Category: Monthly Features

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The Firkin for March 2022

Fungibility, metaverse, virtual. Words that have morphed in recent years and to me sound almost as bad as the overused, ‘unpack’.

So of course big beer has to enter this make believe land like Heineken has HERE. But what is a innovative way to create a community around your beers when literally, you want people from the community to visit and try your beers?

I am no Luddite wailing against social media nor do I inherently disagree with the idea of virtual currency or virtual art. But beer is meant to be enjoyed in the one real world that we know of.

That does not mean I will buy a token (or is it Tolkien?) in a restaurant or brewery start-up. That seems a step removed from not getting anything on a Kickstarter or Indie-Go-Go.

But there can be a fun way to get, say, a virtual brew day tour. Or get a VR canning day followed by a special 4-pack later. There are creative ways to use an NFT that also includes beer.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Plain English

I don’t really do political podcasts or takes on current news but I like Plain English. Host Derek Thompson doesn’t break a topic down as much as he just is plain clear. It cuts through the noise. The podcast has been especially good of late in breaking down the crisis in Ukraine.

For this podcast, let’s get literal. Real literal. First despite a trend to complicated, ingredient laden beers, find the plainest blond ale or crispy pilsner as you can find. Go as simple as possible.

Or, you can pick up something English, perhaps an ESB or a Mild ale. Eagle Rock Brewery brings their dark mild, Solidarity out this time of year and that would be perfect.

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A Book & A Beer – The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier

Lost meets Fringe and X-Files is how I would elevator this Goncourt winning novel by Hervé Le Tellier. The Anomaly is about one flight that is more than one.

Stop here if you are not a fan of fast paced, sci-fi. Because this book is a page turner. It practically is a sub prestige level TV show a’la Manifest that (may) still be on. But it talks chance, science, scenario 42 and is both fun, smart and a touch poignant as well.

I am talking around the plot since it is best to enjoy it in the moment. So let’s turn to the beer choices…

This will involve a little legwork to accomplish. Find a beer that has an easy to find canned on date. Then get two of them but with different dates. If you can, get one that is two or three months older. Then try both and compare.

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The Firkin for February 2022

First it was food trucks. Then it was trivia nights. Then big TVs for sporting events.

Brewery taprooms had been filling every nook and cranny of the calendar up to when the 2020 hit. And now that calendar is filling again as we move from pandemic to endemic.

That leads me to two “attractions” that seem to be gaining traction. Maker’s Markets and Reality Show nights. Neither sound particularly tied to beer in my view.

You can point that say, craft soap and craft beer share that descriptor but if I want to buy a bar of locally made soap, I can do that without a brewery. Why do I need a few Etsy-ized tables in front of a brewery? This coming from someone who loves going to little shops. Wine + Eggs in Atwater Village is cool. Hi-Lo Markets are grand.

Then there are the Bachelor or Bachelorette nights. Maybe my hatred meets lack of interest in phony love not reality is showing and I understand that a weekly event might bring in regulars but it’s just icky. Like a footballer jersey sporting a Russian company sponsor. I do not have a replacement idea that would draw a drinking crowd but you are not going to see me watching a couple in a windmill or some bro hightailing it over a fence.

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Best Beers of February 2022

Birthday week and month is now over and it was an easy pick for best of the month, Eagle Rock Brewery and their nitro pour of Umi Kumā Lua, their anniversary IPA.

The IPA in standard form has nutmeg in the recipe but that is amped a notch with the nitro pour that has fresh ground nutmeg over a super creamy top plus umbrella to get the full effect. The hop and that cream layer with that spice really work as a whole. No nitro cans but the non-nitro version is also quite good with notes of pear and pine.

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A Book & A Beer – The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers has achieved quite a feat. Going from poetry to a 790 page novel and making it interesting all the way through. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is a Book with a capital B.

Jeffers is adept at pulling the tangled strings of personal history of individual members of an extended family tighter and tighter until the point where each step becomes a boom throughout the genealogy.

Our lead is Ailey, the youngest daughter. But all the characters get a moment in the sun, hence the length of the book. She is fierce and smart in equal measure but she like most of the characters has lived with weight saddled on them and then they add more with their life choices.

This book has garnered all sorts of accolades but I wish that there was less tripping of one’s self going on. Early pregnancy and drugs are there but at times the book is just too much. A little nod to balance would have highlighted the rocky times in sharper focus especially considering the slavery and Native American darkness of early Georgia that flashes throughout the book. I thought, more than a few times, “don’t do that, it is not going to end well.”

I am going to go the really obvious route here. For those of us in Los Angeles, Crowns & Hops is a brewery coming to Inglewood in the next year or two. They first and foremost a quite good beer maker and second are a black run business. Get a mixed 4-pack if you haven’t had their beers before.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Wild Things

Siegfried and Roy. They had a legacy but now most people remember one thing, the tiger attack and that is what Wild Things is all about…

Like most people, I assume, big cats, the early Vegas camp factor and the S&R hairstyles might be our other recollections when pressed. With the actual magic behind nowhere to be seen. But this podcast travels back and forth in time between their early career to post attack and the investigation into it. While also talking about their act. This type of of podcast fills in history gaps entertainingly which is more than can be said of most dry lectures.

There is not too many Las Vegas or Nevada beers out in SoCal distribution but a different tack would be to find the most over the top beers that you can. Be it high ABV, or a strange ingredient, or heck find a marshmallow beer. Or you could go macabre and find some red ales to match the blood.

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A Book & A Beer – Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

I really quite liked Normal People by Sally Rooney plus the NY Times book crew really liked her latest book, so I picked up Beautiful World, Where Are You at the library.

And it was not to my liking.

I did not like any of the four main characters. Nor did I find their choices very smart. The last sixty pages or so were a slog. There were a couple times where I wished there would be some extraordinary outside event happen, like a car crash or illness. Anything to pull the novel out of the rut it was in.

I think Rooney has a style and characters that are just on the tipping point for me in terms of likability. Normal People stayed at the point but Beautiful World and Alice, Eileen, Simon and Felix fell over.

For this novel, pick two beers from breweries that you don’t normally like and do the same and pick two styles that you don’t like and taste them and try to match them to the four main characters.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Close to Death

Close to Death the podcast has a really good base idea to it that is sometimes executed really well plus the name is a play on words because it is about death and people who work in jobs adjacent to death.

One episode is about an obituary journalist, another is a medium who can speak to the dead or a taxidermist in another.

Each episode has a different co-host which is where the trouble lies. I much prefer the intro / outro host who has a much better voice and seems less trying to be funny and just is.

To pair with it, I would look for something marked as organic. Or something from a local farm. Anything that brings you closer to the earth.

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In the Tap Lines for January 2022

header_attractionsWelcome to 2022!  I have a feeling that it will be a better year than the two previous.  Maybe that is optimism or just that I keep seeing new beers pop up and it makes me hopeful.  Have a blessed new year!

~ e-visits to (3) breweries that I would like to visit in 2022
~ special featured reviews of beer brewed in LA
~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events
~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark
~ A Book & A Beer reads Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Close to Death
~ Great Beer names and Best Beers of the Month
~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.