Tonight! Saturday, November 12 from 5 to 9 p.m. the Craft Beer Cellar in Eagle Rock will host their Second Saturday Session featuring the beer of Craftsman Brewing Company, the longest standing independent small brewery in Los Angeles!
Outside of Maximiliano restaurant which has a long Craftsman list, we don’t usually see lists of Craftsman so take the opportunity for a flight special, LA Wing Co foodtruck will be in the parking lot and their will be merchandise giveaways!
Review – Longevity Baltic Porter from Eagle Rock
Full disclosure:
A) I know the home brewer whose recipe this beer is based on
B) I had this beer at the Kick-Off Festival for L.A. Beer Week (at the end and my taste buds were shot) and I wasn’t blown away by it.
That being said, I wanted to go back and re-visit this beer with a fresh palate. So here is a second taste and first review on the blog of Longevity Baltic Porter from Eagle Rock Brewery & the Maltose Falcons home brew club.
The Porter pours a dark and inky black with streaks of brown to it. There are a mixture of roast, tobacco and chocolate notes on the nose that are quite nice. It did take a few sniffs to figure out exactly what was coming through to me even though the aroma is fairly potent.
The texture is quite light and very drinkable. The most dominant flavor to me is smoke with hints of a sweet cola underneath. This is no rauch bier by any means but that taste of smoke is certainly there.
This is one of those styles that may not be to my taste. It is well done but the smoke notes are a distraction to my palate.
If you are in the mood to try other Baltic Porters then check out Flying Dog’s Gonzo Porter, Victory’s Baltic Thunder or Baltika #6.
Mostly Up
Last Saturday, I got to taste along with a hundred others, 8 examples of coffee beers at the Pasadena outpost of Intelligentsia Coffee.
The event was titled Uppers & Downers and was brought here via the the beer website Good Beer Hunting. We started and ended with Stimulus from our own Eagle Rock, in two different versions. Regular and fully leaded with a shot of Intelligentsia espresso! Both were my favorites of the night. Primarily, because both were coffee forward in comparison to most of the other offerings which were more coffee accented.
In between, beers from Goose Island, Angel City, Stone, Firestone Walker, Port all made with varying degrees of coffee were poured as the brewers or brewery reps extolled the process of adding coffee to different styles of beers.
But the most anticipated by the crowd was Dark Lord from Three Floyds.
Multiple vintages of the famed beer were in bottles, randomly my beer companion Richard got 2008 and 2010 which we shared and disagreed over which year was best. I preferred the older because it had an additional “jammy” note that added to the wallop of sugar whereas the 2012 required a dental visit, it was that sugary. Gotta say that this beer is quite over rated in my book. I would go with Zombie Dust or Robert the Bruce or (name a 3 Floyd beer) before Dark Lord.
My anticipated beer was from Solemn Oath in Naperville. I had my first beer from them on my Chicago trip and enjoyed it. Less than a week later, I was having their None More Than Black, black IPA and talking to the brewer while enjoying it. It took home my second favorite of the night award. Of which there is no plaque.
The event had a nice showing and the venue worked as coffee practically hung in the air. Mitch Steele from Stone and David Walker from FW talked with me for a bit, if I can be allowed to name drop. Plus the assembled brewers regaled the crowd with their take on mixing coffee and beer. The beer was fairly easy to get with minimal waiting which is a good sign for a new event in a space not primarily used for beer service.
Thursday Flights
Yes, the Colorado Wine Company has moved a little west. And that is not the only change! Now this….
“By popular demand, we’re starting beer flights on Thursday nights. Each week we’ll offer 6 pours in varying styles and from breweries far and wide for $10, as well as our usual wines by the glass and full pints of beers on tap.”
You may well find me here relaxing after compiling the weekly L.A. Beer Blast.
Sean Suggests for February 2013
This month’s selections invert my whole light to dark spectrum a bit. Usually, I go by ABV. But this month the medium choice has a higher alcohol than the dark choice. But after tasting all three, the order that I chose works better.
Now get shopping!
February 2013
Just double click and download the PDF to take on your next craft beer run.
Sean Suggests for April 2012
A little change up for the April suggestions. It’s an L.A. IPA edition. And all three are fairly recent to bottles and can.
Just click the link to get a handy shopping list!
Eagle Rock Homebrew store
Greg Beron and Kevin Koenig part of the driving force of the famed Culver City Home Brew Club are creating a new outpost in Eagle Rock. Going eastside is great for me. Now I can have a local home brew shop!
More news and website info and if I am lucky an interview will follow.
Consider this a heads-up.
Eagle Rock Brewing
This is a great blog. http://eaglerockbrewery.wordpress.com/
It is all about the building of a brewpub. It is both fascinating and frustrating. But the end of story will be great beer in Los Angeles.
