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It is high time that Los Angeles craft beer fans get a 10 year brewery! And that brewery is Highland Park. The bifurcated Highland Park / Chinatown brewery will have “special High 10 releases” between March 25th – March 31st.
What is so special, you ask? Well they will “be re-releasing past High anniversary beers each week.” Leading up to High 10.
As in the annual Infinite Wishes Day at Smog City. I am a bit of a purist so I will be sticking with the first beer on the list but #2 piques my interest as well.
1. OG – “as always the pure, unadulterated Infinite Wishes batch”
2. Almond Joyous – “a little coconut, a little chocolate, all delicious”
3. French Vanilla – “smooth, creamy and rich, a classic”
4. Strawberry Dip – “chocolate covered and sinfully sweet berry notes”
Tickets went on sale last week for the signature event of Los Angeles Beer Week.
Get your tickets HERE and then patiently count the days until June.
Figueroa Mountain is Lagerville’ing again in April. As has been in the past, it is an impressive assemblage of breweries. It is certainly worth the trip up the lower Central Coast to get your taste buds lager’d.
While Wingwalker Brewing is no more, nearby Over Town Brewing Co. has reached the five year mark and will be bringing the music and beer to Monrovia across three days!
Get tropical in Hawthorne as Los Angeles Ale Works will celebrate their 7th anniversary or thereabouts with all sorts of Tiki treats and a new IPA for the occasion.
Benny Boy will be celebrating their 2nd year at the tank farm with their anniversary celebrations on March 30th.
Check out the info HERE or just carefully scrutinize the artwork for clues.
Ambitious Ales is coming up on anniversary # 5. They have a lovely taproom in the Bixby beer corridor that you should really visit, especially if you are an IPA fan or a fan of fives.
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.
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.
Next month up in Sierra Madre, R.T. Rogers Brewing will celebrate their 6th year of brewing beer in the quaint little neighborhood.
If you have not been, it is a lovely place with a garden patio out front and a cozy bar area where you can sit near fermenters if you like. Both the space and beer list have a pub feel to them in a way that is different from many taprooms in L.A.