Beer Fest 2012

As I stare at the Bruery pin on my purse and think back to Beer Fest 2012, I feel a little guilty.  First of all, I’m drinking tea and not beer as I write this, which seems a little sacrilegious, but also, I’m almost two weeks late on this recap.  To be fair, today is the first real fall day in Los Angeles, and though a good pumpkin ale is equivalent company, a nice cup of hot tea really pairs well with the ominous rolling black clouds in the distance.  In terms of the lateness of this post, however, there was a lot to process.  Looking back, I tried almost 35 beers and that was with a food break in between.  I still haven’t even plugged them all into my Untappd list yet.

There were a few noticeable differences between this year’s fest and previous ones.  One major difference was the large amount of smaller local breweries, which is really due to the recent boom in breweries opening up in the Los Angeles Area.  San Diego, watch out!  Los Angeles is gaining a pretty heavy foothold.  I’ve only been out of the craft beer loop for about six months, but in that time the community has been hopping! (No pun intended.) This is including the exciting revamping of Angel City Brewery who was actively attending the Beer Fest celebrations all week long promoting their new beer and improved image.  (Their tap room is supposed to open in November, and I highly suggest you go for a visit, because if they keep this energy up, they are definitely going to be a brewery to keep watching!)

Because of this huge increase in the smaller and newer breweries, a few of the bigger established local breweries and some regular San Diego breweries weren’t at the fest.   And it did leave a little bit of a hole, as two of the breweries missing were The Lost Abbey/Port (one of my favorites) and Craftsman, who usually provides some really exciting sours, wild ales, and experimental fair.  Plus, selfishly, I was hoping they’d bring some Triple White Sage, as I missed out on it this year. 

Plus, some of the usual seasonals weren’t there.  Bootleggers Pumpkin Ale, which is still my absolute favorite pumpkin beer, wasn’t ready for the fest, and neither was The Bruery’s 5 Golden Rings. 

On the plus side, the food trucks in attendance this year were really exciting.  I was especially elated about the Boarder Grill truck, as their green corn tamals are freaking delish.  TAPS’ Pumpkin beer was very good, nice and light, but full of spices and pumpkin flavor which made me happy, and contrary to my beer fest cohorts, I actually kind of liked the prickly pear theme brew ingredient, though I think we all agreed that we would’ve preferred it be part of a brewery showdown event instead.

All in all, after a post beer fest discussion with my drinking partners (Kraemer, Amie, and JD) the determined highlights included:

-         Eagle Rocks Unity. It was pretty amazing this year.  Weighing in at about 3.5% abv and showcasing a very light, drinkable beer with a hint of prickly pear sweetness, it was the most refreshing beverage there.

-         After tasting the Angel City IPA following my Women’s Beer Forum Eureka tasting, I can earnestly say Angel City is doing some good things downtown.

-         Though only having been open for 6 months, we were all interested in seeing how Ouroburos Ales will be progressing in the next year as both of their Fest offerings sparked our curiosity.

-         Telegraph’s Prime Meridian really blew us away. 

-         Cismontane, as per usual, brought a good selection and continues to impress us.  We had their Saison, Double IPA and the Bourbon Barrel… which, after a string of unbalanced Bourbon Barrel aged beer lately, was a very welcome addition.

-         Though I wasn’t able to have the 5 Golden Rings, I did imbibe on The Bruery’s Smoking Wood, which was interesting.  It’s definitely smoky with a nice sweetness to the malt that I would be interested in aging just a little bit for a summer 2013 camping trip.

-         The Ommegang Harvest Ale and the TAPS pumpkin were both nice, pleasant seasonal options.  

-         Monkish is another brewery to keep an eye on.  Their prickly pear contribution was the Sueno de Los Angeles, and it was fantastical.  After trying that and their Feminist, I can’t wait to visit these guys soon.  I’d love to be able to taste their whole line up!

LA beer scene feels like it’s about to erupt into new directions, with more care, innovation, specialization than we’ve seen yet.  I cannot wait for the coming months, to see where our beer scene goes.

So, in no particular order here is the tasted list, as I can read it… drinking plus writing equals gibberish (the stars are for ones we recommend seeking out):

Eagle Rock Brewery – Unity 2012 *

Eagle Rock Brewery – Unionist *

Brävery Brewing – Pineapple Boo (interesting and surprisingly light and refreshing)

Angel City Brewery – IPA

Ouroboros Ales – Old Bar Brown

Ouroboros Ales – Purple Iris IPA

Kinetic Brewery – Potential Blonde

Kinetic Brewery – Ignition Pale

Kinetic Brewery – Prickly Saison

Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co. – Porter

Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co –  Paradise Road Pilsner

Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co – Hurricane Deck Double IPA

Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co – Black Ale

Telegraph Brewing Co – Prime Meridian *

Telegraph Brewing Co – Bourbon Barrel Porter

Dogfish Head – Punkin

Sam Adams - Pumpkin

Cismontane Brewing Co – Session Saison *

Cismontane Brewing Co – Double Rainbow IPA

Cismontane Brewing Co – Blacks Nocturne *

Great Divide – Rumble

Smog City – LA Saison *

Smog City – Weird Beer

Evans – Lager

The Bruery – Smoking Wood

Ommegang Brewery - Harvest Ale *

TAPS - Pumpkin Ale *

Monkish Brewery – Sueno de Los Angeles *

Monkish Brewery – Anomaly *

Ohana Brewing Co – Saison Dubach

Ohana Brewing Co – Accomplice

Browerij West – Tripel

Haven Brewing – IPA

Haven Brewing  – Double IPA

Bear Republic Brewing Co – Racer 15 *

Needless to say, there was a lot of drinking and we were incredibly happy to be able to take the train. 

Can wait for next year! Only 354 more days left.

Quote of the day:  “Beer should not be like an M. Night Shymalan movie, nothing but the twist at the end.”

Sunday Afternoon Ladies Beer Society

Being a beer nerd, I go to a lot of bars. Friends are always invited along, but there are times I have to venture out on my own.   It basically comes with the beer obsessed territory.  I mean, I can buy as many bottles from different places as I want to enjoy in the privacy of my own home, but some breweries don’t sell their beer in stores and some only offer bottles of their flagship ales.  By solely buying bottles I miss out on specialty beers, once in a lifetime kegs, and, hell, the conversations and education you get by talking to your local bartenders and fellow beer geeks.  If I stayed home, only went out with friends, or just bought bottles, I’d miss out on some of the best brews.

The problem is that I’m a girl.  And hanging out at bars by myself without getting hit on by guys, weirded out by drunken crazies (generally more guys), or sometimes beer coddled (servers suggesting fruity “girly” beers to me instead of beers I like based only on the fact that I am a woman) is unfortunately hard to do.  On several occasions, I’ve glanced around my local watering hole and wondered as I very poignantly sipped my Belgian quad or double IPA, where are the cool beer drinking ladies?  I need some beer guzzling girlfriends who are ready to protect each other from weirdos, fight bar serving stereotypes, and enjoy quality beer. 

Then it hit me, what if I attempted to gather all of the awesome women I knew to hang out at a cool bar with me for three hours one Sunday each month?  Three hours of beer drinking with a bunch of ladies who like drinking beer?!  Eureka!

Thus, the Sunday Afternoon Ladies’ Beer Society was born. 

If you are a lady who likes drinking beer on a lazy Sunday afternoon, and you find the idea of drinking that Sunday afternoon beer with a bunch of other ladies who also like drinking beer on Sunday afternoons for three hours pretty awesome, you should come hang out with us!!!

1^st official meeting is this Sunday, Oct. 14^th at Blue Palms Brewhouse.  Swing by any time between 1pm and 4pm. 

Check out my event page here.

Hope to see you there!

B.   

Ting in a Documentary?

Just wanted to share this link with you all. 

Ting Su, as I have posted before, is the co-owner of Eagle Rock Brewery and leads the Eagle Rock Brewery Women's Beer Forum every 3rd Wednesday of the month.  There is a documentary out about her, and since it is both short and interesting, it is definitely worth your time to check out.   I will even make it easy on you by posting it on here.  So, grab a beer and enjoy! :)

Beer and ice cream?

With the Beer Float Showdown just a couple days away, I’d like to take a moment and discuss what so many people seem to cringe at:  the combination of beer and ice cream. 

Beer and ice cream coming together to form a blissful taste sensation is not actually a new thing. And considering how many people LOVE coffee ice cream (which is essentially, like beer, a rather bitter taste smoothed over by the creamy sugar goodness that is ice cream), it shouldn’t necessarily be a foreign thing either.  But, I get it. you don’t generally sit down with a cold one while you are eating a chocolate dipped cone, and if you are only familiar with major brewery fare, you probably can’t stomach the idea of making your MGD taste like vanilla bean. I’m gonna be honest with you, I couldn’t either.  With the boom of craft beer, however, and the multitude of flavor palates that come with it, there shouldn’t be a surprise when someone thinks to put these two radically changeable items together.

The first time I tried anything involving beer and ice cream, it was at my first LA Beer Fest.  Scoops came up with a hefeweizen sorbet and Guinness and chocolate ice cream.  Knowing Scoops’ reputation for interesting flavored gelato, and the delicious outcome of their experimentation allowed me to be bold and taste both.  Unsurprisingly, the Guinness was my favorite, but both were delicious.  In fact, Guinness and Chocolate is one of my favorite Scoops flavors to this day. 

