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When it comes to special edition spirits, I am not usually inclined to think twice about them if the label is the only difference between it and a lower priced standard version.
And as much as Ryan Reynolds is associated with Aviation Gin (whose space in Portland is really cool and should be on your gin bucket list), I don’t know if a Deadpool Gin is cool, now if it was a Sloe Gin, mind changed.
Brewery X from Anaheim has created a house beer for the Yaamava Resort called Mellow Mo’. It is a Blonde ale which tracks for a mass market – craft curious beer. Wonder if one can get a can at their concert venue that is generating buzz for the musicians that play there.
Finally, some streaming beer content and it even name checks my hometown!
And if you want some companion material, head HERE.
It is always exciting to me when two new collaborators join forces. This cause for excitement is GameCraft Brewing Anaheim teaming with Beachwood Brewing for a Cold IPA, Ice Beam.
Yes, El Segundo Brewing is known more for their use of hops but maybe they can multi-task with rice too. Harvest Legend Rice Lager is brewed with “100% California Calrose rice grown by VA Farms 4th generation rice farmers in Pleasant Grove, CA. VA Farms rice is a mark of excellence around the world, truly a Harvest Legend.”
Usually mergers and acquisitions occur and it is a net negative. Especially when it is the big players in the beer industry. A big brewery buys a small one and then proceeds to water down the product or distributors get bigger and bigger until they cannot service all the beer they have in their portfolio.
But the new Circle of Crowns Beverage Group Strategic Alliance is indeed that an alliance. CCBG includes Inglewood-based Crowns and Hops, Fresno-based Full Circle Brewing and its sister brands Speakeasy Ales and Lagers and Sonoma Cider. All black owned breweries.
The two main prongs of the alliance are a combined sales force bringing not just one brewery but multiple to the table and second Full Circle will use their excess brewing capacity to brew Crowns and Hops beers which, I think, may change once the Inglewood brewery is up and running.
Owning your local market is quite important these days so the fact that each one is in a different sector of California will help as well. But the combined weight might just push growth so that these beers get more placement.
Culture Brewing has two San Diego area locations and one spot for us Angelenos in Manhattan Beach. And it is the last one that is hitting the three year mark and their special beer for the occasion is a Citrus Gose.
This year for Lagerville, Figueroa Mountain traveled a bit of distance to Atascadero and Wild Fields to grab one collaborative partner and then a much bigger distance to Japan to get West Coast Brewing for a Matcha Rice lager.
It pours yellow with a tinge of green (unless that was me reading into it). There is an orange aroma coming off this at first and then in the first sip, the matcha tea comes through the citrus. This is very light and I am getting a bit of tea bitterness at the end.
I appreciate when a brewery or bar zags instead of zigs. It would be easy to brew up a Mexican Lager and maybe some micheladas for Cinco de Mayo.
But the Glendale Tap is bringing in sour beers. Fifteen of them for the fans of puckery.
Pizza Port / Ghost Town Forbidden Beach is certainly filled with enough hops for two breweries: Riwaka, Mosaic, Columbus, Simcoe and the yet un-named HBC 586.
