Category: LA Craft Beer Events

Posted on

Sunday Supper with the Brewmaster

HAVEN GASTROPUB + BREWERY INTRODUCES “DINNERS WITH DAVE” where you can talk shop and break bread with Resident Brewmaster Dave Larsen

“Every month beginning in September, Brewmaster Dave Larsen invites fellow beer aficionados to join him for an evening of good food, brews and beer-centric conversation. The kickoff menu features Whole Roasted Mary’s Chicken with Dave’s secret marinade, garlic mashed potatoes & roasted seasonal vegetables in addition to tastes of Haven Brewing beers as well as other craft brews from around the country. Dave will discuss the beers served and answer any and all questions about beers and brewing.”

The first of this monthly series is Sunday, September 9th at 7:00 pm but there are only 12 seats available per dinner available at $25 per person.

Posted on

Two Twists to L.A. Beer Week


It is now September and the celebration of all things craft beer in L.A. starts in less than three weeks!

This year there will be two special programs running during the extended week. First is a L.A. Beer Week passport. And anyone who is considering or has already bought tickets for the finale festival at Union Station should get in on this. All you have to do is have fun and drink beer at four types of LA Beer Week events. Visit a brewery. Get a sticker for your passport. Attend a special beer event. Get another sticker for your passport. And if you complete this mission (not impossible by the way), all you have to do is turn in your completed passport at the Union Station festival to receive a token for a $1 bottle of Unity 2012. Seriously! One Dollar for a full bottle of Prickly Pear Rye Berliner Weisse.

Secondly is “Caps for Caps”! A fun bottle cap hunt. Visit participating bottle shops in the L.A. area and pick up a beer from the cooler that has the LA Beer Week sticker on it. Or save a bottle cap from a brewery based here in L.A. County. Collect 12 and you can turn them in for a rockin’ LA Beer Week hat either at the festival or at Beer Belly or Eagle Rock Brewery. (Where they have really great beer that tastes even better with the “official” hat on.)

More information on these special promotions will be coming shortly including the link to print a passport and a list of the stores that will be participating in “Caps for Caps”.

Thanks in advance for talking about L.A. Beer Week on your blogs, your Twitter feeds or Facebook pages and get as many people out to events as you can. And please pass the information on to anyone who you think would benefit from it and/or can spread the word to people not “inside” the craft beer world.

Posted on

Sunset Beer Mug Club


The great beer store in Echo Park has reached it’s 1 year anniversary and they will be launching the first ever Sunset Beer Co. Mug Club in September!

Here are the details for this limited club….

** THE SUNSET BEER CO. MUG CLUB **
– No corkage on bottles….ever
– $1 OFF on all tap beers
– Get a custom, hand-carved (<-- not true) Sunset Beer Co. 17oz mug - Membership is limited to 60 people in the first year - Hear about limited release beers before everyone else does - Cost: $70/person / $50 to renew To sign up, call (213) 481-BEER (2337) or email info@sunsetbeerco.com

Posted on

Sour Times at Library Alehouse

If you want “A week’s worth of puckering, funky goodness.” then Sourfest 2012 starting September 4th and running until the 10th at the Library Alehouse is where you will need to be.

Here is the rundown of (dear God, how do I choose from this list) sours….

● Russian River Supplication
● Russian River Temptation
● Russian River Consecration
● Rodenbach Grand Cru
● Rodenbach Vintage 2008 (Single Foudre)
● The Bruery BeRazzled
● The Bruery Hottenroth Berliner Weisse
● The Bruery Nottenroth Berliner Weisse w/ Kumquats
● The Bruery Tart of Darkness
● The Bruery Oude Tart
● Lost Abbey Cuvee de Tomme
● Bockor Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge
● Golden Road Berliner Weisse
● Allagash Vrienden
● Allagash Confluence
● New Belgium Brett Beer
● New Belgium Tart Lychee
● Bavik Petrus Aged Pale
● St. Louis Gueuze Fond Tradition
● Heretic Tartuffe Berliner Weisse
● Eagle Rock Equinox
● Ladyface Guillotine
● Grand Teton Howling Badger Berliner Weisse

“We’ll kick things off with Locals Only Night on September 4th at 6PM. Expect some special pairings for the evening along with the following on tap (subject to change):”

● Ladyface Guillotine
● Eagle Rock Equinox
● The Bruery BeRazzled
● The Bruery Hottenroth Berliner Weisse
● The Bruery Nottenroth Berliner Weisse w/ Kumquats
● The Bruery Tart of Darkness
● The Bruery Oude Tart
● Golden Road Berliner Weisse

“We’ll cycle in the rest of the list as the week progresses, offering six ounce pours of all available beers in addition to full pours, so you can sample responsibly.”

Posted on

FoodGPS Teaser – Unity 2012

Tomorrow on FoodGPS, you will get the rundown on the Unity 2012 brew and some history of the Berliner Weisse style but to whet your appetite, here are some photos from Day 2 of the brewing process for the Prickly Pear Rye Berliner…..

