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Long Beach Beer Lab is celebrating both their 5th Year Anniversary and ultimate Oktober Lager Festival that will conclude on October 23rd but before then are some festive beers to try.
August
– Oktoberfest Marzen
– West Coast Lager with Casa Agria
September
– Oktoberfriends Festbier Vol. 1 The Long Beach Beer Lab version
– Oktoberfriends Festbier Vol. 2 The HopSaint version
– Crispy Pair of Levi’s Rice and Beans Pils with Untitled Art
San Diego Beer News has the best guides out there. Funnily, they were mostly not of San Diego. That is changing and it starts with the Oceanside area at the North.
Hermosa Brewing is adding a new brewery and taproom location in Torrance on Del Amo Boulevard. This is their third location and second outside their namesake beach starting point.
When I had their beer at the Beach, I was quite impressed. When I tasted it earlier this year at their El Segundo location, it had lost a little luster to my taste buds.
Maybe the new taproom will reclaim that lost ground.
Today, Eureka Brewing opens location #2 and it is quite a bit of distance from their Gardena brewery and taproom. Thousand Oaks to be exact.
They are taking over a Dudes Brewing spot on Thousand Oaks Blvd.
When I was in Portland, I visited a coffee shop that was next door to a bottle shop which was part of an apartment complex. It made me wonder what it would be like to have that availibility so close.
If you live at the Ivy Station in Culver City you now have an outpost of Los Angeles Ale Works an elevator ride away.
Yesterday, I was able to step inside for the first time. The color scheme is great, warm blues with wooden slats plus blue speckled countertops. The space is rectangular and a bit smaller than I expected with a corridor of outside seating facing the Metro.
I liked the little touches on the chairs….
…and the beer list was full. No lack of choices…
…this a great addition to what is becoming a Metro beer crawl with Santa Monica Brew Works to the west and Party Beer to the east. Dodger and Angel City FC fans will have a great place to pre-game as well.
This summer will bring a new little brewery to Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, Wild Parrot Brewing.
You can hear more about the brewery over at the Experimental Brewing podcast with Drew Beechum and Denny Conn. Quick points are that the brewery has been a long time in the making and will aim for late July and looks to do more on the lighter side of the beer style spectrum.
Since I spent three whole days in Portland, I figured that I should do three whole posts, so here are a few more photos and beer talk.
Level Beer on Sandy was the main target after guisados at La Fondita. It was a wide range of beers from a super low ABV Table Saison at 2.8% to a barrel-aged imperial stout at 11.5%.
Of the six tasters the English bitter named in honor of a Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bitter Ginsbeer. The space with changing color lights and pinball machines next to a VooDoo Donuts is nice and the beertender was super friendly.
As I always do, I bought too many to-go beers but I found a real gem in a French Pilsner, Houblon from Rosenstadt that was spectacular.
Day two was split into Hood River and Southeast Portland, Older and brand newer.
Starting at Double Mountain on 4th in hilly Hood River with a single hop beer using the Zappa Hop, Blessed Relief which was different in a good way. That was a taster, followed by a short pour of the collaboration with Solera with Citra and Strata and it was super different in a not good way to me.
Next up was lunch in the river at pFriem with the family (a quorum of the fam, at least) and a sparkling IPA which was fine but I probably should have gone a sampler route or a kriek with the berries in the salad.
Back to Portland with the traffic and a stop at the former Commons, Modern Times location at the corner of Belmont that is now…
…where I had short pours of a Cerne Pivo dark lager that was excellent. Malty with depth but not weighed down. The space, if memory serves, is in the same layout with the bar at a diagonal and the seating at slices of lumber in an L shape around the windows. Plus lots of green punctuated by a cool white menu board…
…with the taps arrayed like a flock of organized birds. I also tried the Great Notion DIPA collaboration and boy was that an orange bomb. One of the most orange beers in both aroma and taste that I have had.. Maybe it was the hop hash or the Phantasm powder.
Last of the day was Chelsea pre-season on the TV at Away Days for a Post Match Italian Pilsner which was not as sprightly as I hoped but still good and the Home and Away IPA, I also have a cream ale of theirs to try. I just adore the footy names of the beers like Der Klassiker.
I have not touched the ground in Portland since 2020. How would the city feel after a long time away? Would it be different post-covid or pre-post covid for the more cautious among us.
Well, I landed hard with popular Portland breweries.
Ruse Brewing at the Crust Collective across the Columbia in Vancouver on the Waterfront walk.
I had two IPAs with Star Senders a mix of Citra and Strata being the winner.
Before that a late night beer at Migration Brewing where I had a Fuji to Hood Cold IPA which was so-so to me. The pilsner my Mom had was good and they must be doing something right because they are up to four locations now.
After Ruse, was the Portland outpost of Chuckanut the excellently named P-Nut where I had the first of three, yes three, Grodziskie lagers. Lightly smoked and rarely brewed but I found two on draft and one canned version.
The P-Nut was a lovely little space near Division and a few other beer spots in the area including Baerlic Brewing. I had the Threshold “Grod” which was noticeably different from Chuckanut. Way lighter in color and smoke but interesting.
Next was Amelia from Steeplejack. The church location is really great but their Grod was way less smoky and more lemony.
I also got a Canadian lager which was a little weird whereas the Osler a DDH IPA which had a wonderful lemon chiffon flavor to it.
If the aiport gods smile down upon me, I will be back in my hometown of Milwaukie, (OR) in a few days. While Milwaukie doesn’t have a scene minus Breakside, there is plenty of brewing going on in the larger city to the north, AKA Portland.
Thankfully, the Beervana blog posted travel centered posts in late June for me to plan where I needed to stop. Read the orientation post HERE.
Wherever you summer travel this year, I strongly suggest finding the local beer writer and even if they do not have a travel to piece, all you really need to do is read a few posts to catch the current mood or find a new brewery.