San Diego Beer & Cocktail News (July 2014)

Polite Provisions won the Spirited Award for Best American High Volume Cocktail Bar last week at Tales of the Cocktail, the New Orleans cocktail festival. It’s great to see San Diego recognized, although there are other establishments of similar caliber that certainly merit a nod (maybe next year?). Craft & Commerce had been nominated in the same category in 2012. The full list of TOTC winners available on Difford’s also prominently includes London’s Artesian, which was crowned the World’s Best Bar (see here for my impressions).

The other exciting news from this weekend is that Stone has announced that they will be opening their first European brewery in Berlin in 2015-2016. This has been years in the works. Similar to the San Diego set-up, the facility will include a production brewery, a restaurant, and gardens. See here for the official press release.

A lazy Saturday afternoon at Polite Provisions

Last Saturday I finally got a chance to try Polite Provisions. This relatively new bar that opened in North Park in February is the latest child of Consortium Holdings, the same team that brought us El Dorado, Neighborhood, Noble Experiment, Craft and Commerce, and Underbelly. It comes with a little adjacent eatery, Soda and Swine, which specializes in meatballs.

The space looks like an old drugstore with a smooth patinaed white marble bar, lots of brass, and a beautiful mosaic floor with metal inlays. It has a very casual and comfortable feel to it; it’s a place where you feel immediately at ease.