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LA Beer Week – Day 4 – Bottle Room


As if last night wasn’t enough, back on the road to Whittier and The Bottle Room for Deschutes beer and chocolate….

Who needs dinner when you can start with dessert. Well, I almost did that last night. Placed an order for the chocolate dessert sampler and the two Deschutes beers (Black Butte and Jubelale) after sitting down. Then realized I should probably have some food first. And since I wanted to save the beer to pair with the desserts, I sampled Strand Brewing’s 2nd Anniversary braggot.
It was quite good. Braggots are hit or miss for me but this had a nice interplay of honey, vanilla and spice. A great fall beer for cool nights. (LA should get one of those in November).
Then it was on to the dessert.
. The cake was soooo rich. That was a wicked mixture of caramel and chocolate that came oozing out of the middle. I am much more a pie guy, but molten cakes rank really high too. The chocolates were also great. There was blue cheese lurking in the small square and it was good. Again, I shall close with the beer. I had the Jubelale 2011 at the Beer Bloggers conference this year and this was a chance to see if my initial reaction would be changed. It hasn’t. But it doesn’t scream winter ale to me. The Black Butte was quite good and matched the richness of the desserts better..

As usual, I was wowed again by the food of Tony Alcazar and the great tap list.

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LA Beer Week – Day Three – Firestone/Walker Deconstructed


This was the event that I was waiting for, the famed Sean Z Paxton, the Home Brew chef paired with Firestone-Walker’s 15th Anniversary Ale. Welcome to Deconstructed….
Mark off this bucket list item. Dinner created by Sean Paxton. And this was in grand style. All 8 beers that make up the XV anniversary beer from Firestone-Walker. Plus Pale 31 and/or Unfiltered DBA to start with some malted cashews or Moroccan themed popcorn.
The event was held at the Avalon theater across from the Capitol Records building in Hollywood. Great space with old timey movie theater architecture. The downstairs portion got real hot so beer buddy Richard and I hightailed to the more AC friendly upper space to enjoy the evening.

The food (as these photos will show) was plated with care and artistry and the food was just great. Even the items like scallops or peppers that I don’t usually like were done so well that you had to tip your hat even if it wasn’t your thing. The winner for me was the lamb tenderloin that was presented on a spoon and was just delicious. Second place goes to the chocolate covered bacon that was so rich and savory.Neither of which are pictured because I still want them all to myself. So you had great food and then Matt Brynildson walked around and talked to everybody about the beers, David Walker (yes, the Walker) was pouring beer and Sean Paxton made the rounds.
But let’s briefly get down to the beer:
Sticky Monkey – Big and brassy. Almost whiskey in it’s own right.
Double Double Barrel Ale – mellower but strong in different ways
HellDorado – dark golden gem that was my favorite other than XV
Double Jack – really excellent IPA. Paired well with the sausage
Bravo – another dark, big and bold beer
Bourbon Barrel Aged Velvet Merkin – I still prefer the regular of this
Good Foot – similar to Sticky Monkey but lighter and brighter to me.
Parabola – my least favorite of the night. too medicinal

Then the XV was unveiled. And if you are a fan of the Anniversary ales, this one will surprise you. The Double Jack cuts through the barleywine and barrel aged flavors to make for a demanding brew that is hoppy and hot and rich. I really enjoyed it but it is a huge beer and is best sipped in small portions.

LA Beer Week. The bar has been officially raised.

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One refreshed, One almost opened and One in the works

And they are all under the Andre Guerrero banner.

First, The Oinkster the always crowded (and with good reason) BBQ joint in Eagle Rock with a great beer list has been renovated from tables and chairs to menu board. If you didn’t already go for the beer, check out it’s updated look.

Next up is Maximiliano in Highland Park. It is yet to open but if Oinkster is any indication, this will be yet another spot for great beer and Italian food.

UPDATE – I just tried Maximiliano and I have to say that it is great. The interior is way cool. Great windows make it an airy space. I have tried a good chunk of the desserts which are great and the potato pizza that I had was really good. On the beer front, they are going to carry primarily Craftsman beers including a special beer made just for the restaurant. The place gets a thumbs up from me for sure after one visit.

Last is the news (now, not so new) that a third spot will be created downtown called Little Bear! With the always friendly and beer savvy Ryan Sweeney on board. Check out the details HERE. Thanks to Eater for always finding the latest scoop!

