Much like its older brother to the north, Toronado San Diego has great values on great beers. You can get vintage bottles for 1/4 of what they go for in the open market, barely marked up above their original sale price. You can get unbelievable fresh IPAs for under 6 dollars a pint. You can try rare draft only releases practically every day of the week. A rather depressing place, because I know it exists and I know I live thousands of miles away.

Stopped by the Toronado after a day at the San Diego Zoo. Although some questionable characters floating around the streets, once inside a beer nerd will feel at home. From the bar, you can see that their bottle selection is more than adequate carrying a wide variety of brews from Lost Abbey, Russian River, Hair of the Dog, Cascade, Deschutes, as well as an extensive international offering. The staff is knowledgeable and nice. Great specials - when we were there it was Local Drafts (which included all Southern Cali Brewers) for 3 bucks. Highly rec’

Fuck yes. Cable Car bottle, down the hatch. PtE pint, down the hatch. Bartender hooks me up with some freebies. Gotta love this place. Beer heaven. Beer fucking heaven.

wow! that is all I can say about this place....Great all across the board.

I love this place! Simple, to the point, and lively. A quickly morphing tap board. I especially love the memorabilia cases in the hallway out to the patio. Also, the cleanest bottle display I’ve yet seen in a bar- all lambics in a row, etc.

I visited here this past Monday afternoon with my brother. Ambiance was great. Dimly lit with dollar bills stuck to the ceiling. All their taps in the corner on the wall in 2 rows with the tap handles on the actual taps.

The bartender and the owner were in. The bar keep also worked for Port and was very knowledgeable about beer and the local beer scene. We had a great conversation while we all shared a Cable Car. Service was top notch. I hated dropping almost $60 for a bottle of beer. But being only a couple places on the planet where you can walk in anytime and buy a bottle it was worth every penny. I wish more places did this.

Overall a great place with amazing taps and bottles. Great service and value. One of my favorite stops of the trip.

Excellent service. I was introduced to Alpine Duet here. Not as cozy as Hamilton’s but is a great place to be.

It’s loud, it’s clean, it’s got a great selection of beers easy to see from the display cases and awesome cabinetry. Best part is it’s within walking distance of my place. They will kick ya butts out exactly at 12am. In their lease, don’t bitch. I wish their online tap selection/newsletter was more frequent/current, but hell, it’s a short walk to see what’s up anyway. I dig it.

Had a friend in town for the Stone Anniversary, so took him here on a Thurs night for some pre-anniversary party beer exploration. I know the service here has a reputation of being bleh, but the bartenders here that day were pretty awesome (I think it was Melanie and Eric). They really hooked it up. Ambience: kind of the avg beer bar. Nothing special. The crowd is the typical North Park early-mid 20’s crowd. Selection: Well, what can I say.. we got a 2010 Cable Car, a 2009 Cuvee De Tomme, Alpine Exponential Hoppiness paired with some Pure Hoppiness. And that’s only what I could remember off the top of my head. Value: Hard to put a good value on it, when this is the only beer bar selling some of this stuff :) Overall, great experience. Cable Car really makes it here :)

This was the 7th, and most anticipated stop during my San Diego Beer Week trip. For someone who has been to Toronado’s San Francisco sibling (See My Review), I was also looking forward seeing the comparison. San Diego’s version is housed behind a generic storefront situated in a bland retail section. (This North Park neighborhood is an obvious difference from Haight-Asbury district.) Toronado SD is much more modern, and being not quite the dive as San Francisco it is more inviting. It is a tad larger in size with a moderate sized bar amid a roomier venue decorated with a myriad of beer paraphernalia plastered and strewn about. While dimly lit, there was still enough natural light to allow one to make there way around. The self-serve water station was a pleasant touch. Much like the San Francisco venue, there is an excellent draft selection; there are about several dozen West Coast brews on tap, many of which unavailable outside the San Diego area – Alpine Brewing comes immediately to mind. And unlike, the aforementioned sister venue, this one offers food (for example, a delicious and filling Cajun sausage roll with potato salad). Top this all off with friendly and knowledgeable service and a great time is to be had by all. Then add moderate prices and one is most assuredly satisfied. Previous reviews mention the horrendous parking in this area; no worry, since the No. 2 Bus from downtown runs right past the front door. To coin the usual cliché: Toronado San Diego is a MUST when in town. (Sometimes clichés are simply the truth told over and over.) In any case, I loved this place!