Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
You may have become blase about the Day One releases from El Segundo. I, for one, still marvel at the logistics of the endeavor on L.A. streets and am glad that I am not the delivery person.
For the jaded, there is a new beer (not 105) coming on November 11th. You will need a passing knowledge of The Simpsons to get the connection but even if you are more a Family Guy or live in South Park, you will want to taste this IPA.
What happens when a Portland native works the beer industry in SoCal and then moves back to Portland?
Well, in the case of Robby Roda, who spent time at both Monkish Brewing and Beachwood BBQ and Brewing, you open up a distribution company in Portland to bring select beers from L.A. to the NW.
And to make the L.A. connection tighter, name it after the El Segundo Brewing special Day One IPA releases. Day One Distribution has scheduled to get El Segundo Brewing onto Portland taps already with Monkish Brewing, Smog City Brewing and Phantom Carriage planned to roll out too.
Day One will begin weighted to California but will add other breweries in a slow and small fashion. In a move that seems counterintuitive to traditional distribution the amount of beer will be kept purposefully small and will make the effort to sell out within thirty days of delivery.
That is a market that could work if kept small and tightly controlled. Might even be a template for what future distribution can be.
You can read more about the new distributor at The New School. I hope to hear how our beers are received up north.
One is already down, but you have three more L.A. nights to get Dank with El Segundo Brewing.
Carve out time in your busy craft beer schedule for this birthday bash in the South Bay….
May 21st will be a bus day. Will you start at Smog City and then bus over to El Segundo or vice-versa?
Either way, get your tickets because there will be some rare and super special taps to taste when these two celebrate.
What happens when you have a certified Cicerone team up with El Segundo hoppy IPAs? Well tomorrow night, Chef Anne Conness (who has also created two exclusive beers for the restaurant to compliment her cuisine.)will present three courses of spicy food at Sausal.
Course #1 – Goat Cheese Stuffed Jalapeño Popper Salad with Mango, Frisée, Endive, and Bacon (paired with El Segundo Brewing Co.’s Citra Pale Ale)
Course #2 – Pork Adobo Stuffed Tamale with Deep Dark Black Mole Sauce, Avocado, and Pico de Gallo (paired with El Segundo Brewing Co.’s Hop Plunge IPA)
Course #3 – Rancho Beef Short Rib with Cabbage Slaw, Hominy, and Cilantro (paired with El Segundo Brewing Co.’s Power Plant Triple IPA)
Dessert – Mexican Chocolate Truffles (for the table)
Reservations can be made in advance by calling (310) 322-2721.
Every twice-in-awhile, I write about beer for publications other than BSP or Food GPS.
I had the opportunity to write about labels and how important design is for a brewery for The Equipped Brewer website…
Check it out and let me know what you think. Then stick around for the other well-written articles.
Next month, the Equipped Brewer will be running a post I penned about labels. For that piece, I asked a couple people about label choices and art. One of which was the ever gracious Tom Kelly at El Segundo Brewing.
Even though I asked only a couple specific questions, I still had some leftover material that I think is cool to know. So instead of wasting it, here is some bonus content……
2. How do you incorporate a larger than life (literally) figure like Steve Austin into a beer label?
Well… our first thought was – Put his face on it! He quickly shot that down. Steve is really in the business of sort of re-branding himself with the Broken Skull image, which is also the name of his ranch outside of Austin. On the first iteration of the label we had a silouttte of Texas around the UPC but that was shot down by TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau) because it was confusing as to the origin of the product. We tried to stay true to his image, but keep it somewhere within our brand family. If you look at the label, you’ll see its our same die cut, and our logo is up top, but the colors are like a dusty Texas road.
3. How hard is it to come up with a new label?
Sometimes, their easy. For us at least. They are always a lot of work on the designer. Sometimes they take quite a bit of working out. We have a good working relationship with our designer Joe Natoli over at Boiling Point and he has a lot of patience for us, as we make changes etc. Citra – easy.. cool title font, and a hop. Hammerland and Grand Hill – bit more difficult, a lot of back and forth.
I think the graphic says it all…..
Also, the Facebook presence for El Segundo has a mention of a “Nuclear Power Plant”. Sounds dangerously overloaded with hops.
Mayberry. Wet Hopped. The aroma just cascaded out when the bottle cap was popped. Big pine tree and spice notes that you could not ignore. I let a couple other noses smell and apricot and pepper were picked up as well. Because it is a wet hop IPA, it is important to note that I bought it on the second day it was available and drank it on day four. El Segundo has tried their utmost to get their high hopped bottles out as fast as possible that the consumer needs to work (OK, it ain’t work) equally as diligently to drink them.
The spice, orange peel and pine extends to the flavor that really fizzes with bitterness on the palate. Regular Mayberry is big but there is an added pop to this version which is exactly as it should be. A Wet Hop beer should be the highlighted, extroverted version of the recipe it is built on. Trust the label when it tells you to smell first.
If anyone in L.A. would hold a wet hop fest, it would be El Segundo Brewing. They are the lupulin pushers of the L.A. craft scene and last Saturday was no different.
I started with the Simcoe Pale via Wet Hop after seeing that I could buy a bottle of Mayberry Wet Hop to-go. And after seeing that Citra-Mongous was a big 9.0%. Seemed like the sensible choice. This was my first visit to the new taproom at ESBC. The vibe is so much better due to the elbow room even on a busy event day. A little breeze through the big door and the large L shaped bar made for a place where you could order up a taster tray and set it down and enjoy it.
I had to go Citra next and it was worthy of the name. Just a big hit of Citra and bitterness that lingered on and on (in a good way). This is more of a sipper than even their Power Plant Triple IPA. After that I chose to try their small beer IPA, Spark Plug. Lo and behold, it was my favorite on the afternoon. Light yellow and beautiful in the glass it still had a hop kick but was so easy drinking. Since I was a fan of the Mellon Collie fruit IPA from year’s past, I thought about trying the blueberry Mayberry but my palate had been shot through so I took my Mayberry Wet Hop bottle for later and headed home.
But I will be back for a growler fill….
