It’s the tiny mysteries that sometimes excite the most, like this….
What will Cellador be putting into these cans? Their palate cleansing Pilsner? One of their cocktail inspired ales? Or something with peaches. What will it be?
CAN-ador
Review – Verboten from Cellador Ales
I, like most people, have probable had a cocktail with Vermouth in it not knowing what the back story to that drink. Basically you have sweet/red or dry/white. Both come from a base of fortified wine spiced with botanicals. Let’s see what the Cellador Ales take on this cocktail ingredient tastes like….
…well, it starts off as a gusher. Popped the cap and had to hustle to clean up. Once safely into the glass, it pours a bit of a red color. I get quite a bit of strawberry here. Followed by a fuzzy tartness. There is a little bit of spice in he background but not super expressive. Considering the list of extras in this beer, it doesn’t have a lot of flavor levels to it. Makes me want to pair it with a strawberry pie.
Vermouth
Cellador Ales has dabbled in cocktail beers and their new beer, Verboten, is a beer “riff” as the call it, on vermouth. Here is their description, “ It’s blended from several of our base beers, including some with wine grapes, and layered with botanicals to mimic the aromatics of sweet vermouth.”
Which Door
Cactus honey is the first ingredient that my eyes locked on when I saw this new label from Cellador Ales. But this “rustic Saison” also has some malt cred with grains from Admiral Maltings. The third piece of note is that ABV, this might need to be a shareable beer.
Review – 2 Stellar Cellars
Here are my quick reviews of the Stellar Cellar experiment from MacLeod Ales and Cellador Ales. The base beer was the same and then each brewery did their spin. One Sour and one Unfiltered IPA…
Here is my quick take on this duo…
MacLeod – ‘tis a British take on IPA for sure. There is some fruit, pineapple, but it is a search to find it anywhere than in the aroma. I get mostly malt and an earthy, wet bitterness that lingers at a medium small level throughout.
Cellador – this has a great aroma. All Brett with fruit notes lingering on the outside. This is a super dry beer. Shock to the palate dry. The pineapple comes through in a dried flavor. This is one to drink little sips of to savor.
Sean Suggests for April 2020
Since beer shopping is a different experience these days, the monthly column has to change with the times and today the BUY list is a pair of beers starting with the same base.
Here is the info from Cellador…”If you didn’t know, we brew all our wort at MacLeod in Van Nuys; so in a certain sense every beer we make is a collaboration with them. For this we thought it would be fun to do a twist on something that neither of us are particularly known for. I worked with the brewers David and Stephen to create a standard west coast IPA recipe which we took and fermented in oak barrels with our house mixed cultures (as is our wort). It aged in oak for seven months, then we dry hopped it with Lemon Drop and El Dorado, and bottle conditioned it with local orange flower blossom honey. As our version was getting close to ready, MacLeod brewed the same recipe but did a standard clean version, which will be released in cans and crowlers Monday April 13th. We really hope that you’ll get both versions to try side by side and experience the ways in which using mixed-cultures can drastically change a beer.”
Jackson Ranch
Cellador Ales is going fancy on Friday November 15th when they release two Jackson Ranch wild ale variants. They are whiskey inspired beers as described by the brewery as, “one aged in a High West Double Rye Single Barrel and the other in a Knob Creek Cask strength Single Barrel.”
Cellador will be making cocktails with the beers that night and if you have had one of them before, you know it will be tasty and interesting.
One Who Loves to Read
For each anniversary, Cellador Ales double ages a beer on stone fruit. The Year One beer (Seconds) had two sets of apricots. The Year Two beer (Tautology), was a mix of nectarines and apricots.
For the book name of Bibliophile they used Rose Diamond Nectarines and Le Grand Nectarines respectively. Each bottle comes with a tag that doubles as a book mark.
The beer is on sale today and to be tasted at their anniversary party this Saturday.
What to Look for at Sour Friends 2019
Cellador was always going to have some great sours to sample at this year’s fest. You could probably just blindly pick and get something great, but I have a few choices that you should add to your glass, and to make it simple, I will use only (3) words to describe them…
Picture Brain from Brouwerij West – blueberries, solera, Syrah
Carrot King from Cellador – Nantes carrots, Bugs Bunny, wild
Violet Underground 5.5 from Firestone Walker BarrelWorks – SLOambic, Somerset, berries
Mellifluent from The Rare Barrel – strawberry, peach, mango
Check out the full list HERE.
Super Sour Friends
The L.A. County Brewers Guild teamed up with Eagle Rock for their Session Fest and now the Guild is working with Cellador Ales on their LA Beer Week sour spectacular on June 22nd. Tickets can be purchased HERE.
With just a few cool breweries tucked into the Cellador space…
Beachwood Blendery
Brouwerij West
Casa Agria
Cellador Ales
Craftsman
Dionysus
Highland Park Brewery
Horus Aged Ales
Homage Brewing
Long Beach Beer Lab
Mikkeller SD
Modern Times
Pure Project
Sour Cellars
The Bruery
+one Northern CA honorary guest, The Rare Barrel
& newly added, Central Coast honorary guest, Firestone Walker Barrelworks!