Flagrant and willful removal of taxable beer for consumption (26USC5673)

Since TJ is taking classes online, his weekends are tied up with assignments, but I have been able to negotiate at least one outing a weekend. Not so strangely enough, the last two trips have involved pizza and beer. For one, we ventured to the "mercato," or farmers market in Little Italy. After picking up some eggs, brussel sprouts, avocado/cilantro hummus, almonds, wheat bread, and herb plants as well as snacking on some samosas, farm-raised oysters, fresh-squeezed tangerine juice, and organic coffee, we stopped by Landini's Pizzeria for lunch.

We were drawn in by the special: two slices and a draft for $8. TJ thought we were going to split the deal, but the pizza looked so good that we each got our own. The beer was great, too, as two Karl Strauss selections were on tap; TJ picked the Red Trolley Ale, and I opted for the Amber Lager. But we did share the view of downtown San Diego from the restaurant's patio.
On the way to our car, we dropped into Bottlecraft, where we picked up some other microbrews from California. The cashier there suggested that we head to Beer City in Tijuana, so we could find some bottles from an up-and-coming Baja microbrewer, Cerveceria Insurgente. So when we resumed our overseas tradition of getting pizza after work on Fridays, we swung by Beer City before picking up our 2-for-1 pizzas from Mama Mia. Unfortunately, the store didn't have any Insurgente at the moment, but we picked out four types of suds to sample with our pies. We started with the lightest one, Honey by Cerveza Cucapa.
The Mexicali brewery described the amber ale as such: "A frothy entry leads to a dry-yet-fruity medium body of candied citrus peels, mild spice, flan, and toasted grains." I actually thought it was lacking in fizz and was a bit flat, but at least it wasn't syrupy like Honey Brown. I definitely detected the faint smell of burnt sugar. TJ thought it was a good balance of lightness and bitterness, like a "spring sunset over Playas de Tijuana." Next up was Zacas by Zona Norte Cerveza Artesanal.
This English pale ale is probably named after Zacatecas, a city and state in central Mexico, home to "people of the grasslands" who were conquered by the Spanish for potential mining lands in the 1540s. The beer better matched the brewery's name, probably after the red-light district of Tijuana, because it was, in just a few of TJ's adjectives, "contaminated, raw, and hyperactive." The beer was extremely foamy; it exploded for a guy at Beer City and for us at home, indicating that it wasn't quite finished; the ale was unfiltered, and the unsettled yeast made it taste vinegary. But TJ's final declaration was that it was "like a beer I've made by mistake -- amateurish with an undertone of promise." The third sip was Batari Chonami by Cerveza Ramuri.
This brewery's name possibly refers to the Rarámuri, a tribe of "runners on foot" from Chihuahua that fled to the Copper Canyon during the Spanish Conquest. "Batari" refers to a traditional alcoholic drink in the north-central Mexican state made from fermented corn sprouts. I couldn't find the meaning of "Chonami," but TJ's translation was "good, really good," which he said about the beer three times. The label said this London brown ale was a "dark beer with soft notes of brown sugar." I also got hints of coffee, which reminded me of my favorite Czech beer, Kozel Cerny. Not surprisingly, TJ was reminded of one of his favorite Czech beers, Krušovice Cerne. Last up was the Oatmeal Stout by Cerveza Agua Caliente.
Neither the brewery's site or the bottle's label gave us much to go on, which wasn't much of a surprise considering this was probably the closest to a true home brew (The labels appeared to be of the laser-printer variety). But it also was the closest to what it purported to be. It was fuller than the brown ale, and it had the sour taste of oatmeal and the bold flavor of malt, as opposed to the more subtle brown sugar. TJ criticized it for finishing on an up note when it should have been a down note. But overall, the beer was a decent end to our four-quaff-flight night. Check back occasionally for more beer reviews as we try to branch out from pizza shops to taco stands.