Prickly Pear is the official ingredient for the 2012 L.A. Beer Week and as I find and taste these special edition beers, I will review them. Some are only Union Station Finale available and will get reviewed later but first out of the gate is Cismontane Brewing and “Nopal de Trigo” a hefeweizen brewed with hand-pressed prickly pear juice.
As the photo shows, this pours a ruby red grapefruit color. The aroma does not include the clove and banana that you normally associate with a German style hefe but what I do get is a clear aloe, green leaf type of smell which is not an aroma that I have picked up on a beer before. The taste veers away from that into more of a strawberry and banana world. It is very fruity with a little bit of bitterness lingering at the back end. This style of beer (and the Berliner Weisse one as well) showcase the pear.
Event Review – Stone Store in Pasadena
My L.A. Beer Week kicked off in Pasadena at the brand spanking new Stone outpost. An event so popular that they extended the event by a couple of hours to accommodate all the folks who wanted to get a first look at the arrogance.
Upon entering the Del Mar station of the Gold Line. (Yes, it is literally steps away from the train), I got my customary “bracelet” and a ticket for (4) beers and food. Now I could have saved some of the boxes for a growler fill or a tasting flight at a later date but I wanted to try the special beers that had come up from Escondido.
I started off with Ruination dry hopped with Motueka hops. This version tasted softer to me. Which is a good thing. I did not need to have my palate “ruined” one beer in. It still had a hearty kick of bitterness, don’t get me wrong, but a little more fruit notes rose to my attention.
Faithful readers of this blog will know that I prefer the lighter side of beers and I generally disdain the cult of the imperial stout but the beer that I was looking forward to the most was a big beer. Suitable for Cave Aging was created in honor of Danny Williams who passed away this year. He was one of the quirky legends of the craft beer world and I don’t know what his style preferences were but this beer was quite nice. Strong but not overpowering bourbon notes. A little sweetness. Overall a good after dinner sipper.
The other beer of note was an espresso bean version of Sublimely Self-Righteous. That coffeehouse aroma was in evidence but it faded into the beer which was more malt driven than coffee or chocolate. But it went really well with the beer cookies that were offered.
One day down and 10 to go!
L.A. Beer Week – It has Arrived!
Now is the time to grab your L.A. Beer Week passport and a pocket for bottlecaps so that you can collect the right ones to get a L.A. Beer Week Cap and start hitting events!
Today on FoodGPS, I picked some can’t miss parties for you. And here on my blog, I will delve into how to navigate the 10 days of fun.
First off, you need to generate a list of events. Put each one into either a “must see”, “should see” or “not this year” list. You do that by scoping out the events over at LA Beer Week website then you look at my picks and then cross-checked against what you enjoyed last year.
Now take the “must see” events and put them onto a calendar. If you have one every night, that’s great! But if you want to truly enjoy each event, you may want to scale back and have a couple days to drink water and rest. You do not want to enter the gates of Union Station on that final day, have a couple samples and be filled up because of all that you had before. Trust me, that is what happened to me last year.
The other criteria that I use to whittle down the field are as follows:
~ Is it a one of a kind event? Last year’s Firestone-Walker Deconstructed dinner was epic and this year Firestone is doing a one day Sour beer blitz through L.A.
~ Is the event at a bar or brewery that you haven’t visited? Use the fest as an excuse to hit places that you don’t normally go to.
~ What beer style is on display? You don’t want to have three IPA-centric events in a row. Spice things up. Go Berliner Weisse one day and change up the next.
Use my suggestions or your own criteria and then as a final step, make sure you have back-ups for some events. You may be tired or traffic is awful (405 closure time coincides with the final weekend) and you may have to go to a Plan B that is either closer to home or work.
But whether you attend 1 event or 10, have fun. As famous publican Don Younger put it, “It’s not about the beer. It’s about the beer.”
before L.A. Beer Week starts
As if L.A. Beer Week needed to be any more fun, here are 3 more ale-ventures to accomplish between the 20th and 30th this month.
From the fine folks behindL.A. Beer Week:
1. CAPS FOR CAPS INITIATIVE
We’ve got some awesome local breweries with some beautiful looking bottle caps emblazoned with their logos. Homies like Eagle Rock Brewery, Hangar 24 Craft Brewery, The Bruery, Black Market Brewing, and Brouwerij West. If you can collect a dozen of those bottle caps, you can trade em in for an official LABW hat at the LA Beer Week Festival. (Hat = cap. Bottle cap. Caps for Caps… see what we did there?)
And for those local breweries who aren’t yet marking their bottle caps with their logo, we’ve partnered with local bottle shops/LABW sponsors to place special stickers on those caps to help spread the love and make this little program even more of a happy success. Look for the stickers at these fine potent potable purveyors:
Wally’s Wine and Spirits (West LA)
K&L Wine Merchants (Hollywood)
The Oaks Gourmet Market (Los Feliz)
Red Carpet Wine (Glendale)
Co-Opportunity (Santa Monica)
If for some unknown reason you aren’t attending the LA Beer Week Festival, you can bring said 12 caps to Eagle Rock Brewery or Beer Belly to claim your superfly sombrero.
