Tag: Firestone Walker

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In the Tap Lines for September 2019

header_attractionsThis month the big event is in Long Beach as the California Craft Beer Summit comes south for their 2019 iteration.  There will be tips about the festival as well as events surrounding the gathering of the state’s brewers in the coastal town.

~ e-visits to three breweries coming to Long Beach for the Summit Beer Festival
~ special featured reviews of beers in the tall chimney hat can format
~ 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 Kafka by the Shore
~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to 30 for 30 – The Sterling Affairs
~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

Here are two events to get your September started in the Los Angeles craft beer world:
1) September 21st – Craft Beer LB Festival
2) September 21st – Oktoberfest Kick-Off at Rasselbock Long Beach

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Bretta Blanc

Looks like another trip to the Propagator in Marina Del Rey is in order. Firestone Walker has been doing some really cool wine/grape beers and this looks to be excellent for food pairing…

“a champagne-like wild ale made with white wine grapes from The Lion’s family vineyard in California!”

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T2

Terroir Project is back and it’s twice the size of last year’s event! On Saturday, Sept. 21, 14 breweries from around the world will participate in an experimental crossover between beer and wine, and present their own interpretation of a shared recipe that draws from both the grain and the grape.
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Tickets go on sale Tuesday, Aug. 6 at 9 am. Ticket price is $65 and includes Terroir Project tastings from the 14 participating breweries as well as tastings from guest breweries and wineries, a commemorative tasting glass and live music.

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Brulee

The barrels at Firestone Walker are getting a work-out. On the heels of the cocktail inspired Manhattan beer comes a dessert beer that should give you a nice rum fix. I like the use of the blonde barleywine for this. This should be a very decadent drink.

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Food GPS June Posts

Here is your handy link spot to read what I covered in Brew & You in June….

June 13th – THE Firestone Walker Invitational, A Beer of Two Woods and LABW11 events

June 27th – LABW11 Recap, El Grito Lager from Four Corners and Smog City at the Farmer’s Market

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Firestone Walker Invitational – Full Recap

It is easy to write an Invitational recap. Talk about the heat. Talk about your favorite beers. Talk about the lines. Talk about how well this event is run and voila, word count is hit.

I will instead focus on a different tack…

Each FWIBF is safe, structured and similar.  That may seem like faint praise but it is not.  I know that everything will run smoothly.  They will be ready with information weeks before the event, they will follow up, badges will be handed out, the BBQ will start on time and the festival, well, the festival will have too much.  I would like to spend three days going through the beers.

What is great is that there are the in-between times where you can explore Paso Robles and you had best explore it because for a smaller, out of the way town, there is a lot of beverages to check out and food to eat.  I have my own schedule of visiting Silva Brewing, Twisted and Glazed Donuts and Tin City but you can do the new Field of Light exhibit now or hit up Templeton and their quaint Main Street.  Or head to the other side of the 101 and all the wineries there.  Firestone also has a morning after wine brunch to ease you back into Sunday and to be able to talk about the beers from the day before.

This year, my wife and I stayed in an airstream trailer outside of town that overlooked a vineyard and had a friendly pit bull named Ladybug along with chickens and rabbits and a beautiful night sky.  Next year, I might stay in a different part of town (if I go of course, let’s not get ahead of ourselves).  Who knows, I might go up next year even if I don’t go to the festival.  I might head north just to visit all the breweries that I can’t get to like Tent City or in SLO.

As far as the festival itself, it is all just nitpicking but I have come up with some quick greater than – less than notes from the 28+ samples that I tasted on the day.

Great Leap from China > Balter from Australia

Green Cheek booth display = Alvarado Street booth display

Side Project line > Garage Project line (due to The Bruery doing ½ of the beer presentation of one Garage Project beer)

Pils as Festival collab beer > barrel-aged collab

Not following my own set festival rules because I am easily distracted > following my own set festival rules

Oh, and my favorite brewery was Rare Barrel.  They have seriously dialed into my taste buds.  Sadly, I did not like the two Hair of the Dog beers that I sampled even though I was really pumped for them to be there.  I also missed Sante Adairus and Russian River which is very, very bad of me.

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FWIBF19 – Best of the Awesome

You have to try really hard to find a bad beer at The Firestone Walker Invitational. You also have to try really hard to highlight those that truly stand out because, well it is degrees of awesome. You could also highlight all pils, Kolsch and Helles or all IPA’s and the list would slap.

But here are the beers that punched through the general level of awesome to make me scramble to my notes to learn more.

