the most popular, according to Monasakanian. Fall recently got on board with the Hazy New England IPA trend, Goo Goo Muck, was packaged and sold out quickly, but is still available on draft. Currently, Fall is selling Green Hat IPA, Rise Up, Plenty for All, and Magical & Delicious Pale Ale in select stores and BevMo. In March, Fall will be putting a new hazy into canned four packs, Lupulin Saturation. Another recent San Diego trend is towards lagers. Fall has separate lagering tanks, long recognizing the importance of that style.

The vibe is dominated by the musical influence of the punk rock scene, and it shows up in beer names as well. Each month, a new art show is featured on the left wall. Concert advertising from Lively’s personal collection add more character. The music on the sound system reflects those tastes but isn’t too loud. For eats, Fall has worked to get a varied food truck line up 7 days a week, after 4 p.m. Kabobs, sushi, burgers, or Mexican are in the mix.

The beers were all terrific. Fall deliberately limits the alcohol content of their beers to less than 9%, allowing you to sample more of their product. I started with Rise Up Czech Pale Lager. This was very clean tasting, balanced to the maltier side; a challenging style done very well. Crystal Mess is a floral, hoppy pale ale, but still clean. A little wheat softens it up. Speedo’s Tiki Love God is a traditional nutty brown. It is sweet up front, and just slightly dry. Another tough style done well by Fall is the German Pilsner, Plenty for All. Sweeter than Rise Up, this has softer taste than Rise Up, offset with noble hops. Rods and Mockers, is an English Mild, at the lighter end of the pale ale spectrum. You can taste the breadiness of the Maris Otter malt, with a little hop balance. Monasakanian dropped Fall Brewing’s flagship IPA, Green Hat, into middle of my tasting session. This is a very West Coast IPA with bold citrus hitting your nose and tongue right away. It is still a little cleaner than similar San Diego IPAs, and an excellent flagship offering.

Berliner Weisse is low alcohol German sour wheat beer. I normally avoid this, but Watermelon Jazz Hands was a treat. The sour and watermelon combined wasn’t syrupy, just refreshing and easy to drink. We shifted gears to Puppy Cuddles Milk Stout, a lighter stout with lactose mellowing the flavor. 2AM Bike Ride is a coffee stout brewed with whole bean coffee from nearby Dark Horse Coffee Roasters. The coffee flavor dominates but is very mellow, due to the use of the whole beans, rather than ground or brewed coffee. The one non-traditional, “Frankenstein” beer was a hoppy, amber, Imperial Lager, Enormous Schwanzstucker, brewed in collaboration with Revision Brewing and Automatic Brewing. It was malty, dry, and hoppy, and pretty decent. I finished Nucular Strategery, a barrel aged Imperial Stout that was my favorite of the day. Bourbon notes were subtle, and a little coconut finish made for a delightful balance. Worthy of note, a barrel-aged version of Jinx Remover Imperial Black Lager won the gold at the 2016 World Beer Cup in the barrel aged strong category.

How would I describe Fall? A chill neighborhood brewery serving a good variety of drinkable beers.

 Larry Monasakanian with co-founders Ray Astamendi and Dave Lively of Fall Brewing.

This article was originally published in the Clairemont Times on page 13.