With L.A. pushing their brewery count higher, it can be hard to make return visits to check out how a brewery is progressing. Which is important, because brewing skill and recipes don’t always stand still.
With that in mind, I returned to Verdugo West to check out what was happening and lo and behold ran into brewer Chris Walowski and tasted a flight of recent beers and talked shop in Burbank.
The list was split between light and dark with the popular Gigli lager that uses that underused adjunct, rice. It pours really clear yello with a bit of a sweet aroma. Then there was Hoppy 30th a macro based beer with rice as well and then a Double IPA’s worth of hops. I hope this beer comes back for 31st at least.
On the dark side of the ledger was Kalon, a rare schwarzbier that had good roast and was solidly Germanic followed by the Q2 IPA which was a Black IPA. A style that has had a free fall out of favor. This erred too far on the roast side and could have used some extra hop push to it.
I will have to keep returning.