Posts

Posted on

Australian Brewery # 3 – Little Creatures

Our third and final stop on our tour of Australian craft breweries takes us to Little Creatures.

As was the case with the previous two breweries on this itinerary, the details are courtesy of the Crafty Pint. THE place to go for Australian craft beer information.

I am most intrigued by their single batch beers and the choices for them. Single hop beers tend to be the bigger hops. And by bigger, I mean your Centennial or Cascade or Nelson. But they do a East Kent Goldings. Then they do a batch of marzen. Very cool.

Posted on

LA Beer Week – Day Twelve – Dionicess


Dionicess is hard to explain but easy to love. You just can’t pin down what will be on hand when you walk in. Beerimasu and Firestone-Walker one time, partnering with Eric Greenspan and the Foundry restaurant another.

This time the pairing of Gev, Randy Clemens, Dave Watrous and Matt Biancaniello has tackled beer cocktails. And an eclectic group of cocktails they were.

How about Lambic Pentameter with strawberries, elderflower liquer, white balsamic and rare distilled lambic? Or let’s get crazy and have a smoked beer with rum, lemon, sage and pumpkin air. Or the Cascading Hophead. with Thrill Seeker IPA from Beachwood, grapefruit, lemon, honey and hop infused gin?

I simply do not know how one goes about pulling those ingredients together into one recipe. It is like musicians knowing just the right notes to make a song, well, sing.


The great thing about an event like this and Deconstructed from last week, is that I was forced to try food that I normally wouldn’t. Figs! I ate a fig. Probably won’t again for a while but it didn’t kill me. My favorite though was the Risotto Lollipop with rice, sage, hazelnuts and parmigiano-reggiano. Delicious.


Oh and the proceeds go to charity, The Real Medicine Foundation.

Posted on

LA Beer Week – Day Eleven – Ultimate Flight Night


A night in Alahambra, sipping at the L.A. Beer Week version of Ultimate Flight Night thanks to 38 Degrees…. That photo shows only 1/2 of the plethora of flights you could have ordered last night. I chose to not go that route and tried the Eagle Rock Barrel Aged Equinox, Stone 15th Anniversary with espresso beans and The Bruery’s Birra Basta. My beer buddy Richard stayed on program and got the Beachwood BBQ Brewing Flight. His favorite was the Thrill Seeker IPA.
Jeremy Raub was in the house along with Kern River and Mitch Steele from Stone as well. Oh and FoodGPS Josh, Alex Villa, The Full Pint guys and Dan from L.A. Weekly too… Who gave me the lowdown on the proper toast.

Thanks to Clay Harding and his flight crew for the evening!

Posted on

LA Beer Week – Day Ten – Kern River at Blue Palms


Blue Palms hosted Kern River Brewing last night. And for awhile, their Facebook event page just had Class V, Just Outstanding, Golden Trout pale and the new pumpkin beer (which is reviewed by me, today). But I knew that they would probably have the famed Citra DIPA as well. And I was right. 6:30 came and so did our goblet with one of my favorite beers in it. It is just a tropical fruit explosion especially in the aroma. Personally, I wouldn’t call it a Double because it is so light and effervescent with just a touch of bitterness. I have only had this twice now and each time I am pulled in two directions. Savor every last drop slowly or greedily drink in all the goodness.
As mentioned, there were other Kern beers last night. Including the Golden Trout pale ale which was new to me. Utilizing the Galaxy hop, this was a solid pale. It is such a different flavor profile from Citra. To me there is a somewhat metallic harshness to it. But a nice hearty beer.

Thanks to Brian and Matt and everyone else at Blue Palms and Kern River for bringing the good stuff. Blue Palms will be featuring Beachwood beers tonight. Try the Thrill Seeker IPA!

Posted on

LA Beer Week – Day Nine – Ten Fidy at Boneyard


Three years of Ten Fidy from Oskar Blues? Sign me up. At Boneyard Bistro last night, I got the chance to compare and contrast three vintages of the Colorado beer at yet another great LA Beer Week event….
The ’11 was strong with a lot of roasted notes. As it warmed up, the hoppiness revealed a bit but it was dimmed by the rising heat at the back.

