For a week long in June, Homage Brewing and its two location will be celebrating their 8th anniversary.
“You can expect BIG strawberries, BIG tunes, RARE bier on draft, food, wines and new merch.”
An Homage to Ocho
Sean Suggests for May 2025
This month the theme is unique and hard to find and I have three that will test your mettle as both a beer shopper and a beer drinker.
Homage Brewing – The Flower Called Nowhere Barrel Aged Saison – 6% – “This marks the 5th blend of one of our favorite beers to make. A few years ago we conceptualized a Saison with delicate nuances of flowers. We trialed various flowers and settled upon Europe Rose for its soft and fragrant aroma, as well as Osmanthus, which has a unique fragrance of peach and apricot that compliments the stone fruit qualities of the wild yeast. Lastly, we added Chrysanthemum, which has a sweet, hay, and honey like quality that supports the aged hops in the beer, adding a rustic touch.”
New Belgium – Tart Lychee – 7.5% – ” sour ale brewed with lychee and a hint of cinnamon that combine to create a beautiful balance between sweet and tart.”
The Bruery – Cire – 18.9% – “Produced through painstaking care and attention from our Bruers, Cire is more than just a beer; it’s our Solera Blended Anniversary Old Ale. Blended from the best of the Bruery’s stock each year & aged in Buffalo Trace and Heaven Hill Bourbon barrels, Cire carries a deeply complex, layered flavor profile. The perfect way to commemorate 16 years of leadership in the industry.”
Original and a Homage
Homage Brewing has answered a question that I have had since 19.2oz cans became cool (but only for DIPAs). That answer was why isn’t a lager in this size? They have put one out for the spring/summer season.
Homage – Chinatown
The long awaited and much anticipated opening of the Homage Brewing Chinatown happens today.
Obviously delayed by, you know that sinkhole that swallowed 2020, it is great to see them join Highland Park to make this section of LA a beer destination to reckon with.
Piquette and Pretty
Man, Homage Brewing is putting out the fancy photo friendly beers and they sound great. Here is example # 2 just from this month.
“Since You Asked Kindly” – This saison was formed utilizing second use fruits and “pomace” from our blackberry saison, “Speaking Gently”, and our Sauvignon Blanc grape saison, “Colour Orange”. We chose a barrel aged blend of wild ale to combine with the leftover “berries and grapes” to forgo a small fermentation on any residuals that were left behind from each fruit. Our influence behind this saison is a wine technique called “Piquette”, which is a grape beverage produced by using left over grape pomace and adding water to create a simple wine or wine substitute. Instead of diluting our leftover pomace with water, we used our aged hop oak fermented wild ale, and conditioned it atop the pomace for 5 weeks. The result is absolutely stunning and beautiful. It provides a unique textural, layered experience, adding subtle tannins from each fruit. The complex fruit punch type aroma exhibits notes of glazed strawberries, juicy green table grapes, ripened blackberries, and Sauvignon Blanc wine. It carries a touch of rustic aged hops, complex yeast, and lively carbonation…”
Prettiest Beer of the Year?
I would vote for Colour Orange from Homage Brewing…
And I might also vote it for best beer description as well, ” Ale Conditioned in Oak w/ Sauvignon Blanc Grape Must 8% ABV. We received a thousand pounds of Sauvignon Blanc grapes from Paso Robles, Central California. We pressed them and did a skin contact partial fermentation with the grapes for 10 days, spontaneously fermenting the juice using only native wild yeast from the grape skins. We then blended our aged hopped Saison base from hand picked barrels and allowed our house wild yeast to continue the fermentation until completion. This ale has notes of breezy citrus, fleshy apricot, and is intensely floral with aromas of rustic aged hops. Each component of this liquid art balances flavors harmoniously, with a lively carbonation. The wild yeast lays foundation for added depth, nuance, and complexity. Our goal was to create a Saison that blends influences from Orange wine (skin fermented white wine) and Lambic Beer, with the intent of making a true Homage style Saison. Restrained acidity, rustic funk, and bright fruit characteristics.”
Sour Fields
If you need an excuse to visit the food section of Banc of California stadium then sour beers provides it on Friday April 26th @ 5pm.
Sour selections pouring from Hill Farmstead, Evil Twin, (our own) Brouwerij West, BFM, Crooked Stave, (again, our own) Homage, OEC Brewing, and a Sour IPA from Modern Times and Upright Brewing.
A Podcast & A Beer – Song Exploder
There are plenty of podcasts that go on forever. The kind where you decide that you won’t start one because it is better to listen to the full hour and not in snippets. But when you find a podcast that is 10-15 minutes and is really cool, that is bliss.
Song Exploder in that short time frame has a musician, member of the band, producer talk about one song. They explain the genesis of it. You hear the separated tracks (stems) and you basically hear the entire song taken apart and then played at the end.
The host and creator is Hrishikesh Hirway and he is not front and center. I would call him more of an editor. You hear from the guests which have included Björk, U2, Metallica, Solange, Spoon, REM and even composers.
For the beer, go out east to Homage Brewing and pick up some crowlers of Sound Dust or Ride the Fader. Or you can scan your beer shoppe shelves for beers that have musical names to them. One other option is the recent L.A. Ale Works L.A. Phil Brut IPA.
Pomona x 2 (extra photos)
After a quick stop at the 3rd Anniversary party for Pacific Plate Brewing, I set got back onto the 210 freeway and headed East this time to Pomona to check out two fairly new-ish breweries. You can read the full review HERE on Food GPS. But I wanted to post some of the extra photos here to give you a feel for both Old Stump and Homage Brewing.
Homage Pomona
Looks like Pomona is becoming an even bigger beer town. Homage Brewing is setting up shop in the downtown Pomona area soon. To be more specific, May 14th.
Look, Smell, Taste, and Evolve is their tagline and with beer names like Reckoner, Unknown and Discovery, they are certainly aiming for explorers. There will be stouts and IPA’s but also sour and wild ale options as well as barrel aging.
More on this brewery coming in an interview with Brewmaster Mark over on Food GPS. And, of course, a report once I get a first visit in.