Beer history got another place to call a potentialhome as The Museum of Beer and Brewing opened on May 11, appropriately enough in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Historical Society spearheaded the effort and according to Gary Luther, the President Emeritus of the museum, “There is so much history in Milwaukee, not just related to great breweries like Schlitz, and Pabst, and Blatz, and Gettelman, and Miller, but also the entire industry…”
Other features include an oil painting from 1935 that shows the history of brewing and a beer hall of fame display.
The first weekend of L.A. Beer Week is in the books, here is my first thoughts of the festival in Long Beach along with some more picks of events to attend…
I started LABW early with a trip to Boomtown Brewery for the unveiling of the Unity 2024 Hoppy Pilsner. Which I have now reviewed for this blog.
Saturday was the big dance down at Shoreline Park in Long Beach. The weather was on point. Sunny and warm but breezes floating in off the water and plenty of shade. Nothing like drinking a beer and looking at the Queen Mary in the distance.
My goal was to taste the six breweries in Los Angeles County that I have not visited yet and I completed the task tasting beers from Brown Soul, Campsite, La Verne, Santa Cruz, Two Tracks Cellars and Beer Thug. I came away most impressed by Campsite and Beer Thug based on a small sample size but will attempt to visit each taproom.
I should recap my favorite beers. Tuscan Sun an Italian Pilsner poured from a cask at the Smog City tent was great. Space Cookie from Monkish was that weird cookie with hops thing that still works. Rounding out my top three was Aurora Lights by Brewjeria, a Belgian IPA.
This was my first time for the re-christened Los Angeles Independent Beer Fest and it ran smooth, I heard talk of long lines last year but this was very easy entry for me. The tent layout was mostly great though the Unity Beer should have been more front and center and having the food so far away that you couldn’t see multiple trucks was a bit weird. Minor quibbles though. This was a great way to kick-off the Beer Week.
Sunday was a slow day for me after the excess of Saturday. So I planned to visit a taproom that I found out was open when I saw their tent at the festival, Solarc Brewing. They have been open for eight months in Glassell Park on a hip block with Bub and Grandma and The Grant bar.
Inside there is a lot of tinfoil. Cool barndoors. Super bright and colorful and eclectic with a nice little outside seating nook that I was jealous another group had. There was quite a few people hanging on a lazy, hot Sunday..
Glasses are small canning jars. 5 beers on tap. Had the Earl, a tea pale ale which was only OK. I liked yesterday’s glassellager better. But it is a cool block of places to visit.
Time to start looking for the summer IPA from Institution Ale Co. This summer it is all about staying cool with Cryo Columbus, Cryo Citram Cryo Centennial and then some Mosaic.
L.A. Beer Week is underway and here are the photographic receipts to prove it…
beer at the lighthouseHPB was one of the first booths to sell outBenny & Teo from Crowns & Hopsfirst beer of the fest!Brown Soul was one of six new breweries I tried
You reach into a drawer and pull a fork out. Common place. No big deal. But did you know that the Catholic Church at one point banned the use of them? Obviously fork use leads to sin. That is just one fact from The Curious History of Your Home hosted by domestic historian Ruth Goodman.
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This is just a cool and fast paced jaunt through history via things in your home like the dishwasher or your cat and it is super fun and weird to see the evolution of wallpaper or coffee. Or specific to this blog, the May 27th episode about beer!
To pair with this podcast, you can go one of a couple routes. You could go historical beers. Find a Scotch Ale or a Witbier. Or you could go further down the rabbit hole and pair a beer to each specific episode. Gardening could you lead to a beer with say lavender or strawberry or other small garden items.
Since it is both L.A. Beer Week Month and Pride Month too, let’s jump into some happy hoppy IPAs brewed right here in the City of Angels.
Angel CityLGBTQI(P)A+ – 4.7% – “an easy-drinking session IPA designed with warm June days in mind – brewed with Nectaron and Nelson Sauvin hops exclusively in the boil and whirlpool, and double dry-hopped to boot. It has a super fruity and tropical aroma, tropical fruit flavor and a dry, easy finish.”
Arrow Lodge / Claremont Craft AlesAll the Mosaic – 7.5% – three different types of Mosaic hops fill this West Coast IPA collaboration.
Common SpaceDealer’s Choice Triple Hazy IPA – 10% – with notes of dried mango, orange Starburst and lime.
Boomtown Brewery tucked between the Arts District and Union Station is the Unity host for 2024. Unity being the Los Angeles County Brewers Guild collaborative beer for L.A. Beer Week.
The graffitied cans holds a hoppy pilsner and I both had it on draft and bought a four-pack as well because it is really good for the incipient L.A. summer.
The celebratory beer pours a straw color with light fruity hops being the predominant taste. I get both grape and orange. This almost tastes pale ale to me but the carbonation and the heft of the beer does keep it tethered to the lighter side of the ledger.
Last week this time, Smog City Brewing unveiled a new more charitable Gorilla.
Combining with Crowns & Hops and their 8 Trill Initiative and the mission of achieving racial equity in craft beer and supporting up and coming black owned breweries is….
“This colossal Double IPA draws inspiration from our OG ape Amarilla Gorilla, the 8 Trilla Gorilla turns everything up to eleven and beyond. A ferocious infusion of Strata, Simcoe, and Citra hops rampage out of your glass with every sip. Strap in and prepare for an onslaught of amazing grapefruit, passionfruit, and fresh resinous pine so fresh you’ll swear you’re drinking hops straight from the bine.”
Now here is a throwback beer for ya’. Little Beast Brewing has teamed with Funky Fauna from Sisters, Oregon, to create a Brett IPA. “Story Forest was primarily fermented with Chico ale yeast, then aged with Brettanomyces anomalus var. clausenii (widely called Brett C) for several months. To bring out more flavor, we dry-hopped it with Nectaron and HBC 586 to add the final touch to this new elixir.”
As, maybe?, promised. Here is my review of Aaron Goldfarb’s Dusty Booze.
By the time you reach the end of Dusty Booze, you will not at all be surprised that there are people who collect famous distillery water. Not a rare spirit, no, but vintage waters.
This fascinating look into one corner of the collectors niche has two things going for it. One is the through spine about a collection of liquor from an old Howard Hughes office that had sat untouched for years. Second is the inclusion of a how to or what to collect if you wanted to start “dusty hunting”.
Now I should go back and explain what that term means. It is the art of finding old and therefore probably dusty bottles of vintage spirits. And some of these are old. From different eras of distillery ownership to grains grown using older agricultural methods to the type of heat source used.
It is about connecting a liquid time capsule of the time that the bottle was filled and the years preceding that it was aging.
This book is filled with characters. But the one drawback of the book was that most of them were of the same ilk. A person with a collectors mentality, who had time and money to be able to spend thousands of dollars to buy, for example, eight thousand miniature liquor bottles and then pick out the five hundred that interested them and selling the rest. Each individual dusty hunter seemed, well not at all individualistic.
But on other hand the diversity in the spirits was wide. Cognac, gin and even creme de menthe were covered. And the world was covered too. Scotland to Japan to Germany and the U.S. all played a part in this craze.
Goldfarb is funny and personal and sarcastic throughout the book and that side-eye style works really well to puncture the fact that this is a book about booze.
And that Howard Hughes office. Well, it was in the same building as the long gone Hollywood Brewery.
