Tag: 2020

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2020 Beer Drinking Stats

Time to delve into my beer drinking statistics for last year. Frankly, there was not a lot of variance when you are drinking primarily 16oz cans. No tasters, no half pints, no magnums this year. Let’s do the numbers…

Let’s get some basic stats out of the way first. The average ABV over the course of the year was 6.79%. I drank on average just shy of 160 ounces per 5 day week.

Style wise IPA made up 52.85% of the beers. Sour and/or barrel aged a measly 7.6% and the Other category was 39.55%. Next year I might try to add more styles to the mix to see more detailed data.

My top ten most drunk from breweries starts with my favorite Firestone Walker, then to Sierra Nevada and Stone in the next two spots. All three regionals that could be found anywhere one shopped. Local Eagle Rock was fourth leading the LA parade. Followed by Los Angeles Ale Works, Smog City, Angel City, Boomtown and Brewyard. Tied for tenth was Santa Monica Brew Works and The Bruery.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Patience. We are close to a vaccine. So please do not spread the virus at literally the second to last holiday of the year just to eat turkey next to a cousin who you only see once a year. Make this year a Zoom-sgiving. Stay safe and enjoy your beer in your holiday bubble so next year can be a return to normal.

Cheers!

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You Could Do Better

When I first saw the label below, I thought, “Oh, that’s clever”. But as I nosed around the design, my mind changed.

The name is great but I am just not a fan of the color scheme or the image choices. To spot on is the main problem design wise. I would have gone with a listicle graphic instead with all the problems on it and then added a couple blank lines for customers to write in their own problems with this craptacular year and have them post a photo of it on social media. You could even have a second label done with customer versions.

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First of Best Of 2020 – Zymurgy Magazine

Beer award season is on! Of course to meet publishing deadlines, it is best of the last two months of 2019 and then ten months of 2020. Zymurgy Magazine is an interesting take….

This is a heritage list. Except for, maybe, Treehouse, this is a list filled with old school heavy hitters. I mean Zombie Dust and Old Rasputin? Classics that we should have in rotation but not Insta Darlings. I can guarantee that no other Best of will look like this.

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Farmer’s Market Tavern

A nice quiet and underrated spot to have beer is the classic Farmer’s Market on Fairfax Avenue. Bar 326 and E.B.’s Beer & Wine pour a good mix of beers so you can go touristy and show off some local beers.

Beer will get a British twist as a new British pub will open next year by the name of Market Tavern. Premier League on the TV and a curated beer list which hopefully will have a cask engine and some ESB ready.

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B2020

I scroll the haystack of Twitter so you don’t have to see all the crud that accumulates their because in between weird “hard” seltzer truthers and mudslinging there are gems, diamonds like…

Mark your 2020 calendars if you want to taste the end of one era and the coming of the new. From Santa Rosa to Windsor.

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LABW12

Now that LABW11 is in the past, now is the perfect time to look ahead at the tweaks that can be made for next year. Here are (3) suggestions that I would make if my red phone rang…

Settle on a 2nd Weekend Featured event – My vote goes to Cellador and Sour Friends. Move that to Sunday and promote it as the bookend to the week. Years past has seen a whole separate festival, be it Sierra Nevada or Vegan Fest but I think those dull the shine of the Kick-Off festival and some people probably pick one or the other since the same breweries (basically) are at both. Focus on L.A. and focus on a niche.

Have one Unity Night – I would make Wednesday night a Unity night. List all the establishments that have the beer on tap or in cans and have a simultaneous raising of the glass to the beer. Also, can we go back to the beer telling an L.A. story. A West Coast DIPA is fine but how does that separate L.A. from other cities?

Go Hyper Local – Each day of the LABW should have a fun food and beer pairing from a different part of our sprawling Metropolis. Maybe seafood with a Santa Monica Brew Works beer, BBQ and IPA at HopSaint in Torrance, tacos in DTLA, dessert in Palmdale/Lancaster. Something to stitch together the whole fabric of LA.