Category: Monthly Features

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A Book & A Beer – Knife by Salman Rushdie

Memoirs are not usually my cuppa but after hearing Salman Rushdie talk about his scary new book, Knife about his near fatal stabbing, I added it to my library list and I was quite taken by the thoughtfulness and openness displayed. It could have been easy to be simplistic about such a horrifying attack recounting events in a rote fashion but Rushdie plumbs deeper and looks at the whole picture and not just one victim and one attacker and the medical consequences.

Such a violent and bloody book make for a much harder beer choice. But I will lean into the word meditations in the sub-title and suggest finding comfort beers. Nothing hoppy or bitter because that is not what this book is about. Find a lovely brown ale like Figueroa Mountain’s Davy Brown or look for a nice porter from your local brewery.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Sherlock Holmes Short Stories

I do not think that I will ever get tired of the mysteries and deductions of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle. And now the Noiser podcast team have indulged me with readings by actor Hugh Bonneville of the short stories starting with The Speckled Band.

Since the short stories are brief, it takes about two or three episodes to crack the case in nice half-hour chunks and Bonneville brings the stories to life without getting too theatrical with the line readings.

To pair with mystery, dare I suggest you find your own Watson to cover up labels or pour beers blind so that you can deduce hops, terroir or even the brewery who made it. If Watson is away, then find yourself a nice mild or English IPA.

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The Firkin for December 2024

I am not inclined to doom and dread when it comes to the New Year. Perhaps because the bar of past years is not the highest of hurdles.

But I do feel mighty trepidatious about our breweries in Los Angeles and this country overall. Zooming out, it is clear that most voting Americans have no idea of the deleterious effects of tariffs and how they are best used in tiny, targeted doses. It is also clear that the ultra religious right cannot stay in church and rather enjoy pushing their twisted morality onto anyone and alcohol is one of their targets.

On a local scale, breweries here are closing or are in trouble. Will that balance out naturally with the remaining breweries getting the dollars? Perhaps. And I do think that turnkey breweries and cheaper kit may lead to a new set of exciting beer but that may not come to fruition until 2026. Until then, we may be looking at a lot of light lagers as draws since slushies and seltzers are fading fast.

The one thing that I will be tracking in 2025 are beer prices. I routinely purchase mixed 4-packs and I used to be able to get them at the $20 mark but in the last half of the year it has been more $24 to $25 and I am looking at barrel-aged beer prices with a sharp eye and substitute a hoppy pils for them. And I don’t even look at big bottles.

However this year turns out, I hope you all have a great beer year and I urge you to visit local and also travel to beer. It might make a difference.

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Sports & A Beer – What to do with these excess Bowl games?

With the coming of yet another new college football playoff format, the old school traditional slate of bowl games are fast becoming even more irrelevant than they were before the advent of sponsored games.  If you have lost track, check out this doozy of a LIST.

At some point, these games are going to become extinct.  It is a costly endeavor to put together a good game but when all you have left to pick from are a bunch of 6-6 teams, no one is going to watch these shelf turds let alone buy a ticket to one.

I say, that you start a second tournament for teams that have at least 9 wins but did not make the big tournament and have a Best of the Rest tournament.  Then next year that winner plays the national champion in the first game of the year.

Now, on to the beer….

When I get a 4-pack or 6-pack, I tend to give a can or bottle away because by the time I work my way through a full pack months have passed because I see newer beers and my FOMO (is that still a craft beer thing?) kicks in before I notice the forlorn last can in the hiding in the back where the new beers pushed it.  If you too, have lonely singles, break them out while you watch these also ran bowl games.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Shift Meal from The Ringer Food

The Ringer likes to hide mini podcast series inside an established one.  And so you might have missed Shift Meal hosted by Danny Chau.

Over four episodes, Chau talks BBQ in Los Angeles with the best the City of Angels has to offer (which is a lot, this city has lots of good ‘cue).  It will make you desperately hungry so prepare accordingly.  And it makes me hope that Chau will cover pizza and burgers at some point.  

For beer, I suggest that you find yourself some good winter bocks or dopplebocks.  Something suitably big and malty that will not be cowed into submission by burnt ends or dinosaur ribs. Maybe Figueroa Mountain’s 14th Anniversary rum barrel-aged helles bock. 

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A Book & A Beer – Everyone This Christmas has a Secret by Benjamin Stevenson

I have read the first two “Everyone” meta murder mysteries and was excited to see a third book pop-up. And it is Christmas themed, Everyone This Christmas has a Secret is the latest from Benjamin Stevenson.

Ernest Cunningham is back to solve a third mysterious case involving a philanthropist and a magician.  And yes, the case is laid out with no fake-outs or last chapter new information like the past two books.

