holidays

What a year 2020 has been! We’ve all been cooped up in our homes while the pandemic rages on. But it looks like this Spring and Summer we’ll be pandemic free, and your friends and family will be anxious to get outside and enjoy the beautiful things that life has to offer! This Holiday Season, gift your friends and family the perfect gift…  something they’ll value, that they’ll remember, that will make them think of you. Research shows that it’s better across the board to pursue experiences rather than material possessions. The science backs us up, and we love when that happens!  Rather than aggregate more and more stuff, spend your money on things to do, memories to make, making new friends, and sharing new things with people you love. That’s where we come in.  We love offering the best…

San Diego Brewery Tours – Enjoy the Warmth of Spring With Us! It’s a great month in San Diego, because not only will we be getting a real spring this year, thanks to some serious rain we’ve been lacking for the past several years, but this is also the month that all the great brewery events…

Happy holidays! This time of year has become equal parts frenzied shopping and calls to reject consumerism and simply spend time enjoying family and all it has to offer.  We are torn, because we do love a good deal and sometimes those holiday family dinners can get a little long, especially when Uncle Ed has had a little too much Christmas cheer.    However, we feel that we can learn a lot from tradition.  One of our favorites is Yule, a midwinter celebration that was originally celebrated by Germanic and Northern European people and incorporated into the Christmastime celebrations.  The festival came from "Yolnir" or "Yulnir," both alternate names for Odin, the Norse god of death, rebirth, ecstasy… and intoxication. Families would bring in evergreen branches on the iciest nights, to symbolize the return of spring.  They would then heap sticks on…

We at San Diego Beer and Wine Tours love this time of year. We are a truly international group, so our holiday memories range from bundling up and playing in the snow to shopping for Christmas presents under a relentless drizzle to merely switching from a spring suit to a full wetsuit before going surfing. There's one thing we can all agree on around here, though – it's one of the best times of the year! This year, winter has hit San Diego hard, bringing rains and chilly temperatures. That means we have the perfect excuse to wear our favorite scarves and curl up on the couch with blankets and our favorite novels. If you don't see what all the fuss about winter is about, let us help. We have some truly tasty ideas for warming up from the inside…

Temperatures have dropped, the wind is blowing gustily, and San Diego has even seen a few chilly and rainy days. That means it's truly fall, the holidays are on their way, and it's time to start planning for the annual autumn feast, Thanksgiving.   While everybody knows the story of the beleaguered pilgrims seeking a more free way of life, the story of Thanksgiving would be remiss if we did not mention beer's role in it.  Beer, with its natural antimicrobial properties, was a dietary staple on ships in those days; as it was boiled, it was purer than most of the water that was available at the time, and because of its alcohol content it was not prone to going bad on long voyages. In fact, part of the reason the Mayflower established a colony at Plymouth Rock and…