We are back around the calendar horn. A whole beer year stretches before us. All sorts of new brews and new news are waiting for us craft beer fans. Starting with…..
~ e-visits to (3) breweries from Craft Beer & Brewing’s Best of 2023 Canadian picks.
~ special featured reviews of beers of ciders from 2 Towns Ciderhouse
~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 Roughhouse Friday by Jaed Coffin
~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to The Food Programme from the BBC
~ Sports & A Beer returns with Streaming Sports
~ 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.
One last kvetch for 2023 before the craft beer world moves into 2024.
Hours of Operation. Why do I have to be Sherlock Holmes or an investigative journalist to find them and once found, why am I wary that they don’t really reflect the actual open hours?
A little backtrack first. My father was an inveterate gambler when it came to going out to a restaurant. He barely checked the address, let alone if the darn place would be open. God forbid he call the establishment.
My genome carried some of that devil may care attitude but it has been slowly and surely burned out of me. In my last road trip, I read and re-read the hours of one spot that I wanted to visit. It seemed clear but it was clearly at odds with the sign on the closed door that said different.
Another brewery that I checked and re-checked was closed for a staff event. No where was that mentioned. Guess it was expected that people would find out when they drove their and saw a darkened taproom. Another brewery was lit up and an employee was inside but that employee was apparently the only one who showed up and so the brewery was staying locked.
If I had called the brewery with the staff event, would the message said that? If I had called the one employee brewery, would the phone have been answered. I suspect no in both instances.
Why can’t hours be easy and clear? Are they changing with such frequency that social media cannot be updated quickly enough? Does no one have that job?
The fix is simple. Check your hours on your website and social media pages. Then fix if needed. If hours for a certain week, like Christmas or New Year’s is different, then post that.
Of the three places where I traveled and met with no welcome, I did not go back to two of them. That should say something.
So, I traveled over to El Segundo to check out two new breweries that I have posted about before. One The Boardroom was shut for a private party.
But I did get to taste the beers of nearby Five Point Five Brewing which has taken over the former Surfridge Brewing space.
The space remains the same. No drastic changes inside. The change is outside with a bright big paint job with the brewery name in big letters.
The beers were surprisingly good but in styles that I was a bit surprised by. In my sampler tray were two IPA’s, a hoppy blonde, a Nitro Red Ale and a big stout. The Hoppy Blonde, I Love That for You was my top choice. Light yellow in color. Nice flavor with a little hoppy burst that came through well.
The Proud Mary Irish Red on Nitro highlighted the creamy dispense very well and when that flavor dissipated, the malt flavors took over for a second round.
A promising start for sure that I might re-check.
To make this last 1st Visits post of 2023 factually plural, I tacked on a visit to Long Beach and the former promenade home of Beachwood Brewing that is now ISM Brewing. Ian McCall who brewed at this very location is back with his eponymous initials brewery and the word is good.
I had five tasters covering a bit of their beer menu and came away very impressed. Especially with their New Zealand hopped beers. A pilsner, Lag Rope and an IPA, Kiwi Fingers. Both really let that Nelson hop shine. Also quite impressive was a simple ale called Peaches for Days that harmed no peaches but the aroma and taste was 100% stonefruit. A hop magic trick for sure.
ISM is only a month old but they are already firing out hits so mark it as your first to visit next year.
I believe this will be a first for my Best of… lists. No IPA or barrel-aged stout taking the top spot.
But first, the runners up:
Enegren Brewing’s Single Hop Pilsner with Talus hops which I have had twice now and both times it sparkled. Next is Five Point Five Brewing and their Nitro version of their Proud Mary Irish Red which just showcased the foam and cream. Finally, Fremont Brewing’s 2023 B-Bomb. An old-school throwback bourbon barrel-aged monster.
But the winner was a draft taster of Bagby Beer Co.’s collaboration with Bierstadt Lagerhaus on a Weissbier, wEYESsbier. So good that I grabbed the last single can in the cooler.
Each year Craft Beer & Brewing magazine publishes their Best of Issue. I have gone through it and plucked three breweries out of it to highlight this month, the third and final brewery is Incendiary Brewing.