A few years later, The Golden State opened up on Fairfax, boasting delicious beer floats made with, you guessed it, Scoops ice cream.  One nice summer day, John and I decided to take a walk and check it out.  They made a float with Old Speckled Hen and Brown Bread ice cream… It fascinated me.  The pairing worked really well, in that the Brown Bread brought out a breadiness to the bitter beer that balanced each taste out incredibly well.  I think that my only objection to it was that the beer to ice cream ratio needed to be adjusted so that you had equal parts beer and ice cream in each bite.  However, as any fan of root beer floats can attest, this is hard to do, as the ice cream melts and the law of displacement doesn’t exactly allow for the right quantities of liquid to ice cream upon initial serving. 

Once I tasted the glory that was beer floats, conversation would always drift in that direction depending on what was being consumed.  I’d taste a new double and think that it would be great paired with Chai ice cream, or I’d eat a cucumber sorbet and wonder what it would be like with a koelsch. The purchase of a small pint of Guinness ice cream from the Carmela truck at the farmer’s market influenced my birthday treat last year:  Guinness ice cream with Rogue’s Chocolate Stout. 

Yes.  It was fantastical.

This year, Scoops is once again making beer ice cream for LA Beer Week, and I suggest you go as soon as possible while you still have a few days left.  The ones I picked up were: Pistachio Hefeweizen and Raisin Saison… after I was politely carded by the scooper.

The Pistachio Hefeweizen is excellent.  The sweet yeasty notes of the Hef combine nicely with the nuttiness of the Pistachio, and all of it makes sense in the sweet, creamy form of ice cream.  Fantastic balance in all of the flavors makes this one the ultimately my favorite of the two.  Though, I still love my Guinness and Chocolate the best.

Initially, I fell in love with the Raisin Saison.  I think, because such a bright, refreshing summer beer makes sense to be in an ice cream, which is a bright, refreshing, summer food.  The beer flavor is big in this one, and at the end it lost to the Pistachio Hefeweizen only because I wanted a little more raisin and, as much as it pains me to say it, a smidge a little less Saison.

Need some excuses to start your delicious beer and ice cream journey? 

If you want to ease into your foray of bittersweet goodness, all three Scoops locations will be serving various beer flavored ice cream for the rest of beer week.  The price of each cup is $2.50, and that includes two scoops of anything you want. Mix and match!

However, if you want to immerse yourself in this new found flavor adventure, you could make a day of it and head over to Golden Road Brewery on Saturday, September 29^th to experience the 4^th annual Beer Float Showdown.  $35 gets you five teams, five floats, and five different ways to figure out if this crazy food mash up is for you!

If you aren’t from the area, go out and experiment! Then, come back and share your findings with us, because, seriously, ice cream and beer?  It’s one of the best ideas since sliced bread.

 

 

Oktoberfest OR after Four Liters of Beer, I Still Might Be Drunk?

Sunday was a rough day.  There were a lot of naps, quite a bit of rehydrating, and that constant nagging feeling you get when you can’t quite remember what happened the night before.  What I do recall is the beer came only in liters and I may have done the Chicken Dance a half dozen times. 

In other words, I had a fantastic first day of Oktoberfest, and it was all thanks to one of my favorite local watering holes, Wirtshaus. 

Wirtshaus is located on LaBrea about a block north of Beverly.  They feature traditional German cuisine and host a very long list of German beer.  All of it housed within a small bar that fuses modern, natural decor with casual biergarten flair. 

It is no secret that I love German food and German culture.  I took German for four years in high school prompted initially by the false assumption that my family was a quarter German.  We have since found that fraction might be a bit high, but you will hear no regrets in terms of my Deutchcentric education.  Unable to continue that schooling due to scheduling problems in college, I instead took a one credit German cooking class that did not require an added language lab, where I fell in love with their traditional cuisine.  Every Wednesday, I would starve myself just to have room for all the delicious incredibly filling food we’d be consuming that night.  And I would still barely make it back home before passing out in the bliss of German food coma. 

For awhile, the only German food I could get was the stuff I made myself-- Recipes from class, and ones I collected through the family and friends.  Even then, sometimes it was difficult to find the right ingredients depending on where I lived.  Just as I still yearn to find a good Polish restaurant in town, I also wanted an awesome German restaurant… one that understood how German food is much more than bratwursts and beer.  How lucky I was when one opened up within walking distance from my apartment.

My first meal at Wirtshaus was their WeiBwurst mit Sauerkraut and a side of Gurkensalat.  I prefaced it with their traditional Bavarian pretzel.   There are really no words to describe what level of food heaven I reached after this feast, but no matter the delectable semantics, the point was definitely made.  Great beer, great food, great atmosphere conveniently located in my neighborhood…. Not only do I recommend this spot to all of my friends, the recent addition of Kasespätzel to the menu has made these guys my culinary heroes. 

