Category: Opinion

my humble and correct opinion

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Future Legacy

Back when SABInBev started buying up craft breweries, it became evident that they were pursuing a geographic fit first followed by style categories. Now there is a new player from the craft sector, Legacy.

I don’t mean to paint Legacy and by extension Ninkasi Brewing of Eugene, Oregon out as a global villain. An acquisition strategy written down is often different from what plays out so it will be interesting if any California breweries are on the list of future possibilities since Legacy has now bought one brewery each in Oregon and Colorado.

I will keep the blog updated if anything happens in SoCal.

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The Theme Building

Considering how hard it is to drive into or just around LAX, the idea of adding another draw to that traffic jam seems counter-productive but when you see this lovely building….

…you can’t help but think of the possibilities. Now the fine folks over at Eater LA have taken a swipe on what they would like to see from a food perspective but what about from an independent beer perspective? Or a mix of both?

I have been a big proponent of a centralized spot where L.A. County Brewers Guild members would pour their beers side-by-side. A version of that was on display at the California Craft Brewers Summit where Los Angeles beer had a booth and beers and breweries rotated in over the course of the conference. There could be a food hall set-up inside to cover a gamut of the food from different parts of town. Restaurant A paired with Brewery B from Glendale. For example, Havlabar and Brewyard. Beachwood could be both restaurant and brewery. Same with Simmzy’s.

Local distilleries could be added to the mix. Icons like In ‘n’ Out would be great but leave room to rotate from poke to hot chicken to whatever is next coming down the pike.

The point being that the space would point people to not only a beer but food and a part of Los Angeles that is maybe underseen.

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The Next Trend in Packaging

You are looking at one of the two prototypes that the Carlsberg Group has created towards their goal of the world’s first “paper beer bottle”. The bottles are “made from sustainably-sourced wood fibres that is both 100% bio-based and fully recyclable.”

The difference is the polymer inside the bottle. Since these are tests, I (and probably they) may not know how the beer responds to heat, they are obviously shielded from light. Maybe we will all be drinking straight from fibre.

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Road Brewing

While scrolling through GABF (Great American Beer Festival) Facebook posts, I ran across the following Sierra Nevada, tidbit…

Ken Grossman announced that the original Sierra Nevada brewing system will travel the United states, making occasional stops to brew in celebration of their 40th anniversary. I hope they head to L.A. because that would be a brew day to watch.

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GABF Awards 2019

The votes have been tallied for 2019 and you can click HERE to see the winners from the Great American Beer Festival. Let’s rundown the Los Angeles medal view….

First though, let’s say upfront that only 2,295 breweries entered. California has 1,000+ breweries so this competition, though by far the biggest really only covers a percentage of beer in the US. Think of it as a snapshot in time.

Also, there are some weird categories. IPL is mixed with malt liquor. And some categories are only filled by 30 beers in total. And what makes a beer fit the “Emerging IPA” category?

On to LA, Claremont ring up gold for Station 101. Ambitious Ales bronze for their Friends-ian Central Perk coffee beer. King’s Brewing out in Rancho Cucamonga bagged two medals. Perennial favorites Beachwood and Firestone Walker each won but not as much as years past. Arrow Lodge and Ogopogo represented for Jungalo Juice and Boeman Witbier. Bluebird Brasserie won bronze for their excellent Stay Golden Belgian Ale. Gamecraft of Laguna Beach gave me another reason to finally visit with a medal in the coffee stout category.

What really made my day was Highland Park winning gold for Timbo Pils. Such a great beer. Also Evan and Brian at Green Cheek had a day with Gold for their Australian for Pale Ale and then a silver for Radiant Beauty in the ultra-competitive American IPA category. Well deserved.

What exemplifies the GABF awards are the apply moments and I leave for you with the one where Breakside Brewing of Portland was on stage, getting the glamour shot with Charlie Papazian when their name was announced as gold medal winner for another category. Brewer Ben Edmonds could not contain himself. He jumped up, bent over and was “in” the moment. That is what this whole revolution is about.

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The Firkin for September 2019

Best of Show. Considering that to truly find the best IPA brewed in the US would probably take you years and thousands of dollars and your liver, I am finding competitions less illuminating and below that are the internet Best in Style pieces that pop up from time to time.

Recently the California Craft Brewers Association held a Cup but only a 1/3 of breweries participated and none sent their full range for obvious logistic reasons. I have no doubt that the winner was a damn fine beer but “BEST”? Methinks the sample size is not full strength.

Same with a recent Vinepair Top 15 IPA list. There are so many variables at play. Availability, freshness, judging styles, palate fatigue but one each from Washington and Oregon with the Washington one being Elysian? That strains credulity. I can’t imagine trying to crown a best IPA in Los Angeles. There are too many. Some gone in a blink of an eye.

Maybe if I was made of money and had a Tardis to get me to that just tapped moment, I could do it. But until that day arrives, I just don’t hold much stock in these lists.

Currently, I prefer the personal, party of one list. The totally subjective form where one knowledgeable (hopefully) person submits what they like.

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Climate Change

I honestly cannot tell you if the world will last for my full lifetime. What I do know is that the vast majority of people on this planet are just trying to make it through the day. And that is the devil in the details.

