Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
bottle shops, pubs and breweries
Brewyard Beer Co. has reached their 8th Anniversary under the overpass in Glendale. These guys throw a good party too. So in addition to new beer and new collaborations there will be music and food and you might find a seat next to the Brewyard truck to sip your beer.
Trustworthy Brewing is the meeting place for the newly formed Burbank Books & Brews bookclub. It was organized by a Trustworthy bartender too.
The second Thursday of every month out on the back patio will be the reserved space and the books have been Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q, Sutanto in November and on Thursday, December 14th the book is The Keeper of Happy Endings by Barbara A. Davis. If those choices interest you, check it out.
With the loss of Sunset Beer Co. years ago, I have had to expand my beer shopping radius and one of the places that I have added is Altadena Beverage.
It fits into that boutique food store niche which generally tilts to the alcohol and N/A beverages. But this place has a nice mix of beers. Homage, Highland Park and just oddity beers that you don’t see elsewhere which makes a fun hunt. Plus some neat food options as well. And boy howdy do they schedule pop-ups. Coffee, free tastings, sandwiches. Worth a follow to see the vendors.
Just look at what I recently got…
This is a great store to find out if the ordinary beer and other fun beverage gifts.
It is not often that a seemingly normal tap takeover becomes the launch party for a brewery taking over a bar. But Long Beach Beer Lab will be taking over the operation of Bar Envie which will become a new Long Beach Beer Lab tasting room and kitchen.
No timetable yet for the turnaround to LBB but good to see the growth for the brewery.
With 2023 openings for both The Boardroom and Five Point Five Brewing, El Segundo is back up to four breweries along the hilly streets of the bedroom and oil community.
The latter is the former Surfridge Brewing space now taken over by the lead brewer and re-branded. The former is in a quonset hut making it the western version of Paperback Brewing. It opened earlier this year.
Both are on the agenda for first visits look for those before year end.
I attempt to balance visiting breweries so that I do not go to far in between visits but I fell down on the job with Tortugo Brewing out in Inglewood.
But on a sultry fall Saturday, I went back to the the distinctive orange building to try a couple of their beers. The beertender on duty was particularly helpful and in good spirits which was a good sign.
I started with a Red Ale, Baltra. I have a weak spot for this beer probably due to Double Mountain’s Killer Red. This beer tasted more like a hoppy brown ale to me. Softer and chocolate tinged where I expected sharper and spicier. The second beer was the Galapagos Triple IPA which was really good. Bright fruit forward aroma. And the ABV of 11% was not out there boldly proclaiming itself.
Then another turn with a taster of their Mai Tai inspired IPA, which tasted more old and caramel then any of the three fruits referenced on the menu board.
Now, I just need to visit more frequently.
A craft beer institution (that I wrote about in the August Beer Paper), The Glendale Tap has an anniversary coming up fast….
….better alter your plans to have a Friday night pint in my ‘hood.
Inkwell Tavern is in a space that has turned over a few times now on San Fernando Boulevard blocks before downtown Burbank proper but I hope this one lasts a little longer especially if the cocktails themselves are as good as the literary names. And it is a good long list of cocktails too. Oh, and they do have a decent+ craft beer list too.
Three Weavers is hitting their 9th Anniversary on November 4th and they have laid out how they brewed Time is a Flat Circle which is a double dry-hopped Cold IPA.
“To even call it “double dry-hopped” seems a bit of an understatement because our brewers have added ridiculous amounts of hops during the following processes…
1. Mash
2. First runnings
3. Bittering
4. Flavor
5. Knock out
6. Whirlpool
7. Dry-hop 1
8. Dry-hop 2 (we’re at this step today)
…And you might ask yourself, “Gee, that sounds fun but *which* hops did they use?” Welllllll…
1. Simcoe Cryo
2. Strata
3. Citra
4. Idaho Gem
5. Mosaic Cryo
6. Citra
7. Chinook
8. Cryo Pop”
I am still scratching my head as to when it was first reported that Georgia based Creature Comforts Brewing was going to plant an outpost in Los Angeles, but it has been years.
I moseyed down to their San Julian and 12th address to see what the space and beers look like…
…and it is a really cool space. The Russo Brothers Motion Picture Universe is above them and they have two floors of space for brewing and canning.
The block also includes a coffee shop, a pizza place and the fancy Rossoblu restaurant as well plus it is super near the hustle and bustle of Santee Alley which is an L.A. institution.
I had four beers from different sections of the menu. A double dry hopped version of their flagship IPA, Tropicalia. Bibo pilsner as well as their sour Neon Cylinders, a rotating version, this time Rowdy Red which was 8% but tasted like 4%.
My favorite was the last. Just filled with cranberry and super tasty but within months, we will start to see Los Angeles brewed beer and that will require a second visit.