These are really prickly, little slivers easily work their way into fingers as you try to cut them.

The cutting crew digging into the pears that will get bagged and dropped into the brew later.

The “souring” grains coming out of the wort.

The measuring of the teeny tiny amount of hops going into the beer.

Posted on

Drink Good BeerFest


The Factory in Bixby Knolls is combining a regular beer fest with a homebrew tasting, the Drink Good Beerfest this September 2nd from Noon to 4pm.

There will 30+ Local Breweries and the aforementioned Homebrew Tasting will be held in the parking lot behind the Factory and $30 gets you in plus the gastrobar will be open during the festival and until 11 p.m.

Beers list will update over on FaceBook

… and so the beer list starts:

Drake’s: Aroma Coma
Bootlegger’s: Tropical Thunder Citra Pale Ale

Hangar 24: TBA
Epic Brewing: TBA
Iron Fist: TBA
Anaheim Brewing: TBA
Strand: Black Sand Imperial IPA
Cismontane Brewing: TBA
Ballast Point: TBA
Stone: TBA
Monkish Brewing: TBA
El Segundo Brewing: TBA

UPDATE: The Fest has been moved to the 22nd. Now it is part of L.A. Beer Week!

Posted on

Tony’s Darts Away becomes a Speakeasy (for one night)


Speakeasy from San Francisco is celebrating their milestone 15th Anniversary, and Tony’s Darts Away is proud to host the only party in Southern California on Tuesday, August 28th. The celebration will commemorate Speakeasy’s newly re-worked core brews and seasonal offerings with the following beers on tap:

Big Daddy’s (Toronado) 25th Anniversary Wet Hop IPA
Big Daddy IPA
Double Daddy Double IPA
Prohibition Amber Ale
The Witness Belgian Wit
Payback Porter
Scarlett Red Rye
Butchertown Black Ale
Scarface Imperial Stout
Experimental Rye Batch #002

In addition, revelers can expect a mystery cask and a yet-to-be-named Anniversary Triple IPA (only 1 of 4 kegs in Southern California) – for a staggering 12 beer line up from the brewery.

Posted on

L.A. Craft Beer Crawl

It took me three years to finally make my first appearance at the L.A. Craft Beer Crawl. An ode to craft beer and downtown L.A. that is spearheaded by the Beer Chicks.

The crawl covers seven venues from 6th street stretching south to Olympic and Flower and there was a wide variety of beers including some new breweries and beers that I hadn’t encountered previously.

There were two tiers for tickets. You could get the VIP treatment and two extra hours and access to limited availability beers or you could shell out a little less cash and get your glass at 3pm. I ventured down the stairs to Casey’s Irish Pub on the stroke of 1pm and caught Rich Marcello from Strand tapping a cask with the help of the first customer in line. A wildly aromatic Citra IPA.

But my first beer of the day was from Anchor. It was Zymaster # 2 – Mark’s Mild and it was a really great way to not only open the drinking day but a really nice and zippy brown. Made me long for the # 1 which I have yet to taste.

Before leaving Casey’s (truth be told, I only got to 4 of the 7 bars) I sampled a wine barrel aged beer from Lake Elsinore’s Craft Brewing Company. And it was quite good. A nice wine kick that didn’t overpower the beer. I will be on the look out for more of their beer.

My standouts of the day also included the Black Butte 24 from Deschutes or practically anything Deschutes had because they had the Hair of the Dog collaboration Conflux # 1 there as well as their White IPA, Chainbreaker. The Sand Dune Sage from El Segundo was great and also at Cana Rum Bar was Kinetic Brewing’s Peanut Butter and Jelly Time which was really well done. Nicely balanced and not just a novelty beer.

Then I headed back to the world of air conditioning for two seminars. One led by Dave Watrous on sours which included a lovely Oud Gueze from Timmerman’s and the other on Italian beer led by Tomm Carroll which was quite exotic with a carob beer, a curry beer and a beer made with gentian which was my favorite of the group.

It was great to see so many people out enjoying craft beer and minus a few hiccups, my experience was of a well run event which is hard to do when stretched over many city blocks. Some of the volunteers didn’t have information but all were unfailingly polite and would point out people who knew more. There was water available to go or at each venue which is a necessity on hot days. My only quibble was that the seminars could have been better located with more signage pointing the way to where they were to be held and also, this is my big bugaboo, if you are having speakers, they need to be heard. So put them into quieter areas.

But the main review has to be of the beer choices available and this was well covered. Mostly local based but with fine additions and not just regular flagship beers (not that those are bad, but you need a mix). So on that metric the Beer Chicks did exemplary work.

Cheers to Roy and Gabriel from Beers in Paradise who shared the journey with me as well as to Rich and Efrain at the Strand booth. It was great to see Lee from Eagle Rock Brewing and the Hot Knives were also in attendance.