La Jolla Brew House

June 2013 — GREAT food, good beers, and usually POOR service. Owner skimps on propane for her patio heaters and leaky bathroom faucet (4+ months), but an irregular visit for the terrific food is good for us.
All new eveything coming in Jan 2014. New ownership, remodel, and food. Hoping they kept the same cook…

GREAT service, nice big beer selection, dog friendly. The only reason I didn’t give them 5 stars is because they don’t have a big veggie menu. I always get the hummus tray, which is good, but I wish they’d bring back the nachos or have another veggie option.
I always go here to watch a sports game or political debates (during election season).

Crappy service, no smile or greeting, they acted like they were doing me a favor selling me a beer.
Went there about 5:30 the last Saturday of April, sat at the bar, lots of employees talking to each other but could not be bothered to get me a beer or make me feel welcome. Had another beer, the same bad service, it’s the first time in years I left NO TIP.

This place is ok, nothing too special. Just ordinary food — burgers, sandwiches, etc. The only time I would come here is for Trivia Night on Tuesdays, and that’s it. Otherwise, I would have no reason to frequent the La Jolla Brew House. Maybe if you’re looking for a place to watch a sports game, this would be decent. Lots of TVs showing almost every sport imaginable (curling was on one of the TVs).
Don’t forget to buy the $ 10 for $ 20 deal here on Unilocal!,but remember it cannot be used with any other offer — so this includes happy hour stuff. I tried using this coupon when I ate with other friends here who had their happy hour drinks and they didn’t accept it.

Came here for St. Patty’s day because they were having a $ 3 green beer special.
What I wasn’t impressed by was the food, though. I paid $ 13 for a dry, unspectacular and very ordinary burger that I could have gotten for $ 2 at Burger King. The Cajun chicken sandwich and sweet potato fries weren’t good, either. It just seemed super overpriced for bar food and the whole time I was thinking, I should have just gone to Rubio’s right next door. $ 19 (+$ 3 for gratuity) just seems steep for the quality of beer and food that I got.
The service was nice, though, which is why it got 2 stars. Won’t be coming here again.

They don’t really brew much of their own, so don’t go out of your way to add this to your tasting rooom stops on a beer tour. But they do have several good guest drafts. Not sure why this place doesn’t get higher reviews. I went in with low expectations and this place exceded that. Go here for the beer, and you will be somewhat happy.
The food is what you would expect from a bar, nothing fancy, but the chicken wings are good as was the chicken tortilla soup.

We came here with a deal and well we didn’t really expect much. I wish I remember our waitress name because although it was pretty busy she was very tentative.
We have two tasting flights and so we just opt for everything they had. The only thing that I didn’t like was the fact that they didn’t have any of their own brews. WTH, Thats our whole reasoning for coming to this place is to try something different.
The food was not too shabby, enjoyed the wings.
Overall I wouldn’t really come back here just to drink brews I can get locally.

I did a balance– 5 stars for the beer and 2 stars for the food.
You come here for the unique and delicious beer and split an app, but don’t expect to have a delicious meal. It’s bar food but not done the best. It’s ok… But nothing to wrote home about

Dinner 9−20−12
THE GOOD:
Fun and friendly atmosphere, the outside patio seating is pet friendly!
THE BAD:
Not so stellar beer selection & service started out great but really fizzled at the end.
THE LOWDOWN:
In SD for a good friends wedding and decided to try this place as its close to our hotel. They had a ton of TV’s so we could watch baseball and thursday night football. Out on the patio they were having a big get together/​fundraiser for dogs, so there were tons of dogs and their persons with them.
For being a small place they did a great job serving up a fun little atmosphere to accommodate everyone! The one big gripe is the beer selection was severely lacking. All beers were pretty aggressive beers no real good session beer that we could have many multiples of and still function normally. In the end the service and beer selection made this a run of the mill place but pick up one of those and this place would be on its way to a rockin lil’joint.

