Tag: Iron Triangle

Posted on

Closed Triangle

Yesterday it was reported that Iron Triangle Brewing was looking for a buyer. If I was macabre enough to have a list of Los Angeles breweries that would make such an announcement, Iron Triangle would have been on it from the beginning.

Not that the beers were bad. They were fine. Their Belgian Pale was my favorite due to the relative Hefe shortage in a time of IPA. And that is where I think they stumbled and fell. Mumford has the collabs and the hazy’s. Boomtown has the artist series of IPA’s. Angel City has Sunbather. IT had?

Blame can be laid at the turbulent start. A brewery that encounters roughness out of the gate with the beer nerds will be a step behind but I think that it is very telling that the reason being given for selling is that as told to The Full Pint was, “The owners have decided that their capital would be better invested in their other businesses.” That reads as we thought craft beer would make us money but it is still costing us money three years in and we are getting out while there is still a window of opportunity to sell.

It is a great space on the inside. Foot traffic, nearby condos and location aren’t horrible. They are nowhere near Arts District levels but other breweries have nothing. It is large but with reconfiguring it could be used for multiple events

Let’s hope the next chapter is a longer and fruitful one for this location.

Posted on

2nd Visit – Iron Triangle

IMG_6435
Take 2 for Iron Triangle. I was pleasantly surprised by the beer the first time around and as I walked in to the brewery on a warm Saturday, I hoped that the beer would stay consistent.

I bought a sampler tray of four beers with only one holdover from the previous visit which was the …..
1581 Pale Ale – a little too sweet tart for me. A little pull back might help. Better as it warms.

New this time were the….
Land of Fire Red IPA – good hop presence here. A touch of sweetness. Not as dark as expected.
Wheat and Rye Ale – certainly malty. Kind of a weird mix. Accumulated hops from previous two beers.
Royal Claytons ESB – again fruity. Not really an ESB to me. Not enough malt here. The least favorite of the group for me.

The brewery was overstaffed for the teeny amount of customers in early afternoon. Tables were added to the loading dock area perhaps as a nod to the lack of seating at the bar.

Overall, the beer is solid but my sampler lacked a little differentiation. Maybe I should have ordered a something dark instead of the ESB.

Just as an aside: What is it with grains in jars at breweries? How often is it used for education or is it just window dressing? May as well have a jar of water too.

Just as another aside: It is weird that most of the taps say specialty when there were only three specialty beers on the blackboard.

Posted on

A Bermuda Triangle

Downtown Los Angeles or DTLA for those with scant time call it, will be the home of a Torrance sized amount of breweries by 2016. Angel City is the old hand now what with Mumford now open and brewing, Ohana to the South and the much anticipated (at least by me) Arts District Brewing coming soon.

Recently though, the interwebs have taken a shine to knocking another future DTLA brewery down a peg. Iron Triangle and their dubious claims and spelling have garnered the negative attention that only a Trump could love.

Now I avoid Beer Advocate forums like the plague but they are a canary in the coal mine of beer snob opinion. And as such, one should strive to be in their good graces. Sorta akin to being nice to the school bully in the hope of future consideration. If you are the subject of a thread that ultimately gets pulled down, then you should start some damage control.

But the Iron Triangle seems to have also offended Instgram beer geeks as well as The Full Pint blog crew (disclosure – I follow their blog and know them).  Maybe the PR team for IT is the same as the one for Tom Brady and his deflated footballs but they have got to understand that brewing beer is only part of being a winning brewery.

I will repeat what I posted on Facebook: If you don’t do community well or business savvy well then you are going to have to brew the third coming of Pliny the Younger because you will have to surmount ill will to get the beer geeks in the door.  And to steal from the movie business, beer geeks are the teenage male of the four quadrants of moviegoers. You do not want to be the Fantastic Four of breweries

I will freely admit that all of my knowledge, as it were, is secondhand. But like that canary, if I am hearing about it then you know it is in the air. The proof will come served in pint glasses and I hope the beers of Iron Triangle are great and that the owners can learn from their mis-steps but maybe, long term, a failure might be more instructive for a still growing beer culture in Los Angeles.