Two college friends and long time Home Brewers opened this North Carolina brewery in 2018 and must be doing the right things to get noticed. And here are the beers I noticed from their taplist.
Cold Pizza – “West Coast Style Pilsner with Anchovy hops in collaboration with Hollingbery & Sons.”
Hop Loaf – “New England IPA Experimental Hop HBC-836 in collaboration with Yakima Chief Hops.”
Brandon Hates Black IPAs – “Wet-hopped Black IPA with Wet Citra, Wet Azzaca, Mosaic hops.”
Dulce Muerte – “Imperial Stout with cocoa, pepper skins, cinnamon, and vanilla.”
The November issue of Beer Paper featuring a German theme may prove to be the final issue of the monthly paper.
I have seen a few other newsletters call it quits as well and it seems to be not only due to financial considerations but also to time spent that could be spent elsewhere for better gain.
I think that another consideration is that the craft beer missionaries have decreased in number. Factor that in along with the steady change in how we get our news now favoring Tik Tok means that beer fans not only have to keep their enthusiasm up, they also have to keep changing technology.
It is tiring if you want to make a living at it. Or at least not bleed money.
Which gets us back to Beer Paper which has plugged along month to month covering a wide range of stories from around the Los Angeles area. They have allowed me to write about beer books which is doubly against the grain of the times.
It must be said that the news is not yet final but I would expect changes at the very least. Perhaps quarterly. Perhaps online only. Either way, it was a great run and I am glad to have been a small contributor to it.
Yakima Chief Hops is launching a new program named FWD, to drill down on both on data and the brewing community.
Here are a couple of snippets from the press release, “Participating brewers will be granted access to the newest, not-yet-commercialized HBC varieties and products in Yakima Chief Hop’s innovation pipeline. Application registration is open for breweries interested in trialing cutting-edge hop products and promising experimental hop varieties. In its inaugural year, FWD will be welcoming a limited number of enthusiastic participants. Through brewing trials, questionnaires, conversation and sensory analysis, brewers will have the opportunity to guide these products through their final stage of development, assuring YCH is working on the most useful and exciting products in the industry.”
“The ultimate goal of FWD is to have a circular, growing community of brewers working with Yakima Chief Hops to identify and curate the products that keep beer moving forward.”
KFC Japan has a new fried creation, the “Ninniku Crispy” or “Garlic Crispy” chicken. It was created “specifically to complement alcoholic beverages, this new chicken features a tantalizing blend of garlic, soy sauce, and a crispy batter, all culminating in a final touch of garlic-infused oil sauce.”
Unfortunately, the second is straight up Americana as Miller High Life and Leinenkugel’s — have collaborated on a limited edition beer, “Cheers!” a strawberry lager “offering a blend reminiscent of white wine and strawberry jam, finishing with a sweet touch.”
Eagle Rock Brewery has beer in quite a few fine bottle shops as well as the Disney Concert Hall, where you will find their L.A. Phil Pilsner, so you can support the arts and drink good too. So grab tickets to a concert of your choice in the remaining 23-24 season.
It has been a pretty dismal year for quarterbacks in the NFL. The hapless Jets of New York have cycled through four already and have probably come to the realization that Aaron Rodgers on one leg is easily their best option. The other New York football club is on a back-up from a QB who wasn’t lighting the world afire either but they must be thanking the football gods that the Jets are getting most of the bad press.
We aren’t even near the worst as the Patriot combo of Jones and Zappe cannot get you more than 10 points in a game as they showed in stunning fashion losing to the yet again underachieving Chargers 6-0. Not even one point!
Even Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs don’t look good. And that is a troubling sign for the NFL. Maybe GMs are thinking that if Brock Purdy can pilot a devastating 49er attack that any old fourth-rounder can succeed but that is so not the case.
The injured list is growing each day. Rodgers, Cousins, Burrow, Jones, Lawrence, Richardson, Pickett and Carr. Other teams are going with the likes of Sam Howell, Desmond Ridder and Aidan O’Connell. Not many Heismans there.
Your beer task for this exercise is to stock your ‘fridge with the C.J. Strouds and Jalen Hurts of the beer world wherever you may be because more QB1s are going to get injured and you are going to need really good beer to talk about because some of these upcoming games are gonna be real hard to watch.
