Category: Beer in the news

Great articles that you should read.

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Man(zanita) Down – Toolbox Heading North

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Good News and Bad News for San Diego. (I mean other than the 10 Barrel expansion into town.)

Bad – Manzanita or Twisted Manzanita has fallen and will be no more. I had a couple of their beers and was impressed enough by them but the crowded market had me tasting other breweries from the area and that must have happened on a larger scale and they were squeezed out. They had gone through multiple names and contract brewed but anytime that a head brewer leaves and isn’t replaced, is not a good sign.

Good – But, Toolbox Brewing seems to be moving forward and expanding into Los Angeles where they will be distributed now so we can get Bog Sauce and Purple Drink.

What do these two pieces of news mean? To San Diego it will have one set of ramifications but to those of us in L.A. it means that more beer is headed our way and that we need to be incrementally more judgemental. Not in a “you’re not fit for our town way” but more discerning. Taste the beers and find out which ones make the beers that you like. Maybe SD Brewery # 1 makes sours that you like and # 2 makes Session beers that you prefer. Find the strengths and notice the weaknesses.

L.A. beer needs to improve not just for the sake of improvement and not just in the beer quality sense. Our beer will need to stand up in San Francisco and San Diego and any other San ____ around. But business sense needs to improve too. That means money and distribution and marketing need to be managed.

As time passes the lessons from both of these San Diego breweries will need to be first bullet-pointed and then learned. We don’t hear too much news of closings but we should listen to that news along with the good of expanded distribution.

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#drinkitnow

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Dedicated craft beer fans have bottles stashed away either in a cellar or in the dark recesses of our ‘fridge but they do need to be drunk (at some point). Which is why whenever their is a proposal to head to the secret supply for a bottle, I like to promote it.

This time it is Allagash Brewing who are asking us to “drink some beers together that we’ve had stashed. The moment has come! ‪#‎drinkitnow ‪#‎getsocial 2.21.16”

No need to get all hashtaggy if you don’t want to but at least take a look around your beer inventory.

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Add to the Watch List

There is still only limited information but it appears that a brewery under the moniker of Sunset Strip Brewery is in the works for Los Angeles.

Information is a bit scarce except for the boilerplate from the Twitter account – “An exciting and revolutionary new brewery set to open this year on the famous Sunset Strip in Hollywood, CA.”

Can’t even arrive at their website after multiple efforts.

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Untappd to Next Glass

Mergers aren’t constrained to just breweries. My go-to app Untappd has recently merged into Next Glass. Another app company. One that I did not favorably rate.
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I am happy because this allows the two Untappd founders to become fully employed in beer instead of part-time which should lead to improvements in Untappd. On the other hand, who knows if it will eventually get folded into Next Glass which I found to have ambitions that were too great for a world of craft beer that is constantly updating. The feature of bottle/can recognition is hopefully improved at this point though in reading some reviews it does seem that the main problem that I had, lack of beers in the database is still prevalent.

Maybe combined they can create a super-beer-app?

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Beer Art

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I have been reading and researching about labels this month (and last year) and this event struck me as super cool. And it has nothing to do with the fact that Gigantic Brewing beer is uniformly awesome….
Since the event is in the recent past, I will have to say that I think it would be great for L.A. breweries to bring in the people that design their labels and have an art show.

Even ardent craft beer fans don’t know the creativity, the discussions and the give and take of creating the label that you see on the store shelf. So congrats to the Fig & Thistle, now send the art show south.
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On the Open Sea

Despite my father watching every last WW2 documentary and movie made, I never knew the footnote to history about the HMS Menestheus, a war time floating brewery.
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According to the story from Vinepair, “These ships were built at the insistence of Winston Churchill himself and were not only to include breweries, but also cinemas, dance halls and other amenities, which is why they then became known as amenity ships.” What would under the USO banner to us in America.

The full vision was never really fulfilled since, thankfully, the war came to a close but according to the story, “During its time in the Pacific the HMS Menestheus visited the ports of Yokohama, Kure, Shanghai and Hong Kong, brewing a mild ale that was served slightly chilled. Reports from soldiers who consumed it at the time were that the beer was absolutely delicious, especially when compared to what they had been drinking before.”

I know that there are cruises with craft beer themes. I just read about one with the Texas brewery Jester King. But wouldn’t it be great if there were a ship outfitted with a brewery that could ferry paying passengers from port to port and learn about the brewing history (and future) of the ports of call and then brew a beer in that style (or have one at the ready).

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An Iconic Glide

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Hangar 24 started off the year by giving new names to two hoppy offerings. On the lighter end, 4.0% to be exact is the Easy Glider Session IPA. If you are a fan of the Equinox hop, then this is the one for you. Easy Glider will slot in below Betty IPA and the Double IPA which will now have a real name, Iconic. Three C hops and Simcoe plus local orange blossom honey make up this big beer.
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600 and Counting

Between the dawn of craft beer with New Albion and Anchor way back in the day and the year 2012, California achieved the number 300 in breweries operating in the state.

Between 2012 and now (which is just 3 some odd years if my basic math is correct) another 300 were born.
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You can read more about it HERE but one amazing take away is that in the year 2014. Each week in California, all 52 of them, two breweries opened.

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Check the Schedule

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You can’t (and probably shouldn’t) schedule for everything. But it is good to have a framework or skeleton of what beers will be done in the next year. Some breweries fly by the seat of their pants but the ones that don’t can greatly help out their customers by whetting their appetite for the beers of 2016. So, thanks Firestone Walker for helping me plan mine.

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Open Mike

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I have blogged before about cans that don’t just open a hole in the top of the can but take the whole thing off turning the can into a glass, automatically. When I did, there were none in the L.A. area to buy or test. Now there might be because Mike Hess Brewing has introduced its Open Mike™ beer can.

From their press release, “Open Mike six-packs will be available as early as November 1st wherever Mike Hess beers are sold, including Southern California and the greater Phoenix, Arizona, markets. The first brand to feature the new packaging and Open Mike™ ends will be Habitus®, Double IPA, World Beer Cup gold award-winner in the Rye Beer category.”

I can’t wait to see how this works and report back.