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Review – Honey and Ube from Engkanto Brewery

My lovely local craft beer bar the Glendale Tap had Filipino craft brewer, Engkanto on tap and since I have never had a craft beer from that country, my curiosity was piqued.

I had the Paint Me Purple Ube Lager which poured a medium dark purple color and had sweet yam taste to it. But also a bit of offsetting minerality as well. Slick mouthfeel too. 

I also sampled their Hive Hive Honey Ale which was really good on very hot day. The honey was definitely in attendance as was that minerality again. Slightly slick mouthfeel but not too sweet at all. I liked that the bottle had the brewery name in the glass.

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Oktoberfest SoCal – Part 2

Here are two more Oktoberfest biers to add to your late fall beer cooler, one from north of LA and one from south…

First is a classic from the old world inspired Enegren Brewing and next to it is a good wurst from Radiant Beer Co.

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Smore-whal

Sierra Nevada’s famed Narwhal is getting a campsite variant with a Barrel-Aged Toasted S’More.  It is an imperial stout aged in Bourbon barrels with cocoa nibs and natural graham cracker flavors.  No mention of marhsmallow though for this 11.9% beer.

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Believe

Narratives, whether true or false, can be powerful.  Many American cities have been painted with a broad brush of “unsafe” or “uncool” even if the day to day is not much different.

Portland, my hometown neighbor to the north, has endured a bit of bad press you could say but during both of my visits this year, it has seemed just as filled with beer, good food and frustrating parking as any city one lives in or visits.

So I am glad to see Old Town Brewing go to bat and stand up for the City of Roses with their recently launched Believe in Portland IPA.  Which you can read more about HERE.

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1st Visit – Beachwood Distilling

We are starting to see the shoots of the Beachwood Distilling with a new cocktail menu at the Bixby Knolls location starting with rum, gin and (unfortunately) vodka too.

With many reviews of breweries, I give allowances for youth.  Finding your footing is a process.  And I will have to reserve some judgement until  I can taste their spirits near but on first blush, the cocktails are pretty darn good.

I went with a classic Gin and Tonic but using the orange gin vs the botanical.  I found it to be well in balance with citrus and gin and a light quinine touch to it.  My beer and cocktail buddy Rich had two other gin cocktails, despite the allure of the special tiki glasses, and liked the Saturn and its constellation of ingredients over the lime tinged Gimlet.  

I am excited to see how this spirits program develop.

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Sports & A Beer – Beer Prices

In July, I went to Providence Park in Portland to see the Thorns V Wrexham in a friendly. I would have enjoyed having a beer at the game but even a vending machine 12oz can of Pub Beer from 10 Barrel was $8.00 and draft options were around $12.00.

Fast forward and I see the average beer prices for Premier League clubs and I nearly fell out of my chair.

Even at a $1.31 exchange rate, the high end is about $8.00. The high end. $8.00 ain’t getting me a half a soda at the new Intuit Dome here in Los Angeles. Everything about attending professional sports in the U.S. is expensive and I get that overcharging beer leads to less drunken and rowdy behavior during the game but it also leads to fans drinking it all before the game at tailgates.

If the Premier League can do it, so to other leagues.

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Alt and Smokey

El Segundo Brewing is up to their third collaboration with noted home brewer John Palmer.  First was a Dunkelbock and second was a Czech Dark Lager and now their is a Smoked Altbier.

Altbier is a Düsseldorf classic but this has a smoked malt twist.  Beechwood to be precise.  

Maybe when they get to a fourth European style, they will do a mixed four-pack.

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Tilray Did What?

Like so much spent grain, Canadian cannabis company, Tilray is dumping a who’s who of Oregon brewing talent from 10 Barrel Brewing in Bend.

Gone is former Barley Brown’s brewmaster Shawn Kelso, former brewmaster Jimmy Seifrit, former Bend Brewing brewmaster Ian Larkin and most notably GABF medal machine, Tonya Cornett.

You can write a book (others have) about the malfeasance of SABInBev but at least they were not stupid enough to cut loose that murderers row of brewing know how.  It would be the equivalent of the Kansas City Chiefs, waiving Mahomes, Kelce and Coach Reid in one fell swoop.

This is, unfortunately, typical corporate shortsightedness.  Keeping talent happy and hoppy is not valued as much as profit.  And what is thought of now as cost savings is going to end up losing them customers in the short term and will also introduce more competition in the long term as those brewers either start their own places or go to a brewery and bring their ‘rizz with them.

It takes a special attitude for a large corporation to grow a small company under its banner and most do not have the people skills or vision to accomplish it.  Tilray has shown their true colors.

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Oktoberfest SoCal – Part 1

Throughout the month, I will be highlighting some Festbiers from Los Angeles ( and adjacent county ) breweries that will be readily available for your Germanic beer needs, here is post # 1…

Around the horn, clockwise, we have Oaktoberfest, a classic from Firestone Walker, Bear Ears from Brouwerij West, Huftgold from El Segundo Brewing and Das Hof from Hermosa Brewing.

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Review – Full Pour Magazine

I admit until I saw Issue 6 of Full Pour on a newstand recently, I did not know of its existence as a fancy quarterly beverage magazine.

But now that I do, I need to dive in and see what is inside the covers…

FP covers wine, beer, spirits and then infused? before non-alc and most of the articles inside are a page or two to start with before kicking into the features section which are not that much longer. Now I usually write very concisely but I felt many of the articles could have been expanded. There were 19 separate ones in this issue. Dropping it down to 15 and adding more detail would make it more engrossing. Especially the piece about craft brewing in India which I wished had more about some of the breweries. Or a map maybe. The other thing that riled me was that were as many cannabis drink articles as beer ones.

On the plus side, I was thankful for the charitable ads inside that were sponsored by advertisers. Always good to see people making an effort at being community based. The variety of articles was impressive as well.

For a magazine that is $20 a pop the bar has to be set quite high and while close, at least this issue, didn’t quite reach it.