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Sports Bra Franchising

The Sports Bra the much lauded and talked about first women’s sports bar in the world, has announced plans to franchise and bring the brand to other cities.

Owner Jenny Nguyen opened The Sports Bra in Portland in 2022 and now with investment from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, best known as the husband of tennis legend Serena Williams, and his Ohanian’s 776 Foundation will provide the backing for the endeavor which will hopefully create more places where women’s sports can be watched which in turn might get more women’s sports broadcast.

image from the Oregonian

As a bonus, money from the investment will be re-invested right back into girls’ and women’s sports via the foundation providing even more of a positive feedback loop.

Maybe, a franchise will open here in Glendale!

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Wish I Could Get – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

It’s always good to have some positivity in your beer collaborations and that spirit is certainly found in the name for new PNW IPA from Gigantic and Ruse Brewing in Portland,  “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood IPA”.

It starts “with a base of Northwest Pale and Munich malts, then layered in the classic and still great citrusy Cascade hop, paired with the newly released Comet hop, and elevated the experience even further with Oregon-grown Chinook hops. All this leads to an IPA loaded with citrusy notes of grapefruit, sweet orange, and a hint of pine, all backed by a beautiful malt profile.”

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A Podcast & A Beer – Into the Tardis

The 15th Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, made a memorable entry and then followed up with goblins at Christmas and is set for his first full season of adventures starting this month.  But if you need more Doctor Who, the place to go for a prolific amount of content is Big Finish which produces audio stories of all the Doctors.  Want more Paul McGann than just one TV movie and cameos?  They have some. Looking for more Christopher Eccleston?  They have it.

Up until now, you had to buy it but there is now a podcast version which will give you a taste of the danger and whimsey just minus the visual effects.  Into the Tardis is hosted by Colin Baker and it also includes little snippets of behind the scenes info.

For an ale accompaniment, I would suggest the easy route if finding some British beers either from Britain like Samuel Smith’s for instance or if you can find that rare American made mild or bitter, go for that. If you wanted to dig deeper, try to get some Scottish beer (just not Brewdog) to honor the heritage and accent of past Doctors and the current one. More American would be Single Hill’s Partner in Time IPA.

Or if you into that sort of thing, there are quite a few blue hued beers. Great Notion is one purveyor of non beer colored beers.

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Deadpool, No Wolverine

When it comes to special edition spirits, I am not usually inclined to think twice about them if the label is the only difference between it and a lower priced standard version.

And as much as Ryan Reynolds is associated with Aviation Gin (whose space in Portland is really cool and should be on your gin bucket list), I don’t know if a Deadpool Gin is cool, now if it was a Sloe Gin, mind changed.

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Casino Blonde

Brewery X from Anaheim has created a house beer for the Yaamava Resort called Mellow Mo’.  It is a Blonde ale which tracks for a mass market – craft curious beer. Wonder if one can get a can at their concert venue that is generating buzz for the musicians that play there.

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Rice Segundo

Yes, El Segundo Brewing is known more for their use of hops but maybe they can multi-task with rice too.  Harvest Legend Rice Lager is brewed with “100% California Calrose rice grown by VA Farms 4th generation rice farmers in Pleasant Grove, CA. VA Farms rice is a mark of excellence around the world, truly a Harvest Legend.”

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CCBG

Usually mergers and acquisitions occur and it is a net negative.  Especially when it is the big players in the beer industry.  A big brewery buys a small one and then proceeds to water down the product or distributors get bigger and bigger until they cannot service all the beer they have in their portfolio.

But the new Circle of Crowns Beverage Group Strategic Alliance is indeed that an alliance.  CCBG includes Inglewood-based Crowns and Hops, Fresno-based Full Circle Brewing and its sister brands Speakeasy Ales and Lagers and Sonoma Cider. All black owned breweries.

The two main prongs of the alliance are a combined sales force bringing not just one brewery but multiple to the table and second Full Circle will use their excess brewing capacity to brew Crowns and Hops beers which, I think, may change once the Inglewood brewery is up and running.

Owning your local market is quite important these days so the fact that each one is in a different sector of California will help as well. But the combined weight might just push growth so that these beers get more placement.