2. THE LA BEER WEEK BUCKET LIST
As an added incentive to head out to multiple events this year (as if the events themselves weren’t incentive enough), we’ve devised the brilliant LA Beer Week Bucket List to help steer you in a few adventurous directions. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to collect special stickers by participating in certain types of events: visiting local breweries, attending a beer education seminar, moseying out to one of our highlighted shindigs, and seeking out an extra special, rare beer. Those who complete this most noble quest, collecting all four stickers and bringing their finished Bucket List to the LA Beer Week Festival are then entitled to a bottle of the official LABW beer, Unity, from Eagle Rock Brewery! It also gets you into a drawing for free tickets to the amazing BAM Fest (Beer, Art, and Music) on Oct. 6th in Santa Monica!
3. LA BEER WEEK BADGE ON UNTAPPD
The true craft beer cognoscenti are using Untappd to check-in to their favorite beers, a newfangled 21st century kind of way to drink socially, if you will. Users of the free app can receive the official Untappd LA Beer Week badge simply by checking into any beer between Sept. 20-30, with their location geotagged anywhere within Los Angeles or Orange County. Not using Untappd yet? Well, what are you waiting for?! Head to untappd.com on your smartphone to get started.
Two Twists to L.A. Beer Week
It is now September and the celebration of all things craft beer in L.A. starts in less than three weeks!
This year there will be two special programs running during the extended week. First is a L.A. Beer Week passport. And anyone who is considering or has already bought tickets for the finale festival at Union Station should get in on this. All you have to do is have fun and drink beer at four types of LA Beer Week events. Visit a brewery. Get a sticker for your passport. Attend a special beer event. Get another sticker for your passport. And if you complete this mission (not impossible by the way), all you have to do is turn in your completed passport at the Union Station festival to receive a token for a $1 bottle of Unity 2012. Seriously! One Dollar for a full bottle of Prickly Pear Rye Berliner Weisse.
Secondly is “Caps for Caps”! A fun bottle cap hunt. Visit participating bottle shops in the L.A. area and pick up a beer from the cooler that has the LA Beer Week sticker on it. Or save a bottle cap from a brewery based here in L.A. County. Collect 12 and you can turn them in for a rockin’ LA Beer Week hat either at the festival or at Beer Belly or Eagle Rock Brewery. (Where they have really great beer that tastes even better with the “official” hat on.)
More information on these special promotions will be coming shortly including the link to print a passport and a list of the stores that will be participating in “Caps for Caps”.
Thanks in advance for talking about L.A. Beer Week on your blogs, your Twitter feeds or Facebook pages and get as many people out to events as you can. And please pass the information on to anyone who you think would benefit from it and/or can spread the word to people not “inside” the craft beer world.
L.A. Beer Week 2011 Wrap-up
L.A. Beer Week – Year # 3 is now safely in the books. I careened from one part of town to another in search of great beer and here are my impressions.
It is hard to top the Deconstructed event that Firestone-Walker put on with the Home Brew Chef, Sean Paxton. Damn good (and exclusive) beer, excellent food and gracious hosts in a cool Hollywood venue.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Beer Float Showdown as well. For some of the same reasons as I enjoyed Deconstructed. Great beer paired with creative food. I could see that the float makers were both working hard and having fun.
I also enjoyed the three year vertical of Ten Fidy that Boneyard Bistro provided. The array of stouts and big beers they had that night was amazing and I wish I had more nights to have tried out a few more.
The big, big plus of the last two weeks was the sheer volume and variety of events. There were huge pairing dinners and simple meet the brewer nights, there were new beer releases and celebrations of our local brewers. There was something for every beer geek across the area. But within that bounty were some missed chances.
I would love to see a “New to craft beer” event that roved from bar to bar. A welcome mat of an event that would encourage people to try a variety of beers to acclimate palates to the good beer of the world and be able to get questions answered.
I would also like to see more signage with the L.A. Beer Week logo that could catch the eye of the passersby, if you will excuse the rhyme. Maybe an official L.A. Beer Week stop sign to hang in a business window or a sandwich board outside. Having an Untappd badge and the other social media kicking are great but I would like to see outreach to the non “in-the know” folks. And if people see enough of them as they drive around L.A., they might get curious.
Lastly, as much as I liked the plethora of beer, two weeks was a bit much. I know America is the land of outsized ideas but by the end on Sunday, I had heard the lament of “ready for Monday” many times and not just from myself. I am a proponent of the 10 day week. Coming on the heels of the Great American Beer Festival and before the November San Diego Beer week, ten days allow some rest for the wicked. Not that everyone attended an event a day like me but I think that L.A. has enough of a craft beer culture where we can start having mini-festivals throughout the year to augment the many other events that are happening so that beer can gain a momentum that a once a year event cannot generate.
That being said, kudos to all the organizers for taking on the extra workload and less sleep and loads of driving to bring beer to me and to all of the people of L.A. The city is better for your efforts.
L.A. Beer Week – Day 14 – Union Station
What a beautiful Sunday to have a beer festival. There were three “must” attend events for this two week bonanza called L.A. Beer Week. One was Deconstructed, the second was the Beer Float Showdown and the third was the festival finale.
