Category: Guide to better beer

how to discover new beer to try

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Vallarta

I am an aficionado of grocery stores.  I go on vacation and make a point of visiting them.  Part of the bonus of being in Los Angeles is that there are little boutique stores, neighborhood markets that have somehow held on and a crazy variety of shops focused on foods from other countries.

The Burbank (next door to the airport) Vallarta grocery store recently got a glow up that included Mexican foods, agua frescas, paletas and a choose your own guacamole station.  

I wandered around the beer aisle and saw this interesting selection….

….I will need to research these beers to see if any are not from a mega corporation but even more interesting was….

…canned Pulque.  The precursor to tequila and mezcal locked up safe and sound.

Keeping searching, you might find some fun new drinks.

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Ogopogo at 6

I like a small beer festival. I feel like I can actually taste the full rainbow if there is a tight mix of breweries. And Ogopogo Brewing is using their 6th anniversary to throw a little shindig in San Gabriel.

I am especially interested in Craft Coast and Burgeon and what they may be tapping.

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Would Love To Try – Pumpkin Edition

Now that it is October we can legally talk pumpkin beers and Halloween. And the first thing I want to do is get a little jealous of Seattle for having Cloudburst Brewing and their beer copywriter who had a great time with this their seasonal pumpkin beers description…

Check Your Worst Nightmare out HERE. If you want to avoid opening another tab, here is the ingredient list, “a milk chocolatey base beer brewed with Libby’s canned pumpkin and spiced with a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice and clove.”

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Review – Patio Project from Beachwood Brewing – Can 3

This month, as a bit of a scientific lark, I am going to review the same beer weeks apart to see if any differences can be found. I chose Patio Project IPA from Beachwood Brewing as the test subject after picking it for the beer shopping list post last month.

As you can see from the above photo, it was canned up on 8/1/24. For this review, the first can was tasted on 8/16/24. Can two was opened on 9/5/24. Can three was opened on 9/29.

Still pours a bright and light yellow. No visual degradation seen at all. Aroma also coming in strong. The hop bite is still there which is good because this is near session IPA to me and without it, the beer would lose a dimension.

Maybe I shall conduct this experiment again but with a different, not as high quality brewery as Beachwood and maybe take it over a longer time frame.

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Blurry

Sometimes in beer, you may not see a beer style produced very often but one way you can sneak around that is to “imperialize” that style and it helps to have a brewery like Stone Brewing who excel at big beers doing it.

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Five Talons

One of my bottle shops stops is Talon Tap & Wine in Eagle Rock. Friendly people, you have a great selection that you can buy single cans of and there is a nice little bar in the back if you want to catch a game.

And this year, they are turning 5! There will be a special day of celebration for it on Saturday, October 5th.

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Dollars & Snobs

If you saw the John Oliver – Last Week Tonight commentary on dollar stores and how terrible they are, you will understand why the name of the new beer from Paperback Brewing is so scary and fitting for the Spooky Season…

…it is good to see that Black IPA has found a bit of a seasonal niche for Halloween.

Paperback also has a good beer name going with the Beer Snob IPA but they really should have gone for a different IPA sub-style like Brut instead of…

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Best Beers of September 2024

This month we are going to toggle between Fest and IPA for the best of the month.

My fest best are the always good Oaktoberfest from Firestone Walker and Paulaner’s Oktoberfest Bier. A journey from Germany to Paso Robles.

Hops wise, the Stone 28th Anniversary DIPA strayed a bit from their heavy format to a balanced fruity and big beer. The other is a spooky season named beer from ISM Brewing with Ghost Town Brewing, the 6.66% Death Dealer IPA.

As an added bonus, the Strudel Cider from Benny Boy here in Los Angeles literally tasted like an apple pie. Even though it is not fall yet here, it sure tasted like it.

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Review – Fresh Wave XPA from El Segundo Brewing

El Segundo Brewing is throwing it back to the ’80s in both beer style and font with their Fresh Wave XPA, Extra Pale Ale. Like most monikers XPA is a bit weird give it is basically just word replacing. Session IPA is a bit cleaner and understandable.

That said, let’s taste the liquid inside and not get too hung up on verbiage. At 4.9%, this is low ABV but that first sip doesn’t give too much away because the hops come in the front door, loud. There is a second wave of malt where the lightness of the body shows up but at the end, it tastes almost like a hoppy Wit as a tropical burst comes in.