Tag: Anaheim

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Recap – Firkfest 2018

The 2018 Caskaway Tiki Beer Fest aka Firkfest is in the books.

Here is my beer and photo recap from Anaheim….

I went into the fest with the express purpose of hitting the Orange County breweries that I have not tasted from. So 3 Punk Kids, Towne Park, Stereo Brewing, Lost Winds and Asylum were all tasted. I also snuck in a new beer from Firestone Walker and Los Angeles Ale Works as well.

But the best drinks on the day were beer cocktails. There was a dedicated Orange Count cocktail tent and I had a rum and coke with beer called Midnight Oil as well as a coffee and rum cocktail, a style Coffee Colada with Unsung beer added. Lastly, Beachwood Brewing had a beer cocktail of their own called the Dark & Squally that was really good too. I would have happily camped out to try all of the hourly releases

As to be “expected” now, the location is great, the rain stopped for the day as well. It was easy to get whichever beer was wanted. And the brewery list was well curated. But I seemed to pick beers that were more 2oz sippers and less “go back for more” beers. Firestone Walker’s Corn ‘n’ Oil tasted way too young. Others were fine but even ones that I liked more, had either an ingredient or balance that could have been improved.

I think the Tiki can be stored away and a return to creative casks (maybe IPA only)or a further backtracking to straight up English styles might be in order. But keep the cocktails!

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Tiki-Firk


I have brought it up already, but make sure you get your tickets to the 2018 edition of Firkfest (second year with the Tiki theme).

Need one more reason to come? The OC Bartenders Cabinet will be there making Tiki cocktails.

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1st Visit – Green Cheek Beer Co.

Due to a football game in the City of Orange, I had a great excuse to visit Green Cheek Beer for the 1st time. And I had to make some decisions.

I went for a taster tray to taste the beers I hadn’t seen in Glendale. A wide variety ranging from lager to hops to stout.

Of the group, the Bier lager was my favorite, I also tried the Berried in Berlin! but it was too Sangria for me. All berry and orange peel with not much beer oomph to add to it.

The location is not much changed from the Valiant space except for the Drink While Smiling wall which I found to be way cool design and a great way to chill a crowd despite the heat inside. Nothing quite grabbed me though. Maybe my expectations for Evan’s beers were too high but the place was packed and as I looked around no one seemed unhappy.

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Green Cheek Beer

Looks like the dust did not have a chance to settle on the (now) old Valiant Brewing facility on Batavia in Anaheim as Evan Price and Brian Rauso, both formerly of Noble Ale Works have taken over the equipment for their coming sooner than you think new venture, Green Cheek Beer Company.

There is no slate of beers announced yet, but there is a collaboration beer with Cellarmaker in the wings and though no logo or web presence of yet but Green Cheek is a reference to parrots found in Anaheim…

…so expect some bird motif.

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1st Visit – Unsung Brewery

Trips to Orange County breweries are rare these days. Hard to pass by everything in L.A., even though I know I should.

Thanks to Firkfest, I was close enough to Unsung Brewing to make a quick visit to their taproom.

…and a very cool space it is. It will eventually be shared with a winery and a distillery so that all three beverage fans can mingle together by the old truck in what used to a transmission shop, or they can grab a seat in….

Inside is a clean, white look with giant green murals that showcase the comic book theme that you see in the decor around the fairly large space.

There was a wide range of beers on tap from hoppy to sour from their R&D beers and their standards. I had tasted both the pineapple sour(with mangoes at Firkfest and without at the taproom) as well as a chocolate, coffee and coconut porter that was nicely balanced without the coconut going too crazy. For a full glass, I went with the Anthia IPA. It was fine. IPA is such a crowded category that unless you fall on either side of the spectrum I don’t get too jazzed but that doesn’t mean that the beer might not sing to another person. I have also had the Naturia DIPA and found that to be a touch too harsh when it could be more soft or floral or citrusy.

I will come back though because I like the vibe and the outdoor space, and I have more beers to sample.

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B & BT in 2017


Beer release calendars are not as useful to me as they are for others, I suspect. Now if there were a master calendar that incorporated all of them together, that I would be on board with.

That being said, The Bruery and sibling Terreux have announced what 2017 will look like for the Orange County brewery and the key take-aways in my book are the new and retired:

New:
The Bruery Mischief 2017 with Citra & Motueka — new recipe/label

The Bruery The Order — new beer
A brand new, year-round release from The Bruery, The Order summons The Bruery’s characterful house yeast strain, dates, and a touch of coriander spicing for a Belgian-style amber that’s sure to satisfy fans of darker abbey ales ripe with dark fruit notes. This release introduces a new diecut reminiscent of abbey windows to the Famille Rue lineup.