Needless to say, as soon as they announced their Oktoberfest events, I made plans to go.  That excitement was shared by JD, so just after 3PM on Saturday, we were in the midst of Oktoberfest madness tucked just away from the thrilling new LaBrea construction.  Unable to find a place to sit, John and I weaved our way through lederhosen clad staff and happy beer drinking patrons, past the accordion player, and around eager newcomers to find a safe spot to stand.  We ordered our liters of Erdinger Oktoberfest, just in time for a rousing rendition of “In München Steht ein Hofbräuhaus” courtesy of the Wirtshaus special guest, Prinz Frederic von Anhalt.

The day wore on into the night with more drinking and chatting with new and familiar patrons.  We ate elk sausage and pretzels with this amazing cheese with dill in it, drank liters of beer, and wearily walked/weaved our sleepy selves home.

Wirtshaus will be celebrating Oktoberfest from now until October 20^th every Thursday, Friday and Saturday with live German music.  Carnivore or Vegetarian, Beer drinker or hardcore foodie grab your trachten hat, brush up on your Schnitzelbank, and check out what these guys have to offer!

What I remember drinking:

Erdinger Oktoberfest WeiBbräu

Stats: 

Type: WeiBbier

            ABV: 5.7%
            Source: Tap

The pour was a little hazy with a nice white foamy head.   It’s  a nice, light, sweet beer with plenty of carbonation to keep you drinking liters without feeling completely gross.  It’s easy to drink, lightly fruity (kind of apple-y), and has a bit of a sweet wheat tastes that pairs nicely with the fruitiness. 

I wish I could be more thorough, but I drank quite a bit of it, so my recollection is not what it usually is, and I totally failed to take beer notes.   I guess I was too caught up in the spirit of the celebration.

Happy Oktoberfest Everyone!!!!

Today is the first day of Oktoberfest.  It's an annual celebration/fair that stems from when Prince Ludwig married Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen in October of 1810.  As the years have gone on, it has progressed into a 16 day long celebration starting in late September and lasts until the first Sunday in October.  Essentially, though most people in the US believe it is a celebration in October, it is instead a celebration that rings in October with plenty of beer, delicious traditional German food, and a ton of lederhosen. 

In honor of this celebration, bars around the country are hosting festivities which you should definitely check out, especially if you are a beer fan, as German breweries produce special types of beers specifically for the fest including Marzens.  Which is a toasty, darker, full bodied beer that was traditionally brewed in March and then lagered in cool caves until the fall. 

This year, Oktoberfest lies within LA Beer Week, which basically means, here in Los Angeles at least, you have double the excuse to drink a crap load of tasty beer. 

In a few minutes, I'll be checking out the celebration at the Wirtshaus on LaBrea for the opening day celebrations.  So, I must get ready!  But I leave you with this fantastic video... it's the only drinking song I learned in German class, so enjoy!

Prost!

B.

Happy LA Beer Week, Everyone!

Hello to All:

I started this page, because I love beer and I love writing, and combining the two seemed like the best possible thing to do at the time.  I have since slacked off enormously on all counts of my intent.  There's been a lack of writing, beer drinking, and definitely writing about beer drinking.  In short, we can call it what it is:  a life crisis.  But that ends now... because, damn it, I still love beer, and I still love writing, and there is no reason I can't hook those two things back up with a vengence. That being said...

Today is the first day of LA Beer Week... one of my favorite times of the year.  As LA's beer community grows and grows, so, too, does our beer celebration.  There are a ton of amazing events being put on by local bars, restaurants, beer stores, breweries, and homebrew clubs in and around LA and Orange Counties, and all of it is centered not around the belief that all beer is good, but that beer made with care tastes better.  The people that organize this event work tirelessly to put on one pretty amazing 11 day long party, and you should definitely try to check it out.

The highlight of this brew filled week will be the LA Beer Fest at Union Station on September 30th.  For $50.00, you can try a plethora of different beers from the LA area, California, and beyond.  The venue is beautiful, transportation is easy (take the train!), and the beers are so worth it.  Make sure, if you can't make it out for ANYthing else, you get yourself to the fest.  After attending Eagle Rock Brewery's Women's Beer Forum last night, I can assuredly say that there will be some awesome beers to check out this year, and, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I am REALLY digging this year's Unity. 

So, do me a big favor.  Put down the Michalob Ultra, Miller Lite with the Vortex bottle, Bud Light Lime, or Cold Activated Coors in your hand, get yourself to the liquor store and buy a bottle or two of a California craft beer.  Pour it in a glass... and take a moment to smell it.  Once you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, pour a little out for your craft brew homies, and then take a sip. 

Welcome to Beer Week... it's gonna be a tasty ride. 

B.

P.S.  You might want to clean up that beer you spilled on the floor... you'll get ants.