A flurry of pre-moving activities (storage, appliance store, furniture store) in North County this morning provided a good excuse to stop by Port Brewing and investigate Brett’s BBQ, which I learned about this week from San Diego blog What We Dig.
Port Brewing in San Marcos brews many of the excellent beers of Pizza Port, including Hop-15, one of my favorite double IPA’s; they also brew the beers of The Lost Abbey, a collection of unique, flavorful beers. We picked up a bottle of Serpent’s Stout, and I also had a taster of this one – it’s dark and thick, with a rich taste. I’ve been getting back into stouts lately, and this is one of the reasons why. I also had a taster of WipeOut IPA, which I hadn’t had in a while. It has a good hoppy aroma, and a strong, clean bitter flavor. It isn’t as flowery or complex as Hop-15, but is still a great, classic example of the West Coast IPA style.
After our beer interlude, we headed on to Brett’s BBQ. The place was pleasantly busy around 1pm on a Saturday, and we snagged an outdoor table to enjoy San Diego’s awesome spring weather and a delicious helping of barbeque. We each got pulled pork sandwiches, I with sweet potato fries and Chuck with baked beans.
The sandwiches were excellent – the smoked pork was tender and flavorful but not mushy, the buns were substantial enough to hold up to the meat and sauce, and lent a subtle buttery goodness to the flavor without stealing the show. Barbeque sauce on the side is always appreciated, as I like my sandwiches wet and almost always wish for more sauce. The sweet potato fires were very good as well, with either a very light batter or extra flavorful oil that gave them a hint of tempura flavor. They needed a good dose of salt, but were otherwise sweet potato perfection. Chuck’s beans were also quite good, and quite lacking salt – they needed some zip! Overall we were quite happy with our experience at Brett’s and will add it to our regular rotation of North County lunch spots (along with Stone World Bistro and Philly Frank’s).
Glad you liked Brett’s. You must try the Corn Pudding and Hush Puppies next time. They were pretty awesome!
Gil