Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
I often chide, sometimes roughly – always rightly, the L.A. Times for a lack of beer coverage. But I will give credit where it is due and they have stepped up with this…..
Follow the link HERE to check out the list and see if you have visited them all.
As great as it is to have more and more breweries open, you also need more and more places selling beer open as well and a really cool Shipping Container food pod is in process in Montebello with both a beer component and a neighborhood calling.
The beer will come from Alchemy Craft Beer that will serve only beers from L.A. County (along with wine). Phat Birds (chicken), VCHOS (El Salvadoran food) are currently on board for this concept that aims to give a hand up through mentoring, equipped kitchens and capital help to vendors who just need some help to get forward with their food and drink.
Last Saturday, I had the unique opportunity to try the beers from Angry Horse Brewing. They still have a few days left in their Indie-Go-Go campaign, you can check it out HERE.
Here are my thoughts on the beers that I sampled…..
Overall, this is a solid start. There were no flaws in the seven beers that I sampled even in the English IPA that was rushed a bit for the tasting. To me the strongest of the bunch were the Tantrum Stout and the East LA IPA (the name alone should draw customers) with the Burnt Shirt brown ale a refreshing and sparkling close third. All three were solid to a bit above average. The two IPA’s are entering a tough market to crack and will need to be dialed in a bit more to generate buzz and repeat business. Especially with the aroma which will need to be amped up to compete with the other West Coast IPA’s. That being said, the taste was solid and delivered bitterness in abundance which is what the hopheads want. The Brown ale would have been my favorite but it was a bit on the thin side and could also have used a boost of malt to give more of a cereal taste to it. A dump bucket was provided but none of these needed that drastic step.
The weaker ones were the Belgian Cheval and the Black Jax. Both were flavorful but also suffered from a bit of a thin taste. Cheval had a nice clove/banana mix that got overwhelmed by a bit of metallic notes. The initial aroma and taste went downhill. The Black Jax was a strong ABV imperial stout that could have used a bit of that warming in the cheeks. A strange thing to be seeking, I know, but the alcohol would slow a person down and make it more of a beer to savor because as of now it tastes too similar to the regular stout. (Plus if you name a beer after a nearly 200 pound dog, it should be a 200 pound beer). The HR Amber could have used a less heavy hand on the hops to put it more in line with the style. It was hoppier than the IPA’s and it would have been better for their beer portfolio if it was more of a malty option to compare and contrast with the brown.
The difficulty here is that these are not brewed on the larger system that they want to build. That is another difficult hill that they will have to climb in ramping up recipes to a larger volume. But this is a solid base to build upon and if they can find a spot in Montebello it would be a link in the geographic craft beer chain that is being built in LA and every city could use a brewery, don’t ya’ think?