Everyone knows that the governments and major corporations (one and the same?) out there would core out this planet to get re-elected or meet their 4th quarter projections. They deny climate change so vociferously that you know that they believe it, but don’t give a toss.

So we nibble at the edges, we (I) recycle, we (I) buy organic sometimes, we (I) drive hybrid cars but until there is an actual concerted effort from the people that can do something, can alter events it is just buying time, time that is probably, wasted at this point unless you know someone with a spaceship and a course plotted.

And soon, this planet will accelerate the rejection of the people on the surface. My beloved malts and hops will start to fail, the water will become either scarce or polluted but at least that means less bottles and cans to recycle, right.

Doom and gloom. Yes, afraid so. I don’t think we as a people combined want to move this large boat around. I don’t think the U.S. Government, even at it’s most ecological would make a dent. So we argue and dispute facts, the modern day fiddle to play as the world burns.

I’m not asking people to quit their job and start protesting, the current Drumpf in office would probably think you are cheering him because he is that far gone. Just ramp up your treatment of the world as far as you can, tell your friends to do the same. Maybe a groundswell will happen. Maybe buying a few more years can happen.

Because if the ground and water is fucked then no more beer.

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Your Beer, at the Door

After a, shall we say, interesting exchange between myself and UPS in regards to a beer delivery, it was serendipitous to see an article about shipping beer on Facebook. The vibrant and off-putting trading market sprung up as a response to a lack of shipment options from favored breweries.

This piece from Joe Stange has a lot of nuggets of interest about the convoluted process of beer shipments and how it is not a priority but may become one if say national retailers like BevMo and Total Wine were to push for it.

The tidbit that caught my eye was this, “… Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, introduced a bill (HR 2517) in May that would allow the U.S. Postal Service to ship alcoholic beverages to legal adults, wherever state laws allow it.”

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Are You Ready for Some… Three Weavers

It may not be ready when T. Swift opens the new Inglewood Stadium next year but Three Weavers will have a large 20,000-square-foot  presence in the stadium.  There will be a beer garden + opening in 2021 in the Hollywood Park development.

The beer garden per sources “will feature plenty of room for on-site brewing, as well as seating by way of outdoor tables and space for live music.” It is quite amazing that any sort of true craft presence is being invited into one of these projects.  The big beer cabal usually puts the kibosh on any sort competitors even at lesser pro sports venues, let alone a biggie like the NFL.

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New Model – Reverse NIMBY

Last month, news filtered out that the hoped for 2nd location of Sunset Beer in Highland Park was not going to be happening. Enough loud people spoke the G (gentrification) word and peppered in some of the old school, it will lead to undesirable people (like me?) to move the needle.

Now I am not a fan of dictators and eminent domain but there are times when I wish I could wave a magic wand to stop when the people of Los Angeles seem hell-bent on just stopping anything and everything.

Now, it is not on the same insane level as recalcitrant cities that just do not want low income housing within their borders and also seem shocked that homeless people camp out within those same borders.  But it is part of the same virulent strain of NIMBY’ism that seems to have grown to outbreak proportions when the delay tactic was found to work.

How else to explain that a handful of residents can effectively hold a project hostage until it becomes economically unfeasible?  In an area that has a goodly amount of liquor stores in various states of disrepair, how is an upper scale bottle shop and tap room an issue? 

I thought this uninformed position of any beer being a draw for unsavory people was from ten years ago but it still pops up now and again.  I understand that gentrification is a huge problem in Highland Park (and in other close knit neighborhoods) but it is a problem that is not solved by pushing business away.

I see these actions as an effort to stem the unaffordability of this city. If a desirable business is kept out, then less people will travel on York Boulevard and maybe that will return the area to a cheaper status. But that is a mistake. The residential shortage problem will sort itself out once/if housing stock for various income levels rises. 

Let me explain via a simplistic timeline what I have seen happen in multiple neighborhoods in Portland and could happen here too:

  1. Land and rent in a neighborhood falls into an attractive zone and supply is ample enough for both storefronts and residences to attract both entrepreneurs and create a new community.
  2. The entrenched community reacts to the influx of business either positively or negatively or both.
  3. The prices rise and that pushes both business and residents (old and new) out of the area.
  4. The priced out residents move to other parts of the city that are in the price range and the process begins in those areas leading back to # 1.

What is happening in Los Angeles is that # 2 is happening before # 1 and is firmly anti-development in many cases and there is generally no # 4 so the cycle is being pinned down in two spots and not moving.  It is akin to soil not being tilled and new crops not being introduced which creates just dirt and not soil.

What is needed is a new Reverse NIMBY model.  A model that pulls in a business that the community wants, pulls in neighbors that they want and doesn’t just swat away everything.  If you want/need a local barber or local coffee shop, then a reaching out needs to happen.  Otherwise someone is going to see an empty storefront and think it is a good spot for their idea.

Secondly, new housing needs to be promoted.  What business doesn’t want customers within walking distance.  So if say a brewery wants to build in a neighborhood, have them pump money into a local housing fund to create levels of housing that correspond to the neighborhood.

Right now there seems to be just the answer No when we really need, how about this.