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Review – Gelson’s Summer Blonde Ale from El Segundo

Looks like there is a renaissance of branded beers much like in the olden days of craft beer. One of these is a new blonde ale on tap at Gelson’s fancy supermarkets that is brewed for them by El Segundo brewing.

Here is the brewery description, “made with 100% Tettnanger hops, contributing to its subtle floral and herbal spice notes. The malt profile, featuring Rahr 2-Row, Rahr Premium Pilsner, Flaked Corn, and Dextrin malt, creates a harmonious balance of doughy sweetness, white bread, cake batter, and honey.”

It is quite a light beer. I abhor the word crushable but this beer is one that will go down quick. It was served extra cold which both helps on a hot day but also dampens flavor. The malt is the lead act but even it is mild and the corn finish is what you will remember most.

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It’s Handy

Handy Market has been a Burbank staple for years and with my love of going to non-chain grocery stores / grocery boutiques a miss on my part.  But after seeing a few beer posts from the store, I decides to drive a town over and see what I had missed.

It is a tiny space in comparison to most grocery stores but the first positive point was the availability of single cans. I picked up a pils from Highland Park and a pastry sour (never had one of those) from Ogopogo. The next positive was the double endcaps of beer. This was where most of the bottled and barrel-aged resided. There was Bottle Logic but also a couple Belgians and de Garde as well. Third positive was the prices were pretty fair. $5.50 for a local beer is pretty good.

The one down is that it is only the small cold case in the corner. It was a limited selection though one last up, was that it seemed to be curated well.

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The Haze Way

Some breweries tend to go with hazy and others go with juicy when they are labeling their non West Coast IPAs.  Los Angeles Ale Works uses the latter and have a new one you should check or or more appropriately check in to, Hotel Hazeway Juicy DIPA with “hoppy notes of peach, passionfruit, white grape and red currant.”

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Signed

During L.A. Beer Week, Lincoln Beer Co. held a Collective Brew party. Now the hazy pale ale dry hopped with New Zealand Cascade is signed, sealed and ready.  You could call it a democratically brewed beer.

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Red and Now Yellow

It was inevitable. If there was a special Deadpool Aviation Gin bottle then there was going to be a Wolverine one as well. This will probably be hard to find and harder to find both.

Screenshot

Now, where is the Wrexham bottle?

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A Book & A Beer – The Napoleon of Crime by Ben MacIntyre

Fiction sometimes echoes facts and such is the case with James Moriarty, arch nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. He was partially based on an American gentleman thief named Adam Worth. And his story is told in The Napoleon of Crime by Ben MacIntyre.

From faking his own death in the Civil War to London, Paris, New York and Johannesburg, Adam Worth live a full life despite not making it to 57 years old. He stole diamonds, money, pickpocketed and ran a gambling den but is most famous for s more spur of the theft of the famous Gainsborough painting, The Duchess of Devonshire.

With each chapter you wonder who else can be stuffed into his man’s adventure. The Pinkertons, Scotland Yard, Pierpont Morgan, criminal nicknames galore and Sherlock Holmes. The face you see on the book jacket provided the idea for Moriarty. Now famous as the ultimate arch nemesis. But he was a gentleman through and through. Barely resorting to violence and always striving and always spending his ill gotten gains as fast as he took them.

It is a fast paced book with a lot of twists and turns, highs and lows and a lot of transatlantic boat travel.

To beer pair with this historical tale, I would suggest selecting beers that say they are on style but really are something else. A good example being Widmee Hefeweizen which is actually a really good wheat beer. Or perhaps there is a DIPA that is a really a Triple IPA.

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Timbo Week

Thanks in no small part to Highland Park Brewery, Los Angeles has a thriving hoppy pilsner reputation. And it comes down to the creation of Timbo Pils and its many and varied variants.

HPB is celebrating their pils with a week of Timbo. Follow their social feeds to see what the specific plans are but might I recommend the guest Timbo night on Friday.

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Cactus

Brouwerij West has come out with another creatively labeled IPA but this time not a hazy, “Cactus Eaters is our 6.8% ABV West Coast IPA brewed to celebrate the Pacific Crest Trail, hiking, and great summer trips. This beer features Alora, HS16660, and Mosaic. It’s super bright and clear with notes of peach, apricot, and lemon zest.”

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New Oregon Brewery # 2 – Coattails Brewing

Coattails is brand new brewery, all of 5 barrels, at the Etzel Farm / Sequitur Winery in Newberg, Oregon.

This is an appointment tasting room. They are “brewing many beer styles from old world German style lagers to hoppy (but balanced) IPA’s and everything in between.”

$50 gets you tastings of both the wine and beer “in a carefully curated approach”. Which sounds like a concept that should be mesh well with the Oregon wine country.