My dear wife, Quarrygirl, says she loves only two things more than me: vegan food and beer. Bearing in mind she writes this blog, her standards for vegan food are stratospheric, and her increasingly sophisticated taste in beer (really brought to the forefront when she co-organized the world’s first Vegan Beer Festival) refines itself almost daily.

So, faced with the self-wrought challenge of choosing a perfect location for us to spend our 5th wedding anniversary, I wanted to find somewhere romantic and out-of-the-way that had awesome vegan beer AND really good vegan food, under the same roof. Close to home, I was considering Pure Luck and Tony’s Darts Away – two locations that firmly check the above boxes. However, there was one thing missing: Ms. Quarrygirl really likes freshly brewed beer and prefers to consume it at the point of manufacture – a brewery if possible.

Let’s examine each subject set closely:

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Stone Brewing is one of Southern California’s largest breweries, perhaps best known for its “Arrogant Bastard” brand, a beer which they say was named after me. If you’ve only ever had the Bastard, there are another 14 beers, each of which is expertly crafted and brewed. Oh, and the entire brewing process is 100% vegan so you can drink yourself silly with Stone products worry-free.

I’ve long been a fan of Stone IPA, one of the best American style hopped IPAs available, even though it can be a little on the strong side. This means that after your fifth glass you may not be able to stand up, a fact which I gladly verified recently. Gulp. On our recent trip to San Diego, we decided to detour slightly through Escondido so we could visit the brewery and dine in the restaurant, Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens, which we’d heard had a few vegan options.

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