Came here with a groupon to celebrate my sister’s graduation from UCI. They gave us a flight of beer and an appetizer plate and a brewery tour.
The beer was okay, the appetizer was okay, and the brewery tour was okay. Nothing really stood out and I certainly wouldn’t go back again.
The only thing that was pretty cool was that they are dog friendly and I give props to any place that lets me hang with my puppy =)

My first experience here was for a private party. The private room had its own bar, and they even made a special drink menu for us. The food and service were both great.
We decided to go back upon purchasing a Living Social deal. Great experience and great value. The burgers were delicious, the server was great, and the beer was delicious. The bar had a good balance of local and non-​local beers. We are planning on trying out their trivia night soon.

We went here on a deal from Groupon, since we don’t get out too much in La Jolla (or as I like to call it, Newport Beach of the 858). The place is cute, it’s not that big. I loved that they had a local selection of beers.~ I think that’s one of the things I love about SD. There’s so many local choices, and why not support local?~
The service was excellent. Our server reminded me of Spiccoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. If he had said, «No shirt, no shoes, no dice» I would have lost it! The manager walked around and talked to everyone and even sat down at a few tables to get to know the customers.
We both ordered burgers, fries, and beers. The food was good but wasn’t spectacular. I wish they had a special sauce or something. The burger was juicy but didn’t stand out. I liked that their menu wasn’t complicated. It wasn’t like 4 pages long so even if I contractually obligated by the terms of the deal to get the burger I wouldn’t have needed an hour to get through the menu to order something.

Like many of the other reviewers, I came here with an online deal for burgers and beers. We happened to come here on 4/​20, and they were running a promotion on hemp brew pint glasses (buy a beer, get a glass) and showing Half-​Baked on the patio, so that was some extra entertainment.
Dogs are also allowed on the patio, so be prepared for that.
The burgers were great. I ate my whole burger, which I hardly ever do. I had the Western. I also tried a few beers, the Mendocino Amber was very good.
It was a bit busy, but we didn’t feel ignored at any time.
They have a very small parking lot (that we happened to get a spot in!) but otherwise, it’s the usual La Jolla street parking hunt.

It’s aiight. I got a LivingSocial deal here for 2 Burgers, 2 Fries & 2 Beers for $ 18. Sounds like a great deal, right? When we arrived, their registers were down and were only able to take cash. Super unfortunate! BUT, i told them I brought the printed version of my LivingSocial deal and said they could make it work. Turns out it was technically for $ 36 worth of food and the fries came standard with the burgers so I didn’t really take the deal seriously. I still had to pay on top of the $ 36 because we went over… well the deal should of taken care of it, right? Whatever!
The food isn’t even all the impressive. I went on fat Tuesday hoping to get my grub on before Lent and I wasn’t satisfied with my feast. I got a regular hamburger and it was just bland. it’s just that, a regular hamburger.
Tuesday is also trivia nights at La Jolla Brew House. 10 questions, get most correct, you get prizes. Well since it was my first time, i didn’t expect all the questions to be so DAMN HARD!!! They were definitely smart people questions, I’m not an idiot or anything, but I don’t know all those answers. I did know Drew Barrymore’s character name in ET — ironically it was the WEIRDEST CORRECT GUESS! The guy tried to collect the sheets and give them to different groups to correct, but he gave ours back to us by accident. I didn’t let him know because I didn’t want anyone to see all these weird ass answers.

More like 2 ½
I got the livingsocial or groupon deal for this place and I’m still giving it a pretty low rating. That should say something…
Well, first off, it’s a brew house. What does that mean? They make their own beer right? WRONG. They didn’t make their own beer…
Second, my GF and I ordered burgers. I wanted mine rare to medium rare. It came out WELL DONE. NOT GOOD. The flavor of the food was very bland and didn’t have much to it at all. It was all too normal. The brownie a la mode was also not that great. I wouldn’t come here again. Especially without the livingsocial deal. ESPECIALLY at full price.
The only saving grace was our waitress, who was AWESOMELY nice.

