May 20, 2012
great small brewery to visit. it is in a industrial area, nice lil tasting room, with great beers on tap.

May 16, 2012
I have not been down since the remodel but I always liked the simple, matter-of-fact setting with world class beer on offer. Always a favorite stop. If you can line up your visit with a special tap release like the speedway variants it is really amazing.

April 20, 2012
Rating this as a "tasting room’ rather than a bar, etc. First, the ambiance is horrible but forgivable because it’s literally the front room of the brewery and they’re not trying to provide a place for customers to get drunk and so on. The service is great, very personable staff. The selection is limited to AleSmith beers but since many of them are world-class, I cannot fault the selection. Look out for special one-offs of Speedway and aged versions of their others. You might only ever get them at AleSmith. Also: pours are only $1-2. Amazing value.

April 12, 2012
I love this place. I’ve been going here for almost four years since it looked like a shack with some barrels inside. I hate the remodel, but theres still a lot of great beer in this spot. Normally, I found the service to be pretty good, but the last few times, a felt a bit unattended to. However, it is very forgivable, since you are around (obviously) the best selection of Alesmith beers, which are always great to drink. Speedweay stout, wee heavy, and summer yulesmith are my favorites.

March 25, 2012
So here’s the deal, Alesmith is still putting the final touches on renovations on this place and while it looks much better and has a cool vibe some basic stuff is still lacking. The staff was really cool and helpful but all the tasters were in plastic cups and there wasn’t as much space and I would have liked.

March 19, 2012
Small, unassuming place located on a typical out of town business park. Took probably about 20 minutes to drive there from downtown SD, so not bad at all. About 15 taps offering the full range of Alesmith and some seasonals. Highlight was Decadence 2011 on keg and cask. $1 for a taster is great value. Ambience was so-so, but we were there during the day mid-week. They had a small amount of merchandise on offer as well. It’s obvious that this place is all about the beer and not necessarily about aesthetics. It’s great beer, so who can complain?

February 11, 2012
First visit to the brewery for almost 4 years. The tap room has obviously been completely redone. It’s still very minimalist, which I actually enjoy. Located in a commercial strip with Bare concrete floors with barrels serving as cocktail tables. We were brewery hopping the area, so the $1 tasters were amazing and allowed us each to try several beers. The servers were awesome. . They have great prices on their kegs as well. I need to figure out how to move to SD.

January 1, 2012
Just a small indescript wall with some taps...had Nautical and Lil Devil which was a plus. Great to see where the best beer in the world is made but the location and experience wasn’t anything to write home about.

December 19, 2011
They are working on renovating the tasting room with massive upgrades. We were lucky enough to meet one of the brewers at Hamilton’s prior to going who offered us a tour and to stop on by. He was very nice and did an excellent job on portraying how awesome those that work at Ale Smith are and how great of a job Peter does in selecting those that work there. I loved the facility. I found a lot of what I saw to be brilliant and the information provided in detail about their process was very fascinating and appreciated. The experience gave me an even greater sense for what Ale Smith is about. Ever greater is that we had the opportunity to chat with Peter Zien. He came out afar to sign out San Diego best breweries book and on top of that spent about 25 minutes just talking. At that time he was also chatting with the author of that book. We were able to talk with him as well. I am guessing we got a bit lucky with our visit, but it was a great and we will continue to drop in to Ale Smith when we visit CA.

September 22, 2011
Very nice bartenders. Cheap one dollar four ounce sample pours. An excellent way to try great beer for very cheap. Also close to Green Flash Brewery.