I will keep the rest of the plot for you to discover but I will say that the end reveal of the how done it is quite ingenious.  Which makes it worse that the rest of the quite slim book seems, well, slim.  The author doesn’t bring back characters from the first two books except for Ern and Juliette (briefly and at a distance) when he probably could have to add some extra twist of interpersonal drama.  Also, even though it is set in Australia and the weather is not the chill type, the lack of seasonal festivity is pretty glaring.  It is barely mentioned sans a Secret Santa and a Rudolph costume.  The book could well be called, Everyone at the Magic Show has a Secret.  There is also an arch enemy brought up early in the book that doesn’t pay off at the end for me at least.

It is a fun and super quick read though and the winks and nods and breaks in the fourth wall are good fun but seems a skosh underbaked overall.

For a beer pairing, I want to suggest Australian Summer beers but SoCal does not get much in the way of Aussie craft. I would also like to suggest just Summer beers but that doesn’t fit the current season since we are in holiday mode in 70 degree weather. So the best recommendation would be to stock up on dark lagers since they are en vogue. Urban Roots has some good ones as do many breweries.

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The Firkin for November 2024

A tariff is a tax imposed by one government on either imports or exports of goods (or both).  It is a revenue source for a government and import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade that taxes foreign products to encourage or safeguard domestic industry. Protective tariffs are among the most widely used tools of protectionism along with import and export quotas.

Why did I just give a simplified definition of a tariff? Because many people who voted did not understand the meaning of that word and its ramifications on food and drinks. And in the coming years, this is going to really hurt the buying power of an American dollar.

American craft beer buyers already know the upward rise of cans or draft beer. My experience has been that $8.00 is probably as low as I can expect to see a price to be. Tariffs will push that up higher.

If your favorite brewery buys malt from Germany or wants a New Zealand hop varietal or wants to make an avocado ale using Mexican fruit, well, depending on the whim and senility of the dodo in charge, those ingredients may be more costly or far more costly.

And if you believe that this tariffs will bolster industry in America well, Mr X himself has the ear (as of today) of the dodo and thief and has proven to be very anti-union and anti-paying a fair wage and extremely anti-40 hour weeks. So you may not have enough money or time to enjoy a craft beer.

This country is heading for another depression and that is going to be another broadside to a beer industry already hit hard.

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Sports & A Beer – Managerial Changes

For every sport, every season brings the coaching carousel.  A coach gets fired and then by the next year is coaching somewhere else.  In the National Football League both the Jets of New York and the Saints of New Orleans have parted way with head coaches and surprisingly the Premier League in England has only seen one high profile departure ( so far ), that being Erik Ten Hag being booted by Manchester United.  It is too early for NBA firings but there are plenty of coaches whose hot seats are warm.

After the changes, the team may win a few games and the word leaks out that the coach had “lost” the locker room as if a character in The Importance of Being Earnest.  It is more likely that any given sports team is a fragile state of being.  It is why dynasties are so intriguing because they are not the natural state of affairs.  United can rule Manchester and then can be usurped by City.  Red replaced by light blue.

Coaches are integral but so is a dominant player or healthy players and luck.  Lots of luck.  A football in America can bounce so many ways and a football in Britain can ping just under or just over a crossbar.  Which makes coaching changes such an object of discussion because the avid fan cannot really pinpoint why a coach will succeed or fail. If indeed they did either.  A true bad coach is rare and may just be someone who is better as an assistant in truth.

Tying this into craft beer.  Is there a brewery that you think could use a change in brewer.  Not because one is bad per se, but just as a means of refreshing the current beers and dreaming up new ones?  Maybe a brewery that has added a beer(s) to their line-up that are not in their wheelhouse while discontinuing others that were legend?  Next time you are beer shopping, check out the beers that you think could use a new direction.

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A Podcast & A Beer – My Unsung Hero

Since it is the month for giving thanks, there is no more fitting choice of podcast than My Unsung Hero hosted by Shankar Vedantam.

“Each episode reveals what the news ignores: everyday acts of kindness and courage that transformed someone’s life. Listen — and renew your faith in humanity.” Boy do we need that in our lives.

For a craft beer to pair with this, I would suggest asking the beertender at your local brewery what beer needs a little love on the tap list, one that needs a craft beer drinking hero to come to the rescue. Oh, and then make a generous tip as well.

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The Firkin for October 2024

It is easy nowadays to summon a car to deliver you to a brewery or from one brewery to another. You also will find running clubs associated with a brewery. And if you really want to take your life in your hands, you can bike. I hate to run but even I would take that over bicycling.

My choice A is walking and whilst in Denver, I was able to saunter from a brewery, to another and then another. The next day, I walked around a lake from one corner to another to visit two breweries. I miss being able to do that in Los Angeles as there are relatively few neighborhoods where multiple breweries exist.

Torrance on Del Amo is one. Arts District in DTLA is a second. Both have their charms and drawbacks. And maybe if economic times improve or a new gust of brewery wind hits the sails we will be able to create more walkable beer paths.