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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Up from the Cellar – Gone to Plaid from Noble Ale Works

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We return to the cellar and in honor of the Noble Ale Works wins at the recent Craft Brewers Conference, I have cracked open a Wee Heavy from the Anaheim based brewery.

Gone to Plaid pours a dark brown with red tinting to it. A woody sweet aroma greets the nose. Initially a little caramel sweet but a light drying bitterness closes the gap fairly quickly. This is a cheek warmer for sure. The label mentions fruit cake, toffee and brandy and I concur with that last descriptor the most. This has the weight of that spirit running through it.

I don’t quite remember when this was purchased or where but the Scotch Ale has been in my hands for close to a year and a half. This beer is based on a recipe from home Brewer Darren Shelton who won best of show at the Anaheim Fest of Ales in 2013.

The beer may have lost some brightness that would have added to the flavor by subtracting out done of the sweetness but I think this beer could have aged into something really port-like with more time.

FirkFest 2016

Amazingly, there are still tickets available for this year’s rendition of Firkfest in Anaheim! You should remedy that situation and get your admit one (or two) for the 19th of this month. It is money well spent and much better than being in a crowded, rowdy bar on St. Patrick’s Day for sure.

So hop to it and click this LINK to purchase.

Here are some of the breweries whose tents you should visit if you already have your tickets: Bottle Logic, Firestone Walker, Legends (new to me) and Monkish (especially if they have the Spa beer again).
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Firkfest Fotos

Firkfest part Deux was this past Saturday.  I will cover the beers on a post on Food GPS this Thursday, but for now, some photos from the day….

Beer Guy LA pouring for King Harbor.
Beer Guy LA pouring for King Harbor.
My intro to Artifex and their DIPA.
My intro to Artifex and their DIPA.
The long and lovely casks of MacLeod
The long and lovely casks of MacLeod
Josh and Craig pouring the ales of MacLeod.
Josh and Craig pouring the ales of MacLeod.

A Valiant 1st

Hard to believe but Valiant Brewing Company has been around a full year and the last time I was there was at their opening.  So myself and beer compadre, Rich drove through the much needed rain to Anaheim.

And I started with the first anniversary offering which pours a golden orange red. A pretty decent strong ale for a stormwatch Saturday. Some Belgian notes to it. A little too viscous for me but the alcohol is well hidden making for a good sipper.
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While Rich did recon with a 10 taster package, I next chose the hybrid Lager Barleywine which was a little underwhelming. I didn’t know what to expect but it was thin and a bit watery which is not good for me in a lager yet alone a half & half version. I also had sips of the Guava Cream which gets classified as a game effort. My favorite was the dry hopped Crescendo. A blonde lager that I bought a bottle of on the way out
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There was quite the big crowd but the lines were manageable. They had a Pizza truck outside that was doing brisk business. But I felt like the beers hadn’t grown much from that first time I sampled. Some really nice beers like the Mounds of Grounds but more that seemed a few recipe tweaks away from being great.

FoodGPS Teaser – Anaheim Beer Day

As much as I try to promote the L.A. Beer Community, there is also a greater California community to also to talk about.

With that in mind, I visited the soon to open Valiant Brewing and Noble Ale Works in Anaheim and you can read about it tomorrow over on FoodGPS.

For now, these photos will have to do….
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The taps and beer menu at Valiant
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The Valiant brewing system
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The initial tasting flight!

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A Noble tower!
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The taster tray!
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The new look of Noble labels.