Barrel Harbor Brewing

For newer brewery in a town full of breweries, this one tops the list! All beers are tasty; does not disappoint. Try the Thunderclap, Balck IPA, and Blunder Buss! Deserves more than 5 stars.

Perfect vibe. Black IPA (7.6% ABV) nicely balanced. Extremely cute and pleasant, highly elope-​able bar maids. Oldies piped-​in overhead. And how cool is that gnarly cephalopod mascot/​logo? I love it and them!

Greatest IPA (Fenris), best Pilsner. Great team behind the bar. I always feel so welcome! Thank you, Tim ans Taylor!
Claudia aka. Germanchick

Good selection, helpful staff and good beers! We had a flight of beer, all were good. When we were selecting the flight, the server was extremely helpful-​giving us sound advice. We enjoyed the tasty selection. We certainly will be returning soon!!!

Had one of their beers at a restaurant in Oceanside. Woke up on Sunday to drive back home and we both looked at each other and knew what had to happen. A 30-​minute detour to Vista to try more of their beers to see if they were as great as the one we had. After a flight, our suspicions were confirmed. They make damn good beer.
7 bucks for 4 tasters. We went: pilsner, Sirin pale ale, Fenris IPA, and Little Nugget IPA. All were great. A pint of each would make me a happy man. If I had to pick one, the Fenris IPA was my favorite. No wait, the pilsner. Well, I really like the pale ale. Forget it, they’re all good. We sat at the bar which wraps around the taps. The closer I am to those, the better. Board games are available if you plan on spending the evening. One TV if you want to watch a game. Nice people behind the bar if you just want to talk.
Their logo is pretty solid. She left with a shirt. I left with a tank. I find myself becoming a walking beer sign as I get older. From hats to tops and if they start selling shorts, I’ll probably sport those too.
We’ll miss you Barrel Harbor until we can be together again.

Hard to find and out a the beer we wanted but still a good spot! Slow at first but filled up quick. Fun spot!

This place is a great little brewery residing in an industrial complex. First time I have ever had a red ale on nitro, it was fantastic. Great selection of brewskies for a little place. Intimate environment. Veteran owned and you will most likely find the owner behind the counter serving brews. There wasn’t a good truck when I went but it’s super easy to just order a delivery pizza and salad. Dog friendly!
They also have a pretty awesome logo. I just had to grab a shirt.

Other than the fact that this place is near IMPOSSIBLE to find (like many of the hidden breweries in the business park area in vista), its rather enjoyable :) Just turn in where your GPS tells you, and circle the building… you’ll see it.
Whether you like strong IPAs or a smooth Belgian, Barrel Harbor seems to have a little bit of everything. Which seems rare these days with the places that only have double and triple IPA’s… great for a happy hour or group of people with different beer tastes!

Lots of interesting beers.
Belgian beers are done very nicely.
Most if not all their IPAs have a tropical hop profile, not pungently bitter.
Most their beers share very pleasant and somewhat creamy body and mouthfeel.
Definitely worth checking out along Hop Highway!

Crowded but forgettable lower quality beer tasting room
Sort of pirate themed, interior is similar to 90% of breweries I’ve visited so if pretty forgettable. Staff was friendly, people there were lively and having fun, symbiotic food truck was a big bonus and he was serving up some seriously good BBQ that we all woofed down. Lots of house beers on tap, 10 – 12, plus some casks or I guess nitro. Quality though was below par with some beers okay and some that were not very good. Overall, I cannot really recommend this place.

Another solid brewery for Vista. The beers are all good but nothing that I will die without. With some many good places I need to be loving the beer in order to make this a regular spot on my rotation. As I said, I liked the beers and would be happy to come back but wouldn’t be a regular. Nothing stood out to me. The service and employees however are good. Nice people who know what they are talking about. I also like the fun theme and décor.

Cute sailor/​pirate theme. Dog friendly. Flights 4 for $ 7
The beers here are good. Got a flight I tried
BH red ale
fenris ale
Blunderbuss Belgian blonde
BH ipa

Was visiting the «Beermuda Triangle» in Vista and stopped in to Barrel Harbor and was pleasantly surprised. I have been here once before, but found a wide range of beers to sample on this trip. I enjoyed the Pale Ale. It was hoppy, and ABV was below 6. IPA was of course great. Tim the owner/​head brewer was pleasant and spent 30 minutes talking history of the brewery and sharing a drink with us. This is a small nano brewery, with free flowing pretzels. Open and airy with plenty of parking. A fun stop whenever in the area.

