Latest reviews from Menifee

“Visited May 1, 2015.

Stopped in on the way down to Temecula for the homebrew fest. As it turns out this is off the same exit from 215 as the other three places listed here in Menifee (Bevmo, BJs, and Beer Hunter), just on the other side of Newport Rd. Naturally it’s in a business park. When I pulled up on a Friday evening there was a food truck setting up and people were starting to arrive. Not super busy but they had a decent crowd. I sat at the bar. There are a few tables scattered around too.

There were a couple of servers in the place, most of which seemed to be new to serving beer but that’s fine. They were friendly and knew enough about the beer to answer a few questions. Another lady, who was presumably one of the owners, was also hanging out behind the bar and seemed to be much more knowledgeable. One thing I really wish bartenders in breweries would learn is to NOT fill the little taster glasses all the way up to the top. They always spill when they carry the tray over and thus always drip all over the place when picking up the taster glass. It’s really irritating. The beers are kind of average, which in this area means they’re in the top 10th percentile. They have proper stainless equipment (5 bbl I think I was told) but they seem to be fermenting in a fridge. I didn’t notice any off flavors, so there’s that. I think the coconut lime beer was my favorite of the bunch followed by the hefe.

I had an interesting conversation with one of the patrons about rattle snakes and training dogs to stay away from them. I guess he does training for dogs where they’ll get a rattle snake and cut the fangs down so the snake can’t poison anyone. From the sounds of it it’s not actually too cruel to the snake either since the teeth grow back within a week or two. Oh, and apparently there is more to the different kinds of rattle snakes than just the name and color. Some of them of the neurotoxin that shuts down the whole body (which is what I assumed all along) but some of them "only" have the localized venom that numbs the area that is bit. So not all rattlesnakes are deadly. Who knew. Certainly not me, and since I don’t know which is which I’ll continue to avoid them altogether.“

t0rin0 3309 days ago

“Visited June 14, 2014.

I didn’t even realize that this was here. I heard about the one in La Quinta (or somewhere out towards Palm Springs) and I’ve been to the one in Rancho Cucamonga (not in business anymore) but this caught me by surprise. It’s in a good location, in the middle of a large shopping center right off of highway 215. As you might imagine at 1130 am there weren’t a ton of people in the building, which means it’s much easier to get a beer. The problem is that there isn’t much to choose from. Actually, in the literal sense there is plenty to choose from but there isn’t much good to choose from. It’s essentially like the Yard House where they have a lot of mediocre taps. I’m still not sure what (if any) connection this place has/had to the beer hunter Michael Jackson but supposedly 10 years ago the original location had some awesome beer. I know that by 2007 or so the one I went to in Rancho was just a bro’d out sports bar serving crap for beer and catered to the Raider Nation selling mostly macros. Things don’t seem to have changed much. “

t0rin0 3623 days ago

“Visited June 14, 2014.

I didn’t even know this was here until I pulled in the parking lot to check out the Bevmo that I spotted while heading to San Diego the last time. Turns out there are actually three rateable places in this parking lot with the Beer Hunter being the third. As far as BJ’s restaurants go this is average, maybe slightly above average. The only real differentiating factor in my opinion is the guest tap selection since they all have the same food, same house beer, the same bottle selection, and are set up very similarly. Where as many of the locations have their 20-30 taps filled with junk like Guinness and Blue Moon these guys have mixed in a few good ones like Green Flash, Firestone, Stone, Bear Republic, Hangar 24, Anchor, and Sierra Nevada. Not an amazing selection by any stretch of the imagination as all the taps were the flagship beers by the aforementioned breweries and can be found at just about any bar, restaurant, pool hall, or gas station.

I had a glass of their new Brewmaster’s Reserve beer which was an imperial red ale. A style with a low ceiling for sure and this one was as expected: chalky and bitter with little actual hop flavor. Oh well. $5 wasn’t terrible for a specialty beer though it was in a fancy 10 oz glass. I guess if you live in the area there probably aren’t a lot of other places to get a good beer.“

t0rin0 3629 days ago