Bruery Terreux Frederick H. – new beer (has been on tap in 2016)
Frederick Hottenroth was a great inventor, and he happened to be Partrick Rue’s grandfather. His namesake carries on in this low-ABV tart wheat beer that is 100% fermented in American-made oak foeders with brettanomyces and lactobacillus. This brand new year-round from Bruery Terreux boasts a bright acidity and a tropical, fruity aroma and flavor. The label art features blueprints of Frederick’s inventions, complete with his signature.

The Bruery Share This™ – two new treatments during 2017
The third and fourth treatments in this collaborative and charitable imperial stout series will once again focus on a specific region as the ingredient source and donation recipient. $1 from every bottle produced is donated to a carefully selected charity partner. The first 2017 release of Share This will feature chocolate and orange for ingredients, and spotlight its first domestic region: California. #sharethisbeer

The Bruery Hoppy Obligations – new limited release, draft only
A new, rotating series of hoppy beers will be popping up in select markets under the “Hoppy Obligations” banner. It may be an imperial lager, a Vermont-style pale, a hoppy red, or another hoppy brew that doesn’t fit an exact style, but you know it will be delicious and consumed quickly

Retired: Humulus Lager, White Oak, Trade Winds, Rueuze, Hottenroth, Tonnellerie series

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Modern Time at Leisure

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Leisuretown. Some words just sound like polyester pants and that one certainly does. But the extremely rapidly growing Modern Times is using it for a huge new outlet (31,927 square feet) in downtown Anaheim. And it does sound less obnoxious than the Dankness Dojo moniker for the delayed (and smaller) Modern Times – Los Angeles.

Here are the very verbose details from their press release:
• A gorgeous funky/sour brewing facility chock-full of foeders, amphora, and various experimental fermenting vessels, housed in a jaw-dropping old hoop-style wooden warehouse.
• A showpiece Modern Times café & restaurant set in an utterly charming two-story, historic craftsman home
• Stalls serving food from some of SoCal’s most kickass restaurateurs
• A giant frickin’ swimming pool, complete with poolside bar, movie screen, and sweet floaty toys
• A delightful and convenient Modern Times merch store & bottle pick-up location
•A vast and beautifully landscaped outdoor space primed for group gatherings and luxurious beer drinking

Anaheim is on a roll with the addition of Modern Times and recently Karl Strauss too.

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Nope-arazzi

I enter each new brewery with hope. No use going to the new and uncharted without it. Most times the beer is fine or above. Some places have more off note beers than others but not every brewery can be fashioning killer beer.

After visiting Bruery Terreux and Bottle Logic in Anaheim, my beer traveler Richard and I walked to the nearby Hoparazzi Brewing.

We ordered up a flight to share and was presented with this:
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I purposefully left out the ugliest beer that I have seen in a long time…
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Not the worst looking taster tray but compared to the artful beer trays previously seen that day, this was a distant third in looks.

Which would not matter at all if the beer was great. But it was a precursor to the bad aromas and overall lack of care in the beers. For a place called Hoparazzi, you would expect a solid (at least) IPA. The Enlightened IPA which promised Mosaic and Citra delivered caramel and no discernible hops bitterness. And it was the best beer!

The Californication Kolsch started well enough but turned bad halfway through leaving a weird taste in my mouth. Richard suspected poor quality control since this style does not suffer faults well.

But the fruit beers were of a much worse character, just bad. Lemon Twist had a strange smell that was one of the most off putting aromas that I have had in years of beer drinking. La Tarte Granada with pomegranate was not only decidedly vomit-y in color but flat out tasted weird. I hardly ever rate a beer below 2 on Untappd. This beer was below 1.

I will readily admit that most breweries beer would pale compared to Bottle Logic and The Bruery but this was poorly made stuff. Three quarters of the beer purchased was left on the counter.

I would strongly suggest passing on Hoparazzi until such time as they clean up their overall game.

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Brew City

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This blog doesn’t cover the Anaheim beer sceneas much as it probably should. (There will be Terreux coverage coming next month.) When I saw THIS post, I knew that I needed to brew it forward with special emphasis on the newbies that will be opening to make Anaheim a true beer destination: Unsung Brewing Co. & Silo Brewing + an outpost of Karl Strauss Brewing Co. too.