In a little over a week, the 9th edition of the Los Angeles IPA Festival will be held at Brennans in Marina del Rey on the 11th. You will quickly see how IPA is still the giant in the beer style world.
Check HERE for the details.
9th LA IPA Fest
L.A. IPA Fest # 8
After a hiatus, the L.A. IPA festival returns next month on the 21st of May.
Here are more details about the event that will move from Mohawk Bend in Echo Park to Brennan’s in Marina Del Rey.
“The event will carry forward many of its traditions from prior years. A panel of industry- leading brewers will be sequestered to judge the entries to determine the one most representative of the ideals of a West Coast IPA. Guests will get the opportunity to taste any of the beers and submit their pick for People’s Choice. And a VIP experience will be available for guests that want to rub shoulders with the best in the business.
Over 60 beers will be available as part of the competition, from some of the best breweries within California. North Park Beer Company, which won the 2020 competition with their “Sorta Mostly Dead” IPA, will be present, along with Tarantula Hill Brewing, 2020 winners of the People’s Choice. Also present will be crowd favorites such as Russian River, Highland Park Beer, Green Cheek Beer, and many, many more.
General Admission to the festival includes a commemorative IPA glass and five beer tokens for $38. However, a special Early Bird price is available until April 30th for only $29. A limited amount of “Shadow Judge” VIP tickets will also be made available, which offer the opportunity to enjoy a “brewers’ brunch” with the judges at 10am and view the first round of judging at 11am. This package also includes 5 beer tokens and the commemorative glass, and runs for $125.”
Beer Media Propagation at FW-Venice
The newly re-branded L.A. Beer Media had their first meeting of 2019 and thanks to the generosity (excellent as usual) of Firestone Walker, we learned quite a bit about the creation of the newest year round beer that the brewery will be releasing, Rosalie.
The company is branding this as Beer Rose and after remarks from the Lion himself, David Walker, Evan Partridge the Propagator brewer and the soon departing Rob Emery from what I will just call “the lab” gave us the full rundown of how this beer came to be.
They started with (3) components that they wanted the finished beer to have:
- Acidity – light but noticeable
- Color – a reddish hue
- Wine – to connect with the wine region of Paso Robles
The process started back in January of 2018 and Partridge and Emery walked us through acid spiked versions of the Firestone Walker lager to show what they were looking for in component # 1, then we tasted a mixture of water and hibiscus to show the color aspect and then lastly, they gave us a sample of wine/grape juice as well as a sample of wine created with the grape blend that they filled a silo with.
Firestone Walker had teamed with Castoro Cellars to provide them with a blend that included Riesling, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Muscat and Viognier. Once the grapes were in place the recipe honing process could begin. We tasted four of the steps along the way as well as the finished product and it was fascinating to see how the blend went from tart to less tart but still wine forward, to pilsner with hibiscus, to finally a blend that truly mixed beer and wine AND had the right color.
Rosalie comes in the Sixpoint 12oz skinny can and I found it to be tilted to the wine side of the fence but the acidity comes through just enough to make this unique. Plus it actually looks Rose and not just red. It really worked for me.
Considering last year’s Terroir event that was a blend of wine and beer hybrids and the fact the BarrelWorks has been toying with it as well with ZinSkin among other creations, this seems like a no-brainer, gateway hybrid that will draw those curious as to how wine and beer mingle. And using Paso Robles grapes as part of the equation really makes it unique as the Rose style becomes more Brut sized.
