Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
my humble and correct opinion
Here in the U.S., malt leftover from brewing tends to go to animal feed or barley milk, dog biscuits or compost but a Japanese company, Kitafuku has another upcycled use for malt, “craft beer paper,” paper products that can be used in beer promotion such as tickets, menus, coasters and drink holders.
This is a brilliant loop for a brewery. Order a beer from a menu made from the previous batch of the same beer you are drinking now.
Oh how I would love to live near this….
The Rachel and Rose Double Decker is half coffee shop and half pub. It is in Portland but if a sibling were here in Los Angeles, the upper half would be open all the time and you probably wouldn’t need the heated seats much.
The theme for this year’s Summit was “unsteady”. My flight from BUR to SMF didn’t even toss peanuts to us due to the bumps. With crazy bank shenanigans and big competition from Bourbon and RTD’s, it seemed that everyone was a bit on edge. The future just seems wobbly.
While on the floor I saw little activity around a lot of the equipment booths and others seemed a bit heavy on banking and finance institutions.
Their was also some placement stategery going on. In the past, regions of California would pour their beers from one spot and you would see the hop folks clustered and the equipment booths together. This time around there was no clustering at all. You could have a malt seller next to a sanitation booth and one or both may have poured beers. And there was no signs as to what was pouring. So, as an LA person, I could not easily scope out the beers of the Bay Area or San Diego.
My guess being that in an effort to get all attendees to all booths, they mixed it all up to draw people in to give booths more exposure and chances to interact with people. It seemed, to me, the changes were exhibitor impact based and away from ease for attendees. Because if you were in the market for fruit puree, you were gonna walk.
The festival also was the same length as I remember but Monday was a political day of action with a Welcome event so you didn’t really go to the Convention Center until Tuesday and Wednesday was a half-day. That gave the Summit both breathing room and condensed the activity.
The education was still top notch. Lots of great information to be had. The events were excellent outside of the Summit and, as usual, the ship was run well and on-time. Imagine trying to pour Pliny to a huge crowd. Hard to do.
So, what did I take from the event? Loads of info that I will read about, a small understanding of the breweries in Sacramento that I could visit and a feeling that though there may be turbulence ahead, there may also be smooth pockets of air as well.
First bit of business is last nights quick and rainy trip to Moksa Brewing in Rocklin.
The beer list was just a skosh unbalanced with one lager and about six IPA’s of various stripes and six stouts of various adjuncts. The Chai Times spiced Stout was excellent and beer buddy Rich had a very rich in chocolate stout that I thought was great. The lager, Da Bier was just the antidote after a day of drinking. Moksa also won the weirdest beer award with Freshie Freeze that was super citrusy but it also had a strange diesel note as well.
Back to Wednesday, the 1/2 day. After a visit to fuel up at the Pancake Circus we headed to a Sensory Session with Omega Yeast. This is where the thiol learning from the day before came in handy, I sampled a test brew and boy was it as advertised. Huge grapefruit and passion fruit, almost too much. Amazing to taste what genetics and Crispr can do.
I also sample the Sierra Nevada kombucha with pizza and had a beermosa with Smog City’s Mango Pango.
Today was the day to hear from Pink Boot’s members who talked about the many benefits of the organization which was a welcome upbeat talk before we got the final session where the Cilurzo’s (Natalie and Vinnie) flanked Ken Grossman to talk about what they did with their breweries in the pandemic times as well as what they have in store for the future. More lagers from Russian River and more alternative drinks from Sierra Nevada.
While they spoke, the audience was treated to two special beers. Special being a bit of an understatement. First up was a 2010 Bigfoot that we tasted alongside the newest version. Next was a little bit of newly bottled Pliny the Younger, this year with Nectaron hops in the mix. Not a bad way to call the Summit to a close.
Tuesday was the big day on the floor of the Sacramento Convention Center. The day started with a round-up and introduction of the board members and the double team of keynote with David Walker and “Vulcan” Bart Watson.
The overall gist of the talk was that there is probably tough sledding ahead as California is lagging behind national averages during this recovery phase from the pandemic. As draft sales are not catching up to the go-go times. A key fact brought up is that craft was just beginning to head downward BEFORE the pandemic.
According to Walker the best route through is to curate the beer experience and lean into our strengths instead of chasing the “baubles” of seltzer or RTD’s that he said could be made by Monsanto and no one would notice.