The ’10 was much more mellow and sported a chocolately flavor. The roasted qualities were there but not in abundance but I did get some bourbon flavors as well.

The ’09 was my favorite of the night. Milder than the ’10 with a milk chocolate taste. Had some vinous wine aspects to it and as it warmed, I got more floral tea like notes.

To top it off, amongst the many stout choices available, I went with Ballast Point and their Indra Kunindira. And that is a beer that I am still, the day after trying to decide if I liked it or not. It was this swirling combination of vanilla, cinnamon and pepper on a base of stout. The 4oz pour was perfect. I can’t imagine trying to drink more than that. It is a fireplace after dinner, snifter beer for sure.

Thanks to Rory and the Bistro for showing off some world class stouts!

Posted on

LA Beer Week – Day Eight – Beer Scribes


What it was like to be on a panel? Weird. I am usually the one looking up at speakers, not the other way around. So some nerves and fast talking at first but once I started cussing live on the streaming internet.
We were at the Four Points right next to Brewsters which had some cool Sierra Nevada brews on tap and the Cismontane Oktoberfest beer as well.
The assembled panel from the Celebrator (Don and our moderator Tomm), Drink-Eat-Travel (Cambria), SW Brewing News (Dave), FoodGPS (Josh) and LA Times and Squid Ink (Steven) talked about who we are and what we do, then segued into our take on the culture of craft beer in Los Angeles, then tackled the thorny topic of ethics and objectivity.
As I have mentioned before, you will know that L.A. Beer Week has taken bigger strides when there are more sessions and events that are blogger or community driven (much like the Echo Park crawl). Not that our fine LA beer bars and breweries don’t put on a good show, But we need more outside viewpoints on the beer scene for balance. Much like a uber-hoppy IPA needs a malt counterweight.

Thanks to Tomm Carrol for moderating and getting the event set-up and also thanks to Phil Baxter at Four Points for his hospitality. (They have two beer dinners coming up that look really good, so add them to the list of beer places to try)

Posted on

Help out Short Snout

All right beer lovers. Time to pony up some cash so we can bring another craft brewery into the world. Mystery Brewing and Wilderness Brewing got funded and now it is time to help out Short Snout. With the other two being in the midwest, my chances of sampling their beers is small but Short Snout will be based in Milwaukie (my hometown!) I hope to sample their beers in the future!

Head over to Kickstarter and make a pledge!

Posted on

LA Beer Week – Day 7 – Golden Road


My second visit to Golden Road brewing on a Sunday afternoon…

….as a big crowd lined up to get access to not only a mini-beer festival but also to scope out the three colorful buildings that make up the Golden Road mega-complex.

There were stations in each building and outside too to where you could get some Hangar 24, Eagle Rock (including Unity 2011), Stone, Dales, Avery, Firestone and of course Point the Way IPA and Hefeweizen from Golden Road.

All of which looked great in the grand opening glass. (That I very nearly broke on the way out). Aside from Point the Way my favorite was the Thrill Seeker IPA from Beachwood. Very herbal and piney aroma that was strong on flavor but not a hop wrecker.

There was quite the crowd from a sheer number perspective but also from the world craft beer luminaries. Let’s name drop! David Walker of Firestone-Walker. Adam Avery of Avery Brewing. Julian from Beachwood Brewing. Megan from Beer West. The guys from Oskar Blues.

But the biggest name drop was the third beer from Golden Road.
Burning Bush is a rauch-IPA that really brings the smoke and BBQ notes but then the hops kick in to balance things out. Quite tasty. Would get rauch fans to try IPA’s and IPA fans to try more Rauchbiers.

Thanks to Tony, Meg, Jon, Cole and Skipp for putting on the party.

Posted on

Australian Brewery # 2 – Moo Brew

Our middle stop on our tour of Australian craft breweries takes us to the alliteratively named Moo Brew.

As was the case with the previous two breweries on this itinerary, the details are courtesy of the Crafty Pint. THE place to go for Australian craft beer information.

What caught my fancy, beer-wise was the Hop Harvest a twist on their pale ale. But I really like the label art. Goofy and fun.