These beers are unique. I can’t say that they are the types of beers that I would choose to drink, but they were fun to taste. There was a great selection and the flight of tasters was a good value.
I liked that there were board games available to play while we sipped beers. We didn’t order anything other than our flights, but it was enough to get us through a game of Simpsons chess. I can’t say that I would go back to this brewery seeing as how it’s so far from me and I also can’t say that I would order any of their beers if I had the option. Nothing really stood out to me as something I would regularly drink.
If you’re looking to try some unique beers with interesting favors, this is the place to go. It’s a chill spot that wasn’t too busy and the servers seem a little bored, so maybe chat them up.

This place wasn’t even originally on my list for the Great Northern San Diego Brewery Crawl of 2014, but my friend saw a guy wearing one of their cool t-​shirts and it ended up being our 4^th stop. Yes, dear reader, sometimes we can really be just shallow bastards. We went for the t-​shirt, but stayed for the beer! First of all, this place had character. Even though it’s in a space in an industrial park like all the other breweries, they kind of did it up nice inside, and it felt more like a cozy pub than an industrial brewery tasting room. Second of all, they weren’t all style over substance; their beers were notably great. We tried a few different beers, but they had a stout I liked enough to invest in my first growler (a small one, but still)! It was on nitro so I was instructed to drink it within the next few days, which didn’t turn out to be a problem, lol. The woman who was serving us was awesome and we had a lot of fun chatting and joking around with her. AND we did end up walking out with some glasses, a t-​shirt, and a hoodie. Never underestimate the power of good design!
STEPH JUDGEMENT: Awesome beers, awesome people, awesome logo.

Great beer!
I’ve been here a few times, both my boyfriend and I and I never leave unhappy. There’s not one beer I don’t like and for me, while I like beer I can’t always like everything or drink everything and coming here, every beer is good, delicious and smooth– very easy to drink.
Their logo is pretty sweet also, especially since my boyfriend and I have nicknames involving squid (I know we’re weird) this seems to be our spot lol. I always get the red ale, which to me is my favorite since I love reds. Another one I just tried was the Porter on nitro (they only serve it on nitro by the way) which I love! And they just released their new bottles beer which you have to try called thunder clap I believe, it’s a barrel aged Imperial stout– heavy in alcohol (12%) but easy and sweet on the tongue.
If you come in, go say hi to Denny. He’s the man– always friendly and almost always there! (:

We were looking for new breweries and discovered Barrel Harbor Brewing. Like most other breweries it’s in a business park and after several right turns (at least it felt that way) we finally found it. I immediately noticed and loved the nautical theme when we walked in. We went on a Saturday afternoon and there wasn’t really anyone in. Lucky for us we were able to walk right up to the bar to grab a couple seats.
We had a flight so we try could a little of everything. As I started tasting everything the only one that kinda stood out to me was the Brown. This could and should definitely be the beer they’re known for. Everything else was just ok and I don’t think anything else stood out. The service was meh. There was an older woman and an older gentleman working and the woman was pretty friendly. The gentleman seemed like he couldn’t be bothered. Whatevs.

We came here when this place was brand new! Literally, they had just opened their doors.
The guys behind the counters are really nice and will answer any questions you may have. I, at the time, was working on branding something and picked their brain on business structure and all things business related. Not annoyed one bit!
It’s in a warehouse, spacious, etc. Typical brewery setting.
We’d be back!

A spacious, spankin new brewery with some decent beers on tap.
We tried the Fenris IPA, Barrel Harbor IPA, Framboise, and King Gorm’s.
Our favorite was definitely the framboise, but Fenris was pretty solid as well.

You know if you ever wanted to start a brewery, putting up some stainless, decorate with some barrels and chairs, and brew your great beers, it would totally look like Barrel Harbor.
Danyell and Shawn took me here as our 2^nd beer stop and it did not disappoint. David Meadows, the head brewer here, does a great job. Solid beers, the Scandinavian Pilsner was refreshing. Even though I’m more of an IPA and Stout fan, I could totally drink this easily on a hot summer day. Heck, I would drink it on a cold or normal day as well!
I also had their black IPA and it was excellent too! Not quite nearly as good as my Wookey Jack but very close!
They also had some beers on Nitro. I didn’t get a chance to try them because it was towards the end of the night but I am definitely coming back !
At the end of the entrance was their Mishmash, a local «gourmet food» stand. We had some truffle fries to share. Excellent deal at $ 6 for over a pound of potatoes.
I’m happy to see more great beers popping up. I pretty much will need a whole week now in San Diego just to be able to try out all these new places.