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LA Beer Week – Day Two – Echo Park Crawl


Night number two and on to Echo Park to walk and drink. Just not at the same time. Here are my thoughts on the Musical Beer Crawl…
which coincided with a beautiful SoCal night. I thought the passport idea was grand because you need one to navigate LA at times. You had your map and the specials in a handy pocket sized guide. And more importantly, I thought the walk and number of establishments was good. Too much more and the amount of walking and drinking would discourage people from doing the whole route.
My other beer bloggin’ friend Richard and I started at Sunset Beer since he had not visited the store before. Started with the Populist IPA from Eagle Rock (see above). At 6pm, we were some of the first crawlers.
We next went to Short Stop (a first time visit for me) where no one knew about the crawl despite being on the map and they certainly did not know about the special keg or special prices either. Though the barkeep did remedy the last part. This could have been avoided with a pre-visit to all the locations by the organizers. So we moved past Lot 1 which wasn’t open and on to El Prado where I had a Duvel Single (see above) and Richard had a $5 Angel’s Share. You read that right $5. El Prado is my kind of place. Chill with good beer choices. I will be returning there. (I totally forgot to give a shout-out to Two Boots Pizza. Two-for-One slices that were really good)
We hadn’t planned on visiting Mohawk Bend because our plan was to visit places we hadn’t been to before. We looked in on City Sip but we didn’t see any of the Stone beers that we thought were supposed to be on tap. So we headed back to a now busier Sunset Beer and had a nightcap.

Overall, this was a good way to introduce people to the craft beer in the area. It would have been better if crawl volunteers could have been posted along the route to assist and make sure events and kegs were working and/or some more signage delineating spots that were stops on the crawl. But for a first year event, pretty well done, and I didn’t even partake of the music.

Tomorrow is the epic DECONSTRUCTED dinner. Gotta pace myself.

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LA Beer Week – Day One – Lucky Baldwin’s


Since I spent most of Sunday driving, I did not relish a trip (in traffic) to Redondo Beach. And besides, I was planning on going there for the Local Breweries night next week. SO to kick off the 2 weeks of beery goodness, I and beer buddy Richard headed to the old school Lucky Baldwin’s in Old Town Pasadena to ring in the 2011 edition of LA Beer Week.

I had the double dry hopped Ruination to start, then a year old Emperial IPA (the 14th anniversary ale). It was a restrained start to a two week marathon of great beer.

Stone 14th Anniversary IPA

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Hollister

As a prequel to LA Beer Week (which starts today, should I reiterate that more?), I headed up to the Santa Barbara area and Goleta, California specifically to sample Hollister beers for the very first time.

Overall solid beers and good food even though the football was on too loud and the outside patio overlooked a parking lot.

I was surprised that my favorite beer was Tiny Bubbles a sour wheat beer. It was tart but not super sour with a nice little grain taste. Second was the Hippie Kicker IPA, which was better than two other IPA’s sampled. The Pope which was more a pale ale and Maiden Voyage which was a bit of a mess to me. The other surprise was that the Irish stout was better than their touted Black Ice in my beery opinion.

I was sorry not to get to taste the pumpkin saison though.

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L.A. Beer Week starts…..

TOMORROW!

Here are my picks for this week:
10/10 Naja’s Opening Night Stone Festival
(but if you can’t make it or can’t get a ticket, try Lucky Baldwin’s for Craftsman and Stone beers)

10/11 Musical Beer Crawl

10/12 Firestone-Walker Deconstructed. If you can’t get into the main event. Blue Palms has a post party and the anniversary beer will be released into the wild around this time too.

10/13 Deschutes Beer and Chocolate at the Bottle Room

10/14 Lucky Devils will be pouring Lost Abbey beers.

10/15 Beer Float Showdown 3
(you can also hit the nearby Verdugo for their annual Oktoberfest celebration)

Check out the official website for more information on each event.

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Australian Brewery # 1 – Feral Brewing

Our initial stop on our tour of Australian craft breweries takes us to the alliteratively named Feral Brewing Company.

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 jumped out at me other than the marvelous name was the barrel aged Hop Hog beer. Just sounds like a grand experiment. Though the Runt beer sounds good too.

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Beer and Descanso Gardens

One of the calmest and tranquil places in Los Angeles is Descanso Gardens. Nestled in the mountains above my home in Glendale, the garden played host to the first LA Beer Week Finale Festival in 2009. And this year they are joining in on the Beer Week festivities with a day devoted to brew, on week from today.

The main attraction is a biergarten from 3-8pm. But there will also be a Home Brew class and how to grow wheat and barley class that you have to sign up for beforehand. It is a great place to stop and smell the roses and listen to your beer as Fred Eckhardt would say.