Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
SoCal gets a nice amount of Fremont Brewing beers and they are collaborating again with a local brewer, this time Beachwood Brewing. The resulting beer is Tidal Track IPA. Look for “aromas and packed hop flavors from Mosaic, Citra, Centennial Cryo, and Chinook hops.”
Time to break out the slide rule and protractor because Beachwood Brewing has a new West Coast IPA coming tomorrow!
Filled with Idaho 7, Loral and Pahto hops. Let me get my calculator before buying this.
A small side benefit of unopened taprooms is that some breweries are starting to dig into their cellars and offering up some great aged beers. Sierra Nevada is selling Bigfoot packages that allow you to taste the beer from one year to the next (and they will shop it to you!).
Beachwood in Long Beach has added special bottles from their extremely well curated lists too.
Lastly, the reliable Beer of the Month Club has become a go-to again. Thanks to breweries being forced to package in anything other than kegs, the monthly club now has more options including their Rare Beer Club which has some gems from breweries like Lost Abbey.
Make sure to follow your favorites and keep your eyes peeled to social media.
Australian hops lead the way in this collaboration between two hop heavyweights of SoCal as San Diego meets Los Angeles. Put this one on the shopping list.
Lots of good stuff on tap for May (now that the blog is back up and viewable). There will be weekly nods to the upcoming Firestone Walker Invitational as well as a report from Oregon where I will be heading back to the alma mater.
~ e-visits to three breweries from the New England area.
~ special featured reviews of two new cans from L.A. Ale Works
~ Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events
~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark
~ A Book & A Beer reads whatever the library finds for me from my long list!
~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.
Here are two events to get your May started in the Los Angeles craft beer world:
1) May 4th – System of a Stout Release at Beachwood
2) May 13th – Mother’s Day at Boomtown Brewery
Combine 3 <strong>Beachwood locations with 6 days and well, you do the math on the amount of sour, tart and wild that your stomach could be fully subjected too.
My suggestion is to check out the Huntington Beach location if you haven’t already. It is the most laid back of the three and you can all the production brewing equipment as you sip your sours.
Just take a look at this ambitious 10th Anniversary slate of events from Beachwood….
I should have asked for a Beachwood Gift Card for Christmas.
As I perused the new Beachwood Blendery on Sunday, I got to talking about the sign for a new DogHaus hot dogs and craft beer spot that will be in the same block that already houses Beachwood Brewery and Congregation Ale House. Then I learned that a second Beer Belly location might be in the works as well, again in that block. Add in the fresh press juice (how long will that fad last?) shop and the local coffeehouse and this block is literally a beverage paradise.
If I had that many choices in one city block, I would be sooooo poor. And that isn’t counting the new-ish bar just a block away, The Brass Lamp.
Beer Camp Across America, the wide-ranging collaboration series from Sierra Nevada will return in 2016 with a jaw-dropping “30 (!) collaboration partners for a new mixed 12-pack…”
Then in the summer of 2016 those beers and more will be sent on a 6 city tour of beer festivals.
What is most exciting is that both Beachwood Brewing and Smog City are on the initial list (see below). Maybe they will both end up in the final 12-pack!
I did feel a little self-conscious checking out a Star Wars universe book at my local library. But with the first trailer for the Force Awakens out and the Comic-Con appearance of the stars young and old, I felt a little nostalgic for the original trilogy which is the only set of movies to my mind. (No matter how much you edit the abominations of Phantom, Attack and Revenge or re-order their viewing order.)
But after a long book on Alan Turing that nearly drained me, I needed something light and easy and Tarkin by James Luceno was just that. The book charts the rise of Peter Cushing’s DeathStar Grand Moff from his upbringing on the Outer Rim planet of Eriadu to commanding the construction of the destroyer of worlds.
Darth Vader and the Emperor are along for this novel too. Tarkin comes off as a supreme tactician who knows moves way before they happen, with Vader and the Force they seem unstoppable until they come across a rogue who can match them step for step with help from the inside of what will soon be the Empire.
It gets a bit repetitive with T&V making correct chess moves to match the rebel as they hop from planet to star system via lightspeed. Then it happens again and again. The flashbacks on Tarkin’s childhood are good as is how he rose in prominence in the power structure due to the fall of others but in the end this is all just backstory. Something that the actor probably didn’t have unless Lucas had an outline like it in his head. It serves as something that could be brought out in a bit of dialogue and actorly looks on set. But you can’t write every minor and sub-minor character their own backstory in a screenplay so if you are the completist type, this will scratch the itch for more on how Tarkin ended up on the original DeathStar.
Obviously, the beers to go with this are easy to pick. For SoCal locals Galaxy Defender from Monkish Brewing a Belgian-style blonde with grapefruit peels & Galaxy hops would be an excellent choice as would be the Citizens of the Galaxy IPL from Cismontane. No matter where you are in the country, there is probably a Galaxy hopped beer that will do the trick.
Or you could go to the dark side with the Black IPA Hop Vader from Beachwood Brewing or Wookey Jack from Firestone Walker.