good beer and good thin crust pizza

[dimsumgirl]

Hubby likes good beer and I like thin crust wood fired pizza. Can both be found at the same place?

[RB Hound]

Pizza Port definitely fits your good beer criterion. The pizza - has its fans and its non-fans, and I'm not sure it fits the "good thin crust wood fired" category, but it sure wouldn't hurt to try. You've been around here long enough (at least I think) that I'd be surprised if you hadn't given it a try yet.

[Josh]

I think Pizza Port's pizza is pretty poor, honestly. It's not thin, it's not wood-fired. It's edible, though. ;-)

[jmtreg]

Yeah, the pizza is pretty meh. The way to fix the problem is to have a pitcher before ordering the pizza.

[Josh]

I've had some that are better than others. It's no Bruno's.

[stevewag23]

I would smuggle in a Bronx Pie to pizza port.

[steveprez]

I would smuggle in Del Mar Pizza!

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Del Mar Pizza
211 15th St, Del Mar, CA 92014

[deeznuts]

Bonjournos up and over the hill from the Solana Beach PP location ...

[Indirect Heat]

Pizza Port pizza isn't thin crust, isn't wood-fired, isn't good. Besides that, it fits the bill. Beer is good.

Blind Lady Ale House would probably fit the bill. Good beer selection, and the pizza is quite good. Thin crust (a tiny bit soggy, in my opinion, but not terrible), top-notch toppings and cheese. It's the only place in town that I've been to that even comes close to what you're asking for. (Not 100% certain the pizza is wood-fired, but I think it is).

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Blind Lady Ale House
3416 Adams Ave, San Diego, CA

[cstr]

The beer is easy but, I wouldn't get your hopes to high about thin crust za, depending on where you're from. RB just named your best possibility.

[Josh]

Two places:

1) Pizzeria Bruno Napoletana - best pizza in San Diego, wood-fired in an oven imported from Naples. They have two excellent beers on tap: AleSmith's Anvil ESB, and Czechvar. Czechvar is a really good Czech pilsner that goes well with the food here.

2) Blind Lady Ale House - Incredible beer selection, decent pizzas (alas, not wood-fired, but still tasty and thin-crust).

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Blind Lady Ale House
3416 Adams Ave, San Diego, CA

[oerdin]

I agree. Pizzeria Bruno Napoletana is the place she is looking for.

[jmtreg]

I agree with Bruno'sas well - but the place needs to upgrade its beer selection.

[Josh]

I think he should ditch the Stella and add two more local craft choices. Maybe Wahoo Wheat and Black Marlin Porter.

[RB Hound]

Stella is Europe's version of Coors, IMHO.

I'll have to try out BLAH sometime soon.

[Fake Name]

As much as I like Bruno's, and eat pizza elsewhere only under extreme duress, I don't consider it to be "thin-crust" pizza.

For me, that's Bronx.

I think you should go to Bruno's instead, but don't expect NY style pizza. Expect better.

[dimsumgirl]

Bruno's sounds like the perfect compromise. Thanks so much! I won't be in the area again until mid-June but it sounds like fun. Thanks.

[JRSD]

Last time I was at Bruno they had Alesmith Horny Devil on tap as well. Not sure what it replaced.

[Josh]

Li'l Devil or Horny Devil?

Horny Devil seems awfully big for the food.

[Katherine H]

I'm pretty sure I saw Horny Devil on tap there a week ago.

[JRSD]

It was labeled L'il Devil but was actually Horny Devil. It was a little big for the food but still worked for me.

[jmtreg]

I've never tried the thin crust pizza at Lefty's, but they have a pretty good beer selection, and it does look good.

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Lefty's Chicago Pizzeria
3448 30th St, San Diego, CA 92104

[oerdin]

I've always considered Lefty's the classic blue collar joint sort of place. Yes, the stuffed pizza is great and I love the place but in a place like Lefty's you have to wear an old baseball hat, get a pitcher of PBR, and go all out with the stuffed pizza. Classic midwest food like Lefty's just cries out for it. ;)

[jmtreg]

Ballast Point Yellowtail works beautifully with the food as well.

[steveprez]

Hubby sounds like my kinda guy! Pizza Port has great beer but unfortunately, the pizza, while made well with quality ingredients, is not thin crust. :( The Blind Lady Ale House does fit the bill in terms of thin crust pizza AND great beer.