Citizens, Unilocalers, Foodies, Do not go here!
People have tried to contact me via Unilocal,saying ridiculous things. I’ve blocked them.
I’m reporting all of it to Unilocal.This is America I DO NOT PLAY ANTI-​FREEDOM-​OF-​SPEECH and ANTI-​FREEDOM-​OF-​PRESS. I can write and say whatever I want. It’s a free country.
Customers deserve the right to know what they are going to get for their hard earned dollar. I did not serve my country to have someone tell me I cannot write a review on their establishment, freedom!!!

I came here to hang out with a few friends late at night (10pm is late for me) and it was fine.
Nothing special, but I don’t think they’re really going for special. Nice place to hang out and eat and grab a beer. I expected them to have a better selection but it was fine.
Basically, come here if you need a chill place to hang out, but it’s nothing special. I doubt I would come back here unless I was already in the area.
Good thing though: Happy Hour prices are pretty good!

I was really excited to use my Groupon for La Jolla Brew House because I knew they were very dog friendly. We sat on their patio and it wasn’t too bad. They have a TV outside, but they had what looked like some old soccer match on. Since we were outside (and were the only ones for awhile), it seemed like we didn’t get much attention from the wait staff. Service was slow, but the guy who was our server was very friendly and loved our dog. The food wasn’t that great though. The burgers were dry and overcooked (even though we ordered them medium-​rare).
I’ve been here for happy hour before without my dog and have had a good time, but that may be because I’ve had alcohol and been with friends and not so much the atmosphere. I’ve got mixed feelings about this place, but I think I’ll give them another try since the employees were so friendly and they are dog friendly, but I’ll probably only order drinks and not food.

Fruit flies.
The entire meal I was bobbing and weaving away from fruit flies.
On my beer — fruit flies.
Burger? Fruit flies!
There were even fruit flies ON the fruit flies!
I probably still have some fruit flies on me right now… and I bathe (semi-​regularly).
Now, I’m not necessarily against fruit flies. I used to live in a frat house. On purpose. And MAYBE… MAYBE if I had dinner in PB or OB… I could let this slide or think it was part of the experience.
But in La Jolla? Fruit flies?
I probably shouldn’t complain, though. At least the fruit flies paid attention to us. The waitstaff took FOREVER to acknowledge our existence even though we were one of the only tables in there. Perhaps they couldn’t see us through the fruit flies?
The burgers were decent… and once the waiter came over, he was accidentally amusing… but amusing never-​the-​less. My favorite quote had to be (and this is not made up):
«So, you could order three burgers with your Groupon. One is a normal burger. Another is that same burger, but you can get it with cheese. This is a cheeseburger. The cheeseburger has three choices of cheese. Or you can get a normal burger with cheese and also bacon. The choices of cheese are the same. This is the bacon cheeseburger.»
He was sooooooooo HIGH.
I definitely would not go out of my way to go to LJ Brew House… but with a little Simple Green, oh, I don’t know, after every meal and maybe during closing, at least it wouldn’t be a superfund site.

I haven’t been to La Jolla Brew House in years since I moved out of the area but remember the good times I used to drop in for a drink and some live music. There was a local Meetup group going down this evening and my buddy and I leapt at the opportunity to meet some new UX folks while throwing back a cold one.
I started off with a pint of their happy hour Hef and we ordered the giant pretzel and trio of sausages to share. The saltiness of the pretzel was a perfect compliment for my cold beer and the sausages were really tasty with the mustard and kraut. There are a few other dishes I really want to try and next time I’ll definitely get one of those pizzas I always loved back in the day.
More than even the food and brews that makes this place badass us how pet friendly they are. A few times a month, they hold what they call «Yappy Hours» where tons of people bring in their four-​legged friends to mix and mingle over some appetizers. There are even special dog appetizers too! If you’ve got a pet, this is one of the coolest places to bring them. I will definitely be back to experience it!
Food: ⁷⁄₁₀
Service: ⁸⁄₁₀
Price: $$
Atmosphere: ¹⁰⁄₁₀