Tag: Firestone Walker

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On to 005


The wheel keeps spinning and by now the 5th revolution of the Luponic Distortion series from Firestone Walker should be everywhere and will be out until May of this year.

Here are the details on 005. The beer “features one of our favorite new hops from the Yakima Valley in Washington state, supported by a couple of other Pacific Northwest standouts to deliver a complex spectrum of ripe tropical, citrus, and berry fruit aromas. Lead by notes of Pineapple, orange, guava, and mango, meyer lemon, green tea and blackberries round things out.

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Hear, Hear

Maybe some of my bellyaching (literal and figurative) has been heard.

From then next beer on (Bravo, by the way), the Firestone Walker Vintage Reserve barrel-aged beers will be packaged up in 12oz and not 22oz bottles.

That includes the later in the year Anniversary XX1. Considering that many finer beer shoppes allow singles sales, that means more people can taste the beer at a lower price point. Or cellar hoarders can buy more and have better tasting parties down the road. However you slice it, it is a much more manageable portion of a big beer that deserves a small snifter.

Back to Bravo though….

The Firestone folks describe Bravo which “has remained one of the driest beers in Firestone Walker’s Vintage Reserve series of barrel-aged beers, and since day one has been considered a vital component in the annual blending of the Anniversary Ale, balancing out some of the stickier components.”

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Cicerone Cannibal


Anybody who turns down beer education, well, that’s just wrong. It’s not like taking calculus.

So, if you find yourself in the Culver City area on a Saturday you should check out the beer classes that The Cannibal LA is running with Certified Cicerone Julian Kurland. Each Saturday at 5:30

For $25, you get five pours based on that week’s topic. It can be a style or hot topics like IPA’s West Coast v East Coast.
And they have also added two really cool special events to their calendar

1- “On Friday, January 27 at 7pm, The Cannibal LA will host an intimate tasting in the restaurant’s newly opened private dining room, in collaboration with Firestone Walker’s “Jeffers Drops Acid (Knowledge),” a study in acid and acid fermentation in beer from Jeffers Richardson, director of Firestone Walker’s Barrelworks wild beer facility in Buellton, CA. The tasting ($35* per person) will include three different beers from Barrelworks, which will exemplify how perception shapes the sensory perception of wild beers. The class does not include food and should last about 90 minutes. This is the only iteration of “Jeffers Drops Acid” planned for 2017.”

(I have attended a Drops Acid presentation and it is fascinating. You will not see and taste sour/wild ales the same plus Barrelworks beers are awesome)

2- “On Thursday, February 9, The Cannibal LA hosts The Bruery for a four-course pairing dinner featuring a menu from Chef de Cuisine Jude Parra. The pairings will be focused on wine/beer hybrids, a category that is poised to grow exponentially in 2017, and that Kurland is particularly fascinated by. While the menu is currently TBD, the pairings will include the following beers:”

Confession – sour blonde with Riesling grapes, Bourgogne Blanc – sour blonde with Bourgogne blanc (chardonnay) Grues, Rue Sans – sour rye ale with Roussane grapes, Jurassic Gose – Gose (sour wheat) aged in port barrels with Chenin Blanc grapes and Vindictive (formerly Winefication) – bourbon barrel aged stout with Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre.

(Bruery beers pair wonderfully with food and a beer dinner is a great way to try multiple beers that are normally unavailable and kinda pricey)

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Up From the Cellar – Firestone XV Anniversary


To close out 2016, I pulled out my one and only bottle of the 15th Anniversary blend from Firestone Walker from way back in 2011. The barrel-aged blend pours out a hazy NE brown coca-cola color. This doesn’t taste old at all. Big bourbon oak mixed with rum notes. There is a bit of spice here too. Aroma is vanilla and bourbon. There is a little slickness on the tongue but a skosh bit of carbonation counteracts it. Other notes that I am picking out are coconut and leather. There is still alcohol burn here too. But hot chocolate defines this beer for me.

This edition is made up of the following:
Helldorado – Blonde Barley Wine (18% of Blend)
Sticky Monkey – English Barley Wine (17% of Blend)
Bravo – Imperial Brown Ale (17% of Blend)
Double Double Barrel Ale – Double Strength English Pale Ale (13% of Blend)
Good Foot – American Barley Wine (11% of Blend)
Velvet Merkin – Traditional Oatmeal Stout (10% of Blend)
Parabola – Russian Imperial Oatmeal Stout (9% of Blend)
Double Jack – Double India Pale Ale (5% of Blend)

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Now Actually Propagating

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The Propagator in Venice, the Firestone Walker Brewing Company’s SoCal brewhouse is finally brewing with in-company hire brewer Ben Maushardt manning the kettles.

