Earlier this month, the travel and tourism experts at SanDiego.com looked to find the best local breweries in San Diego. "With so many local breweries in San Diego we wanted to see who was doing it right," says Erica James, tourism expert and editor at SanDiego.com. "We wanted to see what made these breweries unique to create such deliciously crafted beers."

Pour me up a cold one! These San Diego local breweries are mixing things up, and putting the big time craft beers to shame. Using old fashioned techniques and special processes with fresh and unique ingredients, these beers just have something special that makes the mouth water.

Indian Joe Brewing - indianjoebrewing.com

Their logo, "Native owned. Native grown." says it all. The Brewery was named by its owner Max, after his Great Uncle Joe and his Native heritage. All of the fresh ingredients used to make the variety of beers at Indian Joes Brewery are local and native grown. Their beers are some of the most unique with a very wide variety, from a Blueberry Hefeweizen to a delicious Chai Stout, American Indian Pale Ale to an American Indian IPA, or even a Chocolate Hazelnut Porter. The atmosphere is extremely welcoming and fun. Another unique thing that Indian Joe Brewing does is they have a different local food cart that comes in each day to serve up some tasty grub!

Poor House Brewing Company - poorhousebrew.com

Poor House Brewing Company offers great local craft beers that they brew in-house with their "Breaking Bad" looking 3 barrel brewhouse operation. Everything was built and designed by founders Chris Finch and Alanna Scheer. The tasting room atmosphere has a very unique, unpretentious and rustic vibe. Many compliment this design, saying that it feels like drinking in a garage with best friends. The bartenders are all female craft beer geeks looking to share all things beer with guests. They harvest their own cascade hops right out the front doors which are in full bloom right now. They are currently using their own hops to 'fresh hop' their house IPA called Experimental Batch no. 6 IPA. On the 30th of every month, brewed exclusively for 30th street Chris makes a beer with 30 different hops called 30 Hop IPA which tends to be a favorite around the neighborhood. Other hyped house brews include: Clusterfukk IPA (single hop), Davy Jones Double Stout (imperial stout aged in rum barrels), Tournay (Belgian Ale aged in Chardonnay barrels for 1 year), Mr. Romoto coffee stout (stout brewed with cafe moto coffee beans).

Prohibition Brewing Company - prohibitionbrewingcompany.com

A craft brewery offering specialty brews, flavorful food and a casual atmosphere for guests to enjoy a brew. Prohibition Brewing Company Opened 2 years ago on 11/11/11 and ever since then they have been growing at a great rate alongside many other North County breweries. Offering many local favorites, as well as their own, including Hef U Up, Oatmeal Stout, Dirty Blonde, Pale Ale, Cali IPA, Ruby Red, SBA, and Black Double IPA.

Rip Current Brewing - ripcurrentbrewing.com

Starting out as home brewers, Rip Current Brewing is unmatched in San Diego for awards as a 3 time winner of Brewing Machine (top SD homebrewer, CA Homebrewer of the Year and Ninkasi award for Top Homebrewer in the World). They have a very broad range of award winning beers and their priority is variety and choice offering 15-20 different brews on tap, and a single tap that rotates daily offering a unique small batch beer. As homebrewers they learned the importance of water. Most breweries in town use the same water for all of their beers, but not Rip Current Brewing! With an in house water treatment center, each and every beer has its own grain/hop recipe as well as a water recipe. This has a great impact on the final taste of the beer.

PB Ale House - pbalehouse.com

A world class micro brewery and restaurant situated right near the beach in Pacific Beach, CA. Their handcrafted beers are brewed in house and on tap, also featuring other great beers on tap for patrons. The food is delicious, with a very friendly staff. PB Ale House has a wonderful rooftop open air bar area to sit down and appreciate the beautiful weather in San Diego while checking out the amazing views.

Lightning Brewery - lightningbrewery.com

Jim Crute, the owner of Lighting Brewery and a chemist, has been making beer since his college days in 1982. Now he has turned his passion into a career with some of the finest craft beers around. Over the years Jim has tried it all and has refined his craft with classic beer styles that master brewers have been calibrating for centuries. While other breweries may add taste and flavors in a speedy method by using additives, Lightning Brewery does it the old fashioned way by nature with time, with the most difficult fermentation and lagering processes. In just the 6 years that Lightning Brewery has been around they have won 30 nationally recognized beer awards, including a coveted Best in Show!

Grab your friends and head down to one of these six awesome breweries in San Diego. We suggest getting a flight and trying them all! Find out what type of beer is your favorite!

SanDiego.com is one of San Diego's oldest and busiest travel and tourism websites, known as the local authority for all things San Diego. The author of this article, Erica James, is a native San Diegan who truly believes that there is no place more fun and exciting than beautiful San Diego!