Category: L.A. Beer Week

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Yes, more #LABW6 events

LABW6 hashtag
For some reason, the 25th is chock full of events. I have already pointed out two strong choices and yet, there are more!

The Oinkster teams up with Cismontane Brewing for a “Choose your own Adventure” Night with 3 different versions of Holy Jim Falls XPA – 3 different versions of The Citizen California Common and 6 different French fry variants! Think of the flavor combinations!

Or you could head to Plan Check on Fairfax for beer cocktails tailored with the spirits of Ballast Point. You will find the special beers on tap such as
Four Roses Victory
Grapefruit Sculpin IPA
Sour Wench Blackberry Ale
Abandon Ship Smoked Lager

Or, the Culver City outpost of Bottle Rock will be pouring seasonal beers from El Segundo Brewing. Maybe Mellon Collie the Farmer’s Market melon beer will be ready!

Wherever you live or work, there is a killer event nearby.

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Unity ’14

ERB_Unity_2014_final_001
Ever had a beer collaboration? Sure, you have. There are plenty out there. Ever had a beer where all the ingredients were from one state? Longer shot but you might have. But I am sure that you haven’t had a beer brewed with Gargoyle hops. Oh and it’s a sessionable pale ale with local fruit.

And it is the signature beer for L.A. Beer Week the 6th. Of course I am talking about the beer named Unity. The beer was brewed at Eagle Rock Brewery with members of the Los Angeles County Brewers Guild. Country Malt Group also pitched in with a donation of California-Select malt and add in some Centennial hops to pair with the rare, native to California Gargoyle and you have one heck of a way to celebrate all things craft beer in Los Angeles.

UPDATE: I sampled 6 on its release day on the 12th and I really liked it.  Nice and hoppy but it has the characteristic sessionability you come to expect from Eagle Rock.  I detect quite a bit of grapefruit notes throughout but without crossing over into juice territory.  I strongly suggest trying a pint and getting a bottle to toast with later.

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LA Beer Week – Day Two – Echo Park Crawl


Night number two and on to Echo Park to walk and drink. Just not at the same time. Here are my thoughts on the Musical Beer Crawl…
which coincided with a beautiful SoCal night. I thought the passport idea was grand because you need one to navigate LA at times. You had your map and the specials in a handy pocket sized guide. And more importantly, I thought the walk and number of establishments was good. Too much more and the amount of walking and drinking would discourage people from doing the whole route.
My other beer bloggin’ friend Richard and I started at Sunset Beer since he had not visited the store before. Started with the Populist IPA from Eagle Rock (see above). At 6pm, we were some of the first crawlers.
We next went to Short Stop (a first time visit for me) where no one knew about the crawl despite being on the map and they certainly did not know about the special keg or special prices either. Though the barkeep did remedy the last part. This could have been avoided with a pre-visit to all the locations by the organizers. So we moved past Lot 1 which wasn’t open and on to El Prado where I had a Duvel Single (see above) and Richard had a $5 Angel’s Share. You read that right $5. El Prado is my kind of place. Chill with good beer choices. I will be returning there. (I totally forgot to give a shout-out to Two Boots Pizza. Two-for-One slices that were really good)
We hadn’t planned on visiting Mohawk Bend because our plan was to visit places we hadn’t been to before. We looked in on City Sip but we didn’t see any of the Stone beers that we thought were supposed to be on tap. So we headed back to a now busier Sunset Beer and had a nightcap.

Overall, this was a good way to introduce people to the craft beer in the area. It would have been better if crawl volunteers could have been posted along the route to assist and make sure events and kegs were working and/or some more signage delineating spots that were stops on the crawl. But for a first year event, pretty well done, and I didn’t even partake of the music.

Tomorrow is the epic DECONSTRUCTED dinner. Gotta pace myself.