First on my list was to sample the beers from L.A. newcomer Ohana. They were pouring their new Black IPA by the gritty L.A. name of Black Dahlia. As well as two versions of a Muscat barrel lambic. And as good as the IPA was to this hophead, the lambics were great. One was milder and really showcased the grape tastes with a bit of tart. The punchier version was much more Belgiany and pucker inducing. I liked both equally precisely because they were so different but with common flavors.
The other spot that I honed in on was the Pro-Am area. And I was lucky to get the last of the collaboration of Strand Brewing and the Beer Chicks. It was a combination of hops, nuttiness and caramel that I really enjoyed. 
I ended up trying close to (15) samples while alternately hiding in the shade and warming up. But there was just too much good stuff being poured. From Beachwood….
to Craftsman….
…to Dogfish Head….
and many more inbetween.
The first two iterations of the festival, I volunteered. But this time around, I played the role of media and got to see the event from a new perspective. There was quite the equal representation. Both genders and all ages in equal amounts. This was definitely not a Beer Geek dominated party. There was also a wide representation of beer with a nice amount of focus on SoCal. I was really impressed by the amount of beer that Craftsman brought too. Angelino Weiss, Ruddy Bloke, Sour Grapes among the many they were pouring.
On the downside, water stations were nowhere to be found and I walked around a few times looking. At a festival with unlimited pours, there needs to be easily accessible water. There was a hiccup getting people inside but that was an unforeseen complication that was not the fault of the organizers.
Overall, it was easy to navigate and get beers. Not many lines and the ones that were there were fast moving. Couple that with the selection and the weather and this event was a winner.
L.A. Beer Week – Day 13 – Beer Belly
It has been a long Week(s) but the finish line is in sight. But instead of looking past a day, I and beer buddy Richard headed to Koreatown and Beer Belly for a night that featured the beer of El Segundo and the social networking of Untappd.
I got to try the new Picket Fence Wheat IPA. Which is another winner from El Segundo. Rob and Tom from the brewery made the eastside trek to be on hand as well as Untappd to celebrate.
I also had the Double Dry Hopped Nelson which is really tremendous. The Nelson hop balances out the bitterness that really is strong on this one without being overpowering.
Oh and both Richard and I got badges tonight!
LA Beer Week – Day Six – Beer Floats
Friday was a day of rest. Two big events past and two on the weekend. Pacing myself. Anyway, here is my take on the 3rd Beer Float Showdown (full disclosure – I volunteered at this event and write for FoodGPS that was the presenter of the showdown)….
The challenge was set forth. Five floats created by a combo of brewer and chef. And not just any chefs. Ilan Hall and CJ Jacobson of Top Chef fame, the Trans of Starry Kitchen, Andre Guerrero of Oinkster and the new Maximlilianos and Laurent Quenioux of Vertical Wine Bistro. 
Serious fire power and the beer wasn’t from slouches either Ladyface, Eagle Rock, Beachwood, Firestone Walker and the new Smog City were all there.
I only tried three of the floats and in fact did not get to taste the eventual winner. But I was mightily impressed by the Ladyface / Starry Kitchen effort…..
….which had fruit, pop rocks and habanero! My personal favorite was the Firestone / Yard combo …
It had a rim of caramel and potato chips, the famous hemp ale and a nice light ice cream. Primo stuff from CJ and Jace. I also enjoyed the creation of Beachwood and Laurent Quenioux. Herbs with saison and another light ice cream.
Three creative and tasty floats.
But the winner was Andre Guerrero and Jan Purdy who were paired with the host of the event Jeremy Raub and Eagle Rock Brewery. Their secret ingredient? Bacon with Vanilla Bean Solidarity.
If you think this event looked fun then check the official website for more information on events during week 2.
LA Beer Week – Day 4 – Bottle Room
As if last night wasn’t enough, back on the road to Whittier and The Bottle Room for Deschutes beer and chocolate….
Who needs dinner when you can start with dessert. Well, I almost did that last night. Placed an order for the chocolate dessert sampler and the two Deschutes beers (Black Butte and Jubelale) after sitting down. Then realized I should probably have some food first. And since I wanted to save the beer to pair with the desserts, I sampled Strand Brewing’s 2nd Anniversary braggot.
It was quite good. Braggots are hit or miss for me but this had a nice interplay of honey, vanilla and spice. A great fall beer for cool nights. (LA should get one of those in November).
Then it was on to the dessert.
. The cake was soooo rich. That was a wicked mixture of caramel and chocolate that came oozing out of the middle. I am much more a pie guy, but molten cakes rank really high too. The chocolates were also great. There was blue cheese lurking in the small square and it was good. Again, I shall close with the beer.
I had the Jubelale 2011 at the Beer Bloggers conference this year and this was a chance to see if my initial reaction would be changed. It hasn’t. But it doesn’t scream winter ale to me. The Black Butte was quite good and matched the richness of the desserts better..
As usual, I was wowed again by the food of Tony Alcazar and the great tap list.