After that I learned about Thiols and how to unlock their tropical flavor bounty with new genetically modified yeast. I then learned about some Sacramento area barley malt tests that were done to see how can grow local malt. California could conceivably grow enough brewing malt for all California craft breweries.
Then it was onto the expo floor and the exhibitors from the expected hop growers and label makers to the less expected banking and information management systems. If you needed to talk canning, canning was there. Multiple hop booths dotted the floor as well interspersed with malts of all kinds and a plethora of fruit puree booths.
After a bit of snacking at one of the sparse pairing sessions, it was time to hit the night VIP session which started as rain was bucketing down outside. So many beers on offer but after a day filled with sampling and a trip to Moksa Brewing scheduled for the night, the food was calling more. More on that tomorrow.
Day 2 was a political action day at the California state capitol. I saw the brewing troupe troop over to iconic domed building to state the beer case to the state.
While they did the heavy lifting, I lifted beer glasses at two local Sacramento breweries that were on my to drink at list.
First was a trip to the Oak Park neighborhood and the eponymous brewery.
It is one of the black owned breweries in the country. They had a nice selection of styles including the People’s Lager, a recipe from the first black owned brewery in the U.S. I also had the Strata Dome Imperial IPA which at 7+% was a light double at best. Neither lit my world on fire.
Next stop was Alaro Brewing where I had more success in the taster tray.
I especially liked the Modern IPA, Avenida and the French Saison Rabbit Hole. The branding with the Spanish style tile look is excellent. So much so that I bought a bottle of the Castillo IPA back to the hotel.
The “official” welcome to the Summit was held in West Sacramento at The Barn, Drakes impressive wooden modern architecture barn right on the river. It has a large amount of outdoor seating and two bar area (one inside and one out).
We had a ticket for a Drakes beer and then two tables were set-up with an array of California beers including the Three Weavers CCBA beer, Meet Me in California. As well as Long Beach Beer Labs Dad Beer and South Lake Brewing’s Expedition Citra. I also splurged on a barrel-aged barleywine, Gold Label.
The early evening was bright and sunny. Pizza and charcuterie were brought out and the space filled with brewers and vendors and us media types.
I came across a cool tidbit of hop information on YouTube about the re-discovery of a brand new wild hop named Monocacy found in Maryland.
Don’t know if it is hardy enough to be bigger than just a novelty or if it has flavors that brewers can truly use but it is great to see hops waiting to be found.
Hop NZH-102 now has a fancy name, Superdelic! The varietal is from NZ Hops Ltd., a cooperative of New Zealand cooperative of hop farmers.
Superdelic is part Hersbrucker Pure and a New Zealand male.
Tropical notes along with red fruit and candy are the descriptors.
Am I the only one who feels that the big thing seems slow to arrive. Is the big craft beer trend caught in an airport somewhere?
No new IPA variant is on the horizon. A slight uptick, to my mind, in Triple IPAs but we seem stuck in Cold (IPL or IPA) weather when it comes to the dominant style.
Pastry stouts seem to be reaching an expiration date as you can reliably find then on shelves. We get the yearly pilsner spiel but them and lagers have a low ceiling.
Maybe some adjunct will become the de rigeur ingredient for brewers, I had an excellent blue corn pilsner recently and I could see any number of heirloom agricultural products touching a beer fans nerve.
But as we saunter into the last month of Q1, it seems no change in direction for the good ship craft.
Back in the day, which now means pre-2020, beer festivals were an every damn weekend occurrence, especially in the summer here in Los Angeles.
Now, it is different. Big gatherings of people are back now but festivals are not really trending. The last time the California Craft Brewers Conference had a connected festival was in Long Beach in 2019, this year in Sacramento there is no festival.
I have written of my waning fest interest on this blog back then but I do think that a reimagined festival theme would do wonders. Probably not to rival the epic Firestone Walker Invitational but something fun nonetheless.
A craft beer meets craft bourbon festival would be great. I would think that a pizza and beer or tacos and beer mashup would also be great. Creativity being the key. That creativity can be in location like the recently attended Brews & Bites at the Ritz Carlton or tossing it out there, a brewery night at the incoming Lucas museum in Exposition Park.
Los Angeles has so many neighborhoods and so much history and vibrant culture that could pair with beer. I believe that a killer festival idea is out there.