Our last stop in San Diego is electrifying… Kilowatt Brewing. With Locations in Ocean Beach and Kearny Mesa.
Here are the beers that I would add to a taster tray….
Easy CrusherAmerican Pilsner Pre-Prohibition style Lager – “Straw colored Pilsner based on recipes brewed before the Volstead Act of 1919 using Pilsner malt, flaked corn, and German noble hops.”
Wir Trinken!Festbier - “A smooth, pale German-style lager with a strong malt presence balanced with a light hop character.”
250 kWh IPA American IPA - “Features Kohatu, Rakau, and Falconer’s Flight hops, with piney, fruity & citrus notes.”
350 kWh IIIPATriple IPA – “Triple IPA brewed with 40 lbs of 7 different citrusy and tropical hops.”
Coconut Chai PorterAmerican Porter -” Brewed with chai spices and conditioned on toasted coconut.”
I made my first official visit to Lomita recently. Traveling for beer does indeed force one to parts of Los Angeles that you may see only on freeway exit signs. This time I am drinking my first beers from Burnin’ Daylight which occupies a new development block on Narbonne Street.
Right
off the bat I notice two things: One, they have a kitchen with a short food
menu which is nice and second, the place was damn cold. So cold that blankets were being passed out. The A/C must have decided to work extra
overtime. There is a nice amount of
outdoor over a barrel seating and upcycled malt bag pillows inside that make the
place homey.
There
was a good spectrum of beer styles on offer from the civic named Lomita Light
Lager to a Bourbon-Barrel aged stout and IPA’s in-between. I enjoyed the Wheat
Mas wheat driven IPA. It had a bright
hoppy flavor and a bit of strength behind it too. The Gold Days Coffee Milt Stout was a little
green coffee bean tasting for the style but coffee lovers like myself are bound
to find it tasty nonetheless. The Small
Town Feel DIPA was on track doubling up Citra and Simcoe though it was a little
too tongue scrapey old school West Coast (or I have gotten soft). The least favorite was the Appian Amber. This is a style that should be easily
executed, clean and crisp but this had a weird aftertaste going on that was not
my thing.
Overall, I like the feel of the place and for a new brewery, they seemed to be on track with the beers. They are also not too far from the other South Bay breweries so it is easy to add this to the beginning or end of a trip or to make a specific choice to come.
Looks like the City of Wilmington is getting in on the independent beer bandwagon as I noticed this logo on Facebook recently for Espada Brewing Co. No other info yet, but I will be monitoring this new possible brewing spot.
On a windswept Saturday night, I braved the slow 210 freeway and set my sights to Monrovia and a new brewery on the outskirts of the main drag of this community, Wingwalker. The first impression is good. There is a nice little patio as you walk up to the entrance. There is a painting hanging up near the door and as you walk in, there is a nice dark wood bar with the silver gleaming cooler behind it. Not much in the way of signage but thanks to my far vision glasses, I can make out that three beers are on offer. Dark Matter Porter in both regular and CO2 versions. A mild and a Festbier.
It is brand new days
for this brewery that literally opened at the start of the year. So I was not expecting to have the best beer
experience. I was nicely surprised with
the start of ….
Dark Matter – Nice and roasty. Maybe a skosh too bitter. Tilted to the coffee side. The Nitro blunted that a bit and would be my choice of the two.
…then the last two
beers were tasted and the review started trending down…
Miskatonic Mild – Tastes way green to me. Smells worty. My reaction might be due to lack of British Beers in my life. But aim is off.
Physics Phest Bier – Tastes a bit off as well. Too sweet and a little to mineral tasting. Closer to style in my thinking. But could be heavier and maltier.
The other weird thing
is that one long section of the bar seating is an actual small airplane
wing. I had to look at it a good long
time to see it under the clear epoxy/resin? And I felt that it would have been
much better to have the same wood all the way around and then fly the wing
above the customers, maybe with the logo stamped on it as well.
The brewery has an
old/vintage brewing system that was first brewed on in 1980 and is apparently a
system that makes brew days long and longer.
If the system can be mastered, this might be only a slight hindrance but
it could be worse. The space could use
more logo branding, from coasters to glassware to tap handles. Handwritten signs are fine but they will need
to be upgraded. There does appear room
to grow with 12 taps unused and the former home brewer also distills so there
might be spirits in the future.
Overall, this space
really looks only 80% ready. What is
done is solid but more work is needed on that and the beer.
Josh Lurie from Food GPS has a pipeline to the breweries that are in process that have skated past me and here is another prime example…. HighPoint Brewing Company is on the Arrow Highway in San Dimas. They opened this month and have Thursday through Sunday and have a full slate of the usual beers. They also have (save for a space) the same name as a New Jersey brewery.
Hopes of catching up on the new breweries is fading for 2018 for me. I am behind two in Long Beach and now with the addition of Telco Brewery in Santa Clarita, I am two behind in the north as well. (still need to see Brewery Draconum in action)
Telco was founded by two homebrewers who have what job experience? That’s right telephone company.
They opened on September 30, 2018 and their website has the following amongst their beer choices: Tip & Ring Pale Ale – “A classic American Ale, with a hoppy aroma. Tip & Ring is dry hopped to give you the smell of an IPA with out the bitterness. An excellent introduction to Telco Brewery’s fine beers.”
Short to Ground IPA – “Our Indian Pale Ale with the bite and smell only an IPA can offer. With ABV 6% & IBUs 63, this IPA is made with a single hop. Chinook is well-balanced with spicy overtones and heavy aromas brewed with Cara-Pils malt for extra body. Then dry hopped with you guessed it Chinook.”
Muck Out Stout – “Winner of the Montrose Homebrew Competition on April 2016, this stout comes in weighing at 6.4% ABV, & 54 IBUs. Our chocolate colored stout doesn’t disappoint adding a roasted malt to give you that coffee flavor we all love. Liberal amounts of Willamette and Cascade hops balance the sturdy malt backbone, making for a dangerously drinkable big beer.”
Rotary Red Ale – “a fan favorite red ale. The red ale offers an array of hops, a total of five hops. The star being Columbus, giving you that floral-citrusy flavor that we love in a light bodied beer. With the rest of the hops delivering excellent aroma followed by the undeniable red flavor. An excellent balance of a traditional red.”
Is Bixby Knolls the new Torrance? Another brewery is opening in this Long Beach neighborhood, Ambitious Ales.
Look for it to open later this year or 2019.
Finally! Hand-Brewed Beer has broken through all the red tape and typical build out delays to get their taproom open. I remember the L.A. Beer Bloggers group making a trek to try out the Beers even before their brewery location was even chosen.
Congratulations on your patience and a first visit to the Chatwsorth brewery is being planned.
This brewery snuck up on me. I would have remembered the name for sure. It is a bit unwieldy but if the beers are good, people will learn how to spell it.
Ximix Craft Exploration Brewery will be open starting today!
Here are the opening weekend hours:
Thursday: 4 pm – 9 pm
Friday: 4 pm – 9 pm
Saturday: Noon – 9 pm
Sunday: 1 pm – 6 pm
As usual, I will report back with a 1st Visit as soon as I can.
