Tag: return visit

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Return Visit – Mt. Lowe Brewing

Ever since I read the distress post from Mt. Lowe Brewing in Arcadia, I wanted to go back and re-visit.  On a recent gray, rain threatening Saturday, I braved the always sluggish 210 Freeway to have a few beers to see what was up.

And I saw pitcher after pitcher going to the Pasadena Rugby Club who apparently are cool with no aroma, flat beer which hopefully helps this at risk brewery out.  I tried out a coffee version of their Hills Are Alive IPA which I quite liked.  A nice balance of coffee notes to hops with neither getting the upper hand.  The two following tasters were less successful and I think I may have gotten the same beer twice and not two different tasters.  Though they were filled right up to the brim.

The beertenders were working hard and there was a steady line to order so maybe folks are in supportive help mode which is good to see.

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Back to the West

With L.A. pushing their brewery count higher, it can be hard to make return visits to check out how a brewery is progressing. Which is important, because brewing skill and recipes don’t always stand still.

With that in mind, I returned to Verdugo West to check out what was happening and lo and behold ran into brewer Chris Walowski and tasted a flight of recent beers and talked shop in Burbank.

The list was split between light and dark with the popular Gigli lager that uses that underused adjunct, rice. It pours really clear yello with a bit of a sweet aroma. Then there was Hoppy 30th a macro based beer with rice as well and then a Double IPA’s worth of hops. I hope this beer comes back for 31st at least.

On the dark side of the ledger was Kalon, a rare schwarzbier that had good roast and was solidly Germanic followed by the Q2 IPA which was a Black IPA. A style that has had a free fall out of favor. This erred too far on the roast side and could have used some extra hop push to it.

I will have to keep returning.