Tag: Meg Gill

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Food GPS Teaser – Friendly Banter

Before the main event at the Brewbound – Brew Talk at Golden Road. A diverse panel of speakers covering three sectors of the craft beer ecosystem were called to the podium to talk about the State of Beer in Los Angeles.

Included were Anne Conness the chef for Simmzy’s, Jace Milstead the beer guru for Ace Distribution and Jeff Sapsford from Sunset Beer.

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Here are some tidbits from their talk (in no particular order of importance).
You have to “earn” the privilege of pouring special beers. You don’t get the uber rare beer if you don’t support the rest of a breweries beers.

It would be great to go to signature L.A. landmarks and see signature L.A. beers served there.

You have to have IPA’s on at least 1/3 of your taps.

If you are brewing beer, two key things: Consistency and Availability.

Seems like anyone who gets fired decides to open a brewery.

Be a part of the market.

On Food GPS tomorrow, what I took away from business discussion between The Bruery and Golden Road.

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Golden Road – the first batches

I had the good fortune to sample the inaugural beers from the new Golden Road Brewing last night at 38 Degrees Alehouse and I am pleased to report that I thoroughly enjoyed both.

I started with the Point the Way IPA. I have to admit that I was concerned due to the brewer’s Dogfish past and the fact that I am not a big Dogfish IPA fan. (I know it’s heresy) But this was a solid effort. Especially considering it’s new equipment and the first batch. It poured a dark orange with a big head on it and the aroma was pure pine. The flavor stayed that way too and for a 5% abv, I got some heat off of it too. Once it warmed up a little some citrus kicked in as well to really round the flavors off.

The hefeweizen also was helped by warming up. And again it was citrus that crept onto the palate. But this citrus had a candied quality to it. And again it really balanced out the big banana flavors and the clove spiciness. This is a great example of the hefe style with a little twist that adds to it instead of overwhelming.

Overall this was a great start for Golden Road. I was expecting some work to be done but these are really good on their own right out of the gate.

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Golden Road Brewing

As if running a successful bar in Burbank wasn’t enough.

As if partnering on the ColLAboration events wasn’t enough.

As if opening a huge 65 tap bar wasn’t enough.

Well now Tony Yanow is really going big. And this will be huge for the LA craft beer community. Last night, I along with other craft beer writers got the sneak peak at the facility and more importantly the team behind Golden Road Brewing.

Jon, Meg and Tony

Jon Carpenter (brewmaster) is originally from San Diego but you may recognize him from the late lamented Brewmasters show because he was most recently at Dogfish Head.

Meg Gill (co-founder and Presidnet) comes from two brewing hot spots Boulder and Oskar Blue’s and San Francisco and Speakeasy Ales and Lagers. Combined with Tony they have taken over three distinctively colored buildings next to the train tracks in Atwater Village (on the dividing line of LA and Glendale).

There will be a pub in the yellow building. A barrel aging facility in the red and the blue building will hold the brewing operations.

The styles are yet to be determined. Too early in the development stage for that but don’t be surprised to see a hoppy California style brew. And it will be canned! The line has been purchased. Obviously with a barrel room their will be aged beers done but again too early to give definitive answers as to what kind though the word sour was bandied about.

If I can be corny for a moment, craft beer in LA looks golden right now.