Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
Barley Forge, the Costa Mesa based brewery is making their anniversary a week-long celebration. Spanning October 24-30th, there will be a special beer release each and every day.
Wednesday is Patsy Night, Thursday will unveil barrel-aged Black Dahlia, Friday is a Fugue State end of the week and on Saturday, Two Louder is released. All of this before the official party on Sunday.
You don’t have to ask me twice to promote an Oktoberfest beer. Heck, if I see it on Facebook, like I did Dog Days from Barley Forge, I won’t even wait. Throw in a cool label with a visual pun and I will be looking for it on shelves.
You have to look for and grab any lagers that aren’t hopped or imperialized. And if you want to dig deeper to Vienna or Dortmunder Export, you have to search further.
Thankfully the refurbished beer aisle at my local Whole Foods recently had two bottled offerings from Barley Forge in Costa Mesa. One of which is the excellently named Grandpa Tractor, a Dortmunder “style” export lager.
This beer is a bit too mineraly and salty to me but otherwise is close to the style mark in my mind. It has a nice hit of malty sweetness to it and drinks easy. The initial aroma was a bit off-putting but it soon rounded into form. I would categorize this offering as better with food than without. It offers some compare and contrast flavors that would work in the pairing arena.
We conclude the 2014 version of the Beer Search Party advent-ish calendar with a seasonal from Orange County and the new Barley Forge Brewing. Fusty Puckett should warm the souls of SoCal (even though we don’t warming).
Have a wonderful holiday and I look forward to seeing what people drank to celebrate this festive occasion.
Cheers to Christmas beers!
Last week I profiled the brewers behind Pipe Dream Brewery and this week yet another profile of another westside homebrewer who is looking to go pro.
This week over on FoodGPS is Barley Forge….
I had the opportunity to taste Greg Nylen’s beers at a home brew evening at the Craft and Folk Art Museum on Wilshire. He had two versions of the Santo amber brewed with two different yeast strains.
I also sampled the Double Imperial pale called Delicious and two versions of Black Dahlia a Belgian strong ale.
