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Back to my backyard for the next advent beer. It comes from Hop Secret Brewery in Monrovia and it is Winter Wit.
“Introducing our spiced holiday ale, brewed with Papua New Guinea Vanilla Beans, Cinnamon, Orange Peel, and Coriander. This delightful combination will transport your taste buds to a cozy, festive paradise.”
Time to get hoppy with Monrovia’s Hop Secret Brewing. Hitting up a hazy and a DIPA from their colorfully labeled cans.
Fistful of Haze – had a bit of sediment in this can. Not super hazy or murky. Yellow with an orange tint. Mostly tropical fruity. Soft on the palate with a good level of bitterness.
Hoppa Stoppa – tastes more like a regular IPA. kind of flat overall. There is a little bit of fruit flavor to this, but overall not bunny with glasses cool.
I think I have reached my upper limit of beers with “friends” in the name but I do want to see more of the strawberry-rhubarb combo. You win some and you lose some.
Ogopogo Brewing has San Gabriel Valley’d with Hop Secret Brewing for this new pastry sour.
The cool cat from Party Beer Co. has traveled to the ’90s. A time without Cold IPA for a collaboration with Hop Secret Brewing, Cool as Ice.
“this IPA is fermented cold with famous Weihenstephan yeast and Idaho Gem, Cashmere & Talus hops. One sip will transport you back to the 90’s while delivering notes of tangerine, lime and red cherry.”
It is no secret that I am an aficionado of label art and I am quick to give a hot take on designs on bottles and cans.
That is all prelude to the fact that I quite like the new direction taken by Hop Secret Brewing of Monrovia…
It’s bright, the font is new and bold and it has a modern art feel to it, though the lips on the left are a little much. I also like the bottle name, a nod to a funny series.
I made my first visit to Monrovia’s second (and perhaps not last) brewery, Hop Secret.
The address for the brewery is on Pomona Street but the brewery is closer to the Gold Line tracks. There are two entrances, one that leads directly to the menu board and the back that leads you past the brewing tanks first.
I went for my predictable flight. I tried the lager, pale ale, hefeweizen and IPA # 001. And as I started on the lager, I had raised hopes. Granted the menu board had a multi-colored pen look that seemed more at home for a sticker factory than beer, that first beer was well done. Nice and crisp.
From there, the beers diminished. The Pale Ale was fine but on that and the IPA’s that I tried, I detected a skosh of buttered popcorn taste and the hop medley’s just didn’t have much zing to them. The Hefe was an OK beer but it different have the two esters of banana and clove that I was expecting. More like a light hued dubbel in my mind.
Not a high starting point but there is enough good here to hope that improvement could occur.