Rare Barrel Cyboogie Sour IPA – Not super sour and more tilted to just hazy IPA with Citra, El Dorado and Nelson Sauvin, this was both soft and bitter with just a touch of tart.

Crooked Stave Sour Rose – Canned Rose is a thing but the results are all over the brewing map. This Colorado Rose was super light, super watery but that water was Rosewater and it was perfumey beer greatness.

Burial Beer / Visual Amaro – This cocktail styled beer had smoky blueberries, quinine, raisins and licorice flavors per the brewer. How that mixture works together is a mystery but this was a lovely spicy dark ale.

Great Leap Honey MA Blonde – 1st beer of the day from this Chinese brewery and it was a great choice. Bright with a big pepper note but still easy to drink. One of the most complex blonde ales I have had.

Side Project A la Table – a super low (under 3% ABV) table beer made with buckwheat, oats, pilsner and two different types of white wheat that is then aged in American oak barrels for six months.

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Firestone Walker Invitational – Photos

Back home from the FWIBF19 and here are a few photos that I posted to the ‘gram or Facebook or are seeing the light only here.

Me at the photo shop.
Re:Find at the Friday night BBQ
Just a few of the Firestone beers one could find.
As usual, great food to pair with the beers like these tacos from Los Robles Cafe
Two of my favorite 2019 beers in this photo.
The Line-Up from Fonta Flora
The 2019 Collaboration with Cigar City
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Firestone Walker Invitational – Day 2

Onto the good stuff, my 2nd day recap of the 2019 Invitational. There was a breeze in the air as I made my final approach into the festival. I always walk around the Mid-State Fairgrounds around the same time to gauge how many people line up a full two hours before they are allowed in. This year seemed lighter in General Admission line and larger in the one hour wait VIP line.

The booths had been changed up a bit. FW keeps people guessing so that muscle memory doesn’t move people to the same spots each year. I will touch on the favorites poured this year in another post but I want to talk about the two panels hosted by the Brewing Network. First was cocktail beers. If there is anything that will bust up the hard seltzer train it will be this area and though Boulevard Brewing brought an actual canned cocktail which I passed on because nothing could reach the heights of last nights Re:Find offerings, I found the Corpse Reviver #2 from Gigantic Brewing to be really good. Burial Beer brought a beer called Amaro from their Visual line and this digestif meets beer was great as well.

The sour panel held a couple surprises too. Crooked Stave had a twelve-ounce can of Sour Rose. Not super sour but boy did it smell and taste like Rosewater, and it was fantastic. Rare Barrel poured Cyboogie which was also canned and also fantastic though calling it sour IPA was a stretch. That panel ended with a table beer from Side Project whose line was long all day and has been since they first came to the festival.

More coverage and photos to follow.

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FWIBF – Game Plan

Unfortunately, this post is targeted towards those who will be attending the best beer fest of the year. But you might learn some things that you can use at the next festival you have tickets to.

It is easy to be overwhelmed when the beer list for The Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest drops. It is akin to seeing a mound of presents on Christmas Day. Here are my (4) rules to follow when deciding which beers to add to your wish list.

  1. Use the FWIBF app – This is the easiest way to see beer styles and ABVs for the beers that we don’t know about. You can create a quick wish list and then add/subtract from it once you see that you are hitting up primarily DDH DIPAs. Make a couple passes on the list at least. But do not leave any beers off due to your list being achingly long.
  2. 25% – 25% – 25% – 25% – You cannot survive on hops alone! Besides, there are fantastic Saisons and pilsners and Helles to try. So, stick to my ratio. IPAs take one quarter, stout barrel-aged a second, Sours and Saisons the third and light stuff the fourth. You can have an all day personal hop field but your tongue will be so bitter battered that you will not taste anything for weeks.
  3. Avoid the Long Lines – You will see right away which tents get swarmed. Monkish, WeldWerks and the Projects (Garage and Side) will be mobbed. You can have a line buddy system and get beers to drink while waiting but seriously, I cannot emphasize it enough, there is so much good beer that you can spend all day picking booths with no lines and drink as well, if not better (and certainly more) then anyone waiting.
  4. Don’t Sleep on the Foreign beers – The beers from around the world are there for a reason. It was not a dart board type of selection. Plus these will have shorter lines and you can talk to the brewers and representatives and learn something you may not know.

I have a few suggestions of beers not to miss. My Wish List is largeenough for three drinkers but in the spirit of 4. Here are the ones that I will probably have first:

Brewery Ommegang BWX|OMG! Collaboration with Firestone Walker Barrelworks

Hair of the Dog Opia (another Firestone Walker collab)

Oxbow Farmhouse Pale Ale

Russian River Intinction – Merlot