The Propagator pilot brewhouse was supposed to be online the same time as the restaurant and store and be the spot for experimental beers. The small scale German Kaspar Schulz equipment just recently started brewing this month.

Maushardt has been with Firestone Walker for more than two years, and he will be “testing new recipes or running hop, malt and yeast trials for the Paso Robles brewery, he will be producing small batches of wort for our Barrelworks team and making killer Venice-only beers for local patrons.”

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XX-20

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Fun Fact: This year’s Firestone Walker Anniversary XX barrel-aged beer is really only the 10 version of the beer. The tradition started with their 10th anniversary beer and has only grown in esteem and blending talent and barrels. So many, many barrels.

It took the competitive wine juices of 17 winemakers who gathered back in August to create this years blend. Scott Hawley of Torrin Vineyard was declared the winner and his blend serves as the base for XX which is broken down from (5) beers and 250 oak barrels!

Parabola –Russian Imperial Oatmeal Stout / Aged in New Oak and Bourbon Barrels / 40% of Final Blend
Stickee Monkee –Central Coast Quad Brewed with Belgian Candi and Mexican Turbinado (brown) Sugar/ Aged in Bourbon and Brandy Barrels / 20% of Final Blend
Velvet Merkin –Traditional Oatmeal Stout / Aged in Bourbon Barrels / 17.5% of Final Blend
Bravo –Imperial Brown Ale/ Aged in Bourbon Barrels / 12.5% of Final Blend
Helldorado –Blonde Barleywine / Aged in Bourbon Barrels / 10% of Final Blend

Another Fun Fact:
X was sold for $9.99 per 22-ounce bottle and it was considered a really high price, this year bottles will start at $23.99 and be more than worth it.

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A Brewing Expedition from Venice to Paso Robles

Would you consider VIP access to next year’s Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest on June 3, 2017 enough of a prize to get excited about?

What if you add in the opportunity to brew at the R&D kettles in Venice? And then add more, blending beer at the Barrelworks in Buellton?
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To reiterate, you get to….

Prize 1
“The Firestone Walker Expedition begins at the Propagator pilot brewhouse in Venice, California for a crash course in brewing the types of experimental and R&D beers that will set the pace for what’s next from Firestone Walker. The day concludes with a celebratory meal at the Propagator restaurant.”

Prize 2
“Next up is a visit to Barrelworks in the town of Buellton in Santa Barbara County. Here, Barrelmeister Jeffers Richardson and Master Blender “Sour” Jim Crooks will show the participants how to blend their own unruly brew from a variety of eccentric Barrelworks creations.”

Prize 3
“The journey concludes in Paso Robles in the heart of the Central Coast wine country, where participants will enjoy a private tour of Firestone Walker’s main brewery with Brewmaster Matt Brynildson. On June 3, the group will head out for VIP early-entry to the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest, which has been hailed as one of the nation’s top beer festivals”.

All you have to do is :to nominate their favorite Firestone Walker fanatic by producing and uploading a video explaining what makes that individual worthy of joining the Expedition. Three winners will be selected. The prize for each winner is two all-expenses-paid spots on the Expedition.”

All the rules and FAQ’s can be found HERE. You have until December 11th to create a compelling video.

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Featured Review – Oktoberfest v. Oaktoberfest

Since I bought Firestone Walker’s canned Oaktoberfest while I still had some of the Sierra Nevada / Mahrs Brau Oktoberfest in the ‘fridge, I thought I should do a taste test. Then I thought that I should do a blind taste test. Then I had my sister-in-law do the pouring so I could get down to business
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Here are the results:
Beer # 1 poured a darker shade of yellow in the taster glass with less bubbles but bigger ones. Malt and sweetness on the nose. Flavor wise the minerality comes through. Wheat toast and some floral character add to the roundness.

Beer # 2 is just a skosh lighter color wise with the bigger difference being more tiny bubbles. Not as much aroma on this entrant. The taste is a little sharper initially. Sweeter with minerality more in the background. Touch of honey as well.

# 1 is my winner. It seems heartier to me. More toast and fullness to it. This was really close though. Not a huge gap between them.

Most importantly, I guessed correctly. Identifyingy my choice of winner as Oaktoberfest from Firestone Walker.