Lagunitas Brewing has dipped into cocktail culture for a Zombie inspired IPA. With notes of orange juice, fresh lime, grapefruit and allspice.
Let’s dive in….pours a very faint yellow. Not a see through yellow but not hazy. Very orange liquer aroma. Orange is the first and foremost flavor followed by a hint of lime. The spice arrives on their heels. Quite bubbly but that ABV is super underground. There is enough bitterness and carbonation to tamp down the citrus sweetness that wants to escape. I was worried this would be a bit chaotic but it says cocktail and IPA.
Back to Smog City Brewing and their 2024 edition of Infinite Wishes, a barrel-aged stout, after a lager review detour.
The 2024 pours an inky black with a nice coffee foam head that dissipates in a bubbly fashion. For such a big ABV beer, this is not thick sludge but rather a sprightly beer. The predominant note is oak. Dark and roasty and far more dry than sweet. As it warms, a little chocolate pops through the wood but curiously not much bourbon coming through on this. Just perfect though for a spring day.
Los Angeles has been on a bagel kick over the last couple years and my wife has had me driving from Highland Park to Culver City and points beyond for taste tests.
On a recent Saturday, I was on the road to Calic Bagel for another round when I noticed that there was a featured beer named K-Town Lager. I scanned and saw a few Common Space Brewery beers and deducted that they had made this beer for this bagelry. So, does this lager pair well an everything bagel?
Pours a bubbly and fairly dark yellow color. Got a nice zip to it. A burst of floral hop notes from the German Magnum hops. Followed by a full but not slick mouthfeel with a good corn taste to it without being sweet at all. One of those where the glass is empty before you know it beers.
Imagine my surprise when a delivery person knocked on the door with a box from Smog City Brewing. Inside were two wishes, both infinite.
Today, I will talk about the Strawberry Whipped variant.
Once I got through the blood red wax, I immediately got a rush of strawberry. When I got another sniff, it was like a See’s chocolate with a strawberry middle. Just super berry notes. That perfume follows into the beer but then the milk chocolate takes charge. It is straight up strawberry truffle. This is a decadent dessert beverage. Lava cake would be a great pairing because this beer despite the double digit ABV is still light and would cut the richness of the lava while the chocolate would sync from beer to cake. This is a luxury ale.
Someone at Urban Roots Brewery is a Whovian, in addition to a Bow Ties are Cool beer, there is also today’s reviewed West Coast DIPA in a familiar blue color…
Bigger on the Inside, a common exclamation for new companions upon entering the Tardis for the first time starts with a really light and see through yellow color. Getting a big grape aroma (no celery here). Lots of tropical fruit notes. Guava and citrus for me. And the 8.5% ABV is most certainly there. As strong as a Sontaran warrior. I do like the balance of strength and fruit flavors.
Yesterday, I joined Firestone Walker brewers Jordan Ziegler and Sam Tierney, to see the “many faces Parabola can take on through adjuncts..” There were over seven tastes of new experimental variants of the imperial stout, some only available for very short times.
BEFOREAFTER
This event at The Propgator brought together members of the Brewmasters Collective, an enthusiastic group of Firestone fans ready to taste Parabola in its newest incarnation as well as learn about the nuts and bolts of adjuncts in an imperial stout.
It starts with an inspiration. New Orleans offered Ziegler ideas as did the plane ride when the snack was a Stroop Waffle cookie. Then it goes to small bench tests where you try adding adjuncts and seeing what works and doesn’t. Fig was fine in tests but really called for an accompaniment so Ancho Chili was brought in to make a duet.
From there, it becomes how best to get a flavor punch. Thai bananas are good but lacked that Cavendish appeal. (sorry) The way you toast coconut and then deciding if circulating the beer through it or steeping it in the beer is a better preparation.
Mix in that Parabola is aged in differing bourbon barrels from super wet Elijah Craig to reliable Heaven Hill just adds another level of complexity. Then you have to make sure the resulting beer has a Firestone house taste to it as well.
For me, the plain 2014 Parabola was the best. You got a nice bourbon and oak note on top of a luxurious stout but the real action was deciding what of the flavored beers ranked highest. To me it was the Thai Bananas Foster. The interplay of fruit and stout just worked. Second was Coconut closely followed by the Peanut Butter (really peanut flour) with the Fig and Stroop Waffle in a lower tier of interesting and Mixed Berry bringing up the far back.
Oh and another plus, we got a taste of the newly reformulated XPA as well which I thought was a bright and hoppy addition to the line-up.
If you needed a temptation to join the Brewmasters Collective, this type of event would fit the bill.
Seemed apropos to have this as a birthday beer. Aroma is really super grain forward. Like wort almost without that odd young, green beer taste. Very much on the sweet side as well. 9.5% on the ABV but does not taste it in the least. There is a slight caramel note here but overall pretty straight grain which I find fascinating with each sip.
In my beer pecking order, I tend to go for collaboration beers a lot but close by in preference is an Anniversary beer. Today I will be tasting 2 IPAversary beers.
First is Burn 5, a West Coast IPA from Burnin’ Daylight in Lomita, California. B5 pours a dark orange color and the initial taste is a bit of Sweet Tart candy and dried orange peel. The aroma is light tangerine to me. Quite light in the mouthfeel though a bracing pine bitterness comes in at the end.
For their 8th, Ventura’s MadeWest Brewing went for a DIPA. Pours a yellowy orange color in the pint glass. Very strong initially but that quickly fades into a pleasing citrus melange. The bitterness does linger on the palate. Also cleverly clocks in at 8% abv.
Smog City Brewing does a lot of IPAs and a lot of IPA series as well to keep hop lovers coming back to their Torrance brewery or their other L.A. locations. For 2024, their experimental series is Haze Craze and the # 1 is Moonbow.
Time to haze…
Moonbow pours a darker yellow color with a nice amount of haze to it without being too murky. Light overall tries to be a bit fluffy on the palate but has a bit of strength to it. First note that I get is apricot which is not the usual fruit one finds in a hazy. Getting a bit of green melon as well.
My Trader Joe’s has a weird set of beers from one week to the next as if they blindfold pick from a book of beers. Which can work in my favor as I found this Golden Stout from Karl Strauss Brewing.
I have been seeing more Golden Stouts with coffee on beer menus which I like because it allows for crossovers with coffee roasters, in this case Bird Rock.
Pours a cream soda color in the glass. Vanilla latte notes in the aroma. Quite carbonated. The cocoa nibs are light to not there but the brans of coffee and the beans of vanilla have a nice give and take to it. There is a sharpness to the mouthfeel that is a bit too much though it does offset the sweet notes. The coffee is really puts this into positive territory.
