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Pouring for NC

The scenes of devastation from Hurricane Helene are incredibly sad but even in an election year with such a yawning divide in the country, one of the things thats has always made the U.S. strong is their response to natural disasters.  

Beer fans can help by heading to the Untappd shop as they will be donating proceeds from sales from their shop directly to the Foundation For The Carolinas who will be financially assisting those left in the wake of the storm.

I also want to commend the North Carolina Brewers Guild who have been quick to add a page of resources for breweries and in getting a Pouring for Neighbors program up and running with a free special tap handle to use. That is some serious boots on the ground work.

We Angelenos come from all over the country so we know helping out may well be helping an actual neighbor who is from NC or someone we work with or are related to.  Combine that with the fact that beer people are fast to help and we can give this rebuilding effort a real jump start.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Blocks with Neal Brennan

Blocks with Neal Brennan is part of the large industry of comedians talking to comedians that also includes the likes of the Marc Maron podcast, Jerry Seinfeld’s TV show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee or even live events like Smartless.

The hook for this one is in the title, Brennan adds a component of mental health and self-help to the proceedings so that it doesn’t become just a softball type of show. The shows run a bit long for my taste but there are helpful nuggets that the guest share about how they deal with what life can throw your way.

For craft beer pairing, I would make a list of beer styles that you have tried but were either m’eh on or didn’t like and go back and see if the 2024 you has the same opinion on it.

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Would Love To Try – Pumpkin Edition

Now that it is October we can legally talk pumpkin beers and Halloween. And the first thing I want to do is get a little jealous of Seattle for having Cloudburst Brewing and their beer copywriter who had a great time with this their seasonal pumpkin beers description…

Check Your Worst Nightmare out HERE. If you want to avoid opening another tab, here is the ingredient list, “a milk chocolatey base beer brewed with Libby’s canned pumpkin and spiced with a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice and clove.”

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Review – Patio Project from Beachwood Brewing – Can 3

This month, as a bit of a scientific lark, I am going to review the same beer weeks apart to see if any differences can be found. I chose Patio Project IPA from Beachwood Brewing as the test subject after picking it for the beer shopping list post last month.

As you can see from the above photo, it was canned up on 8/1/24. For this review, the first can was tasted on 8/16/24. Can two was opened on 9/5/24. Can three was opened on 9/29.

Still pours a bright and light yellow. No visual degradation seen at all. Aroma also coming in strong. The hop bite is still there which is good because this is near session IPA to me and without it, the beer would lose a dimension.

Maybe I shall conduct this experiment again but with a different, not as high quality brewery as Beachwood and maybe take it over a longer time frame.

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Blurry

Sometimes in beer, you may not see a beer style produced very often but one way you can sneak around that is to “imperialize” that style and it helps to have a brewery like Stone Brewing who excel at big beers doing it.

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Five Talons

One of my bottle shops stops is Talon Tap & Wine in Eagle Rock. Friendly people, you have a great selection that you can buy single cans of and there is a nice little bar in the back if you want to catch a game.

And this year, they are turning 5! There will be a special day of celebration for it on Saturday, October 5th.

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Dollars & Snobs

If you saw the John Oliver – Last Week Tonight commentary on dollar stores and how terrible they are, you will understand why the name of the new beer from Paperback Brewing is so scary and fitting for the Spooky Season…

…it is good to see that Black IPA has found a bit of a seasonal niche for Halloween.

Paperback also has a good beer name going with the Beer Snob IPA but they really should have gone for a different IPA sub-style like Brut instead of…

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In the Tap Lines for October 2024

We have entered Q4 of 2024. As always, the year just swings by before you know it. Before the calendar switches, we need to pack in fun like a trip to Colorado, which I will be posting about later.

~ e-visits to (3) breweries that won at this year’s GABF

~ special featured reviews of Halloween inspired beers

~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 The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Blocks with Neal Brennan

~ Sports & A Beer returns with WNBA and NBA expansion to Portland and maybe Seattle

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

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The Firkin for September 2024

Gonna go very trivial here. But it is a bee in my bonnet. In my internet beer wanderings, I see videos and photos where beer is spilled, intentionally.

I know that there is only so much new beer content when making beer content is very much second, third or fourth place behind making craft beer but whenever I see spilled beer, I think that the beer could be given as a taster to a new customer or an old customer.

Then another part of me just moves to who has to clean up that mess because beer is sticky as hell. What cleaners are they using? I just start thinking of anything other than the beer.

Instead of the pranks and hijinks, this beer fan would like more about the brewery and the beers.