My meeting in Santa Monica ended at noon on Friday, and I didn’t have to catch a flight to Chicago for the next meeting until Saturday morning. How to kill the time?? Visit a brewpub!

A visit to a Pizza Port brewpub has been on my beer to-do list for a long time. So after our meeting, my co-worker and compadre Todd and I drove down the California coast from Santa Monica to San Clemente for some “Tasty Grub and Grog” at the Pizza Port.

The beer was West Coast-awesome. I built my own four-beer sampler, which featured the:

• Pig Dog Pale Ale, an excellent West Coast-style Pale Ale
• Able Session IPA, the perfect session IPA (4.2%)
  
• Luck o’ the Irish Red Ale, as decent a Red Ale as you’ll find (4.5%)
• Pseudo IPA, even better than your typically solid West Coast IPA. There’s nothing “pseudo” about this IPA – the name is an inside joke, according to the bartender.

I savored the local and fresh West Coast IPAs, and after the sampler, I couldn’t resist a pint of the:

• Killer Dana IPA, a superb and dangerously drinkable Double IPA (8.6%)

The grog was worth the out-of-the-way visit and the grub didn’t disappoint either.  I had a BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza, prepared with “Tangy BBQ sauce, seasoned meatballs, bacon, mozzarella & cheddar cheese with red onions.” It was as delicious as it sounds!

As much as I loved the beer and the food, the vibe of the San Clemente Pizza Port was a bit off-kilter. We sat at the bar for the complete Pizza Port experience. The bartender was surly and the locals were weird. Example: a dude came up to the bar and ordered an “Ippa” while pointing to the beer menu that listed several IPAs. I don’t know why he made a word out of it instead of ordering an I-P-A, but it put the bartender in a foul mood.