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Blind Lady Ale House
3416 Adams Ave, San Diego, CA

[mouthmusic]

I agree with the others about Pizza Port. I go for the great beers, definitely not for the pizza. I tolerate the pizza (barely) but my partner (a native New Yorker) can't stand it. (But I do hand it to them as brewers.) At Solana Beach I've ordered it "extra thin crust" which did come out thin though not firm enough. It fell apart actually. They tried, but it's not in their skill set. When I ordered "thin" it was still much too thick a crust for my taste (but did not fall apart). The default "regular" is way too bready- though for hungry surfers with skinny wallets there's lots of cheap tummy filler I suppose. Regardless of crust, the flavors aren't there, to my taste. I did try one of those fast-food "Flippin' Pizza" chain places (Carlsbad-La Costa) which had OK New York style slices with a good thin crispy crust (and average flavors). But I was surprised they had, on tap, one of my favorite brews- the excellent Karl Strauss hefeweizen, unavailable in bottles and only at limited locations on tap. So that was a nice surprise. An OK, thin crust pizza and a pretty good beer. (I don't know if all the locations have the same offering)

[mouthmusic]

OK I returned to Pizza Port Solana Beach on June 19th and I have to give credit where it's due: they made a really good thin crust. Excellent actually. Very thin, nicely crispy. This was the first time I have ever had that experience there. Hope they can keep it up. In fairness I should mention we ordered it with feta cheese, no mozzarella, fresh tomatoes and artichoke. Not a pizza with massive toppings. Quite light on top really, as we prefer it. So whether they can deliver the same thin and crispy crust with the typical very cheesy toppings, I don't know. But it was certainly the best pizza we have had at that particular restaurant and a good thin crust by any standards.

[steveprez]

Thanks for the update and review. Good to see that they're starting to make thin crust pizzas. Ironic since earlier in this thread they were heavily criticised for not wanting/having to improve the quality of their pizza. I wonder if they were reading.

I hope PP takes the same approach to making pizza as they do with brewing!

[normalheightsfoodie]

Sicilian Thing has great thin crust pizza. They are applying for a beer and wine permit and perhaps already have it. They will be serving local beers.

[tastycakes]

i'd go for blind lady. the pizzas are tasty and the beer selection is stellar. the menu changes seasonally. i'd hit up the new farmer's market in the area and then grap sme beers. definitely try the strawberry shortcake if it's available.

[Beach Chick]

Basic downtown has some of the best thin crust pizza that is done in a brick oven..
Good beer selection..

www.barbasic.com

[MrKrispy]

Fair warning that at night Basic turns to a nightclub and there may be a velvet-rope line (sometimes there is seating in the pizza area still even when the nightclub is packed).

[Beach Chick]

I usually go to Basic during a Padre's game..so it's velvet rope nightclub..everynight?

[stevewag23]

Velvet Rope on a Pizza Joint?

Now that's Down Economy!

[Beach Chick]

Ha!

[hairycover]

Beer selection at Basic is meh but the pies are great. Best I've had since I moved out here. The damn thing brought tears to my eyes b/c I forgot how good pizza is supposed to be. I was happy for a week.

[mangiatore]

Basic, in East Village, has great thin crust pizza and a decent selection of beer.

[JRSD]

I like the pizza at Basic a lot but I think their beer selection is terrible - most of the choices are either BMC or Inbev owned imports. The only local beers I saw there were Stone IPA and Karl Strauss Red Trolley which you can get almost anywhere that serves beer in SD.

Have not tried the pizza but Newport Pizza in OB also has a good beer selection.

[Josh]

Just came home from Bruno - they have expanded their beer selection. Tonight they had Racer 5 IPA, AleSmith X, Hofbrau lager, and Czechvar.

[RB Hound]

It almost seems like they have somebody monitoring this board, since I seem to recall somebody requesting they add Czechvar.

You know, I can't figure out why everybody is so down on Pizza Port. I usually wait until I have a good part of that first pint down before ordering, then I end up going through pints #2 and #3 while I'm waiting for my order to come up. It always seems to taste great to me at that point.

BTW, I'm looking at Basic's beer list (which might be a bit dated) at http://www.barbasic.com/drink.html, and I cannot fathom why you'd think that is a decent beer selection, BeachChick. Unless you aren't much of a beer drinker, and think that any offerings beyond Bud/Miller/Coors are decent. :)

[Beach Chick]

I remember they had Stella and that is usually what I drink if I'm drinking beer but my DH is the beer drinker and he thinks that Basic's beer selection blows.

[Fake Name]

I believe they had Czechvar from the beginning.

[steveprez]

I'm certainly not down on Pizza Port and I hope my response above didn't give that impression. I LOVE Pizza Port. They brew great beers themselves but also have great beers on their guest taps. How cool is it for a brewery to have guest beers on tap? I've never seen this in (too) many years of visiting microbreweries before moving to San Diego.

I also think Pizza Port makes great tasting pizza. They use good quality fresh ingredients. However, they do not make thin crust pizza and that's what the OP was looking for.

[oerdin]

"How cool is it for a brewery to have guest beers on tap? I've never seen this in (too) many years of visiting microbreweries before moving to San Diego."

I believe that started with the San Diego Breweries Guild members back in the 90's as a way to promote the local craft brewing industry. It's helped too since several magazines have named San Diego as the best beer city in America for locally brewed beers.

[Indirect Heat]

I'm with you on the beer. Pizza Port makes good beer.

Their pizza? I would eat free pizza port pizza. But I would not spend money on it. The crust is too gooey, the sauce is flat, and the toppings are pedestrian.

Did I mention I like their beer? Excellent beer. They should change their name to Beer Port, in my opinion.

[Josh]

Or invest in some real pizza ovens and people who can make real pizzas.

[RB Hound]

Why would they bother with that?

[Josh]

My horse likes good pizza.

[deeznuts]

They are jam packed every day. I'd love for them to become artisans with their pizza (I love their beer!) but it ain't broke, they ain't fixin it.

[oerdin]

I honestly think that a lot of people who claim a place "doesn't have good pizza" are just made because the restaurant decides to make a different style of pizza then their own narrow choice of styles. The reality is there are a good half dozen different styles of pizza out there and that's because many people don't like NY style. That doesn't mean they have bad taste just that they like something different.

That said Pizza Port does need to spice up their sauce but their pizza is still pretty good.

[Josh]

For conveyor-belt automated pizza baked a la Domino's, Pizza Port is good.

[RB Hound]

You obviously have not requested they use the pizza engine for your order. The lack of carbonation makes for a dramatically different, and in my opinion better, flavor.

[Josh]

Ah, so that's the problem. Thanks for the tip.

[steveprez]

While they use a conveyro belt oven system, I don't believe it's fair to compare them to Domino's. Pizza Port is far better. IMHO.

[Indirect Heat]

It's true, comparing them to Domino's isn't fair. Domino's is cheaper. Probably because their pizza engine gets better mileage.

[Josh]

Oh I agree. MUCH better than Domino's.

Nothing like a little damning with faint praise to brighten my Friday.

[cstr]

Domino's, I'd opt for starvation before eating that cardboard.

[Ewilensky]

I'd opt for the box the cardboard came in first...

[Josh]

Three words: Tunnel Of Cheese

[mouthmusic]

You nailed it, deeznuts. They are jam packed everyday. What is their motivation to improve? They have the cheapest, fillingest eats in an ultracasual atmosphere, within a block of the beach in pricey Solana Beach. Pizza, even when bad, is the #1 most popular American food. Pizza Port has a surefire formula in an environment of over-priced, lackadaisical restaurants, which aspire to nothing more than the low, local bar. Artisan-wise, if they did nothing other than buy frozen Tartes d'Alsace from Trader Joe's and doubled the price for providing the service of heating it up for you (as I have a suspicion Samy's Woodfired Pizza does with their "tartes") I would be ecstatic, moreso my S.O. who does not drink beer and so must fully experience the P.P. flavors without the good-cheer-inducing effects of their many fine beers.

[steveprez]

With entirely altruistic motivations, today I visited the Blind Lady Ale House (BLAH to to those of us fortuanate to be counted among the regulars) such that I might report back to the 'Hounds. I'm pleased to report that the pizza crusts are thin and tasty, the sauce full of flavor and spice. The toppings range from the traditional to the creative. The beers were perfectly served and delicious. Ales from Green Flash were featured.

I would be remiss if I failed to report the the cheese plates, in the vernacular of the younger generations, "friggin' rock". They're excellently paired with beers and served expertly with dried fruits and toasted bread slices.

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Blind Lady Ale House
3416 Adams Ave, San Diego, CA

Green Flash
701 Thomas Ave, San Diego, CA 92109

[normalheightsfoodie]

Went to Sicilian Thing and they now have local brews to go along with their fantastic thin crust pizza.

[kare_raisu]

I really was impressed by Newport Ale House in OB last Wednesday. Crisp, Light pizza and great beer. Cant wait to go back.

[MrKrispy]

Yeah I really like that place if someone isn't blasting the reggae music haha. The pizza thrower makes a difference too, but usually I am really happy with the pies there. If you want to be adventurous (pizza-wise) give the Tony Soprano a try - meatball and smoked gouda pizza. Yum!

I am hoping with Pizza Port down the street there will be a little more room in Newport Pizza now.

[mayache]

Fat Tony's in Clairemont has IMHO the best thin crust pizza in town, and have recently converted their taps to all Ballast Point, so the beer is now great too.

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Fat Tony's
4973 Diane Ave, San Diego, CA 92117

[burntwater]

I think the place that offers the best good pizza to good beer ratio is Blind Lady.
Pizza rates an A- Beer list an A

Brunos to me is a pizza place first and a bar second. Offering the best pizza and a good beer list but the selection is limited. Pizza rates A+ beer is a B

Pizza Port beer list rates an A to A+ pizza rates a C the most unbalanced.

PB Tap Room Pizza B the beer rates an A

Newport Pizza Beer list B and the pizza B.

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Tap Room
1269 Garnet Ave, San Diego, CA 92109