Tag: second visit

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Lawless Brewing – Take 2

I have checked out NoHo’s Lawless Brewing on opening weekend and now was the tine to give a second visit.

This was on the tab of GoTab which is an online ordering system that Lawless as well as Firestone Walker in Venice uses for contactless orders.

(I promise to talk about the two beers I sampled as well)

You simply point your phones camera at the QR code and you are whisked to the website to order. For Lawless, it also included the food vendor. You choose your beers, enter your credit card and phone number for texts and wait for your beers to arrive.

That is the optimum outcome. I played a bit dumb (not that hard for me) and had one of the GoTab people help me order. That order never came. A good fifteen minutes went by before another GoTab rep ordered on her phone and then my beers came. I noticed that food orders were taking quite some time too.

It comes down to people in the end. This is supposed to supplant going up to the bar yourself or having waitstaff but having to explain the system repeatedly or having people going to the bar to find their order doesn’t really save time for the people. I think it would be more advantageous to have a person walking the order line talking about the beers and being general host help.

I do think this technology is probably coming but for now, it is not going to be a reason for me to go to a brewery or return to one.

Sampled

Dirk Kirkin Barrel-Aged Scotch Ale – nice spice character to this. Good balance of barrel notes to base beer

Bonjour Saison – a good first effort at a Saison. I think it could use a bit more ester quality to it.

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MacLeod Ales – Part the 2nd

I had visited the newest LA brewery (love typing that) a couple weeks back, I only got to sample one beer, so I headed back with beer buddy Rich to see what the other beers were like.

Here is what I found during Round 2 at MacLeod’s Ale Brewing….

…a nice sized crowd. The bar stools all taken. Quick and attentive service. And three new beers to try.

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I hopscotched across the styles starting with the 60 Shilling, then the Ordinary Bitter and lastly the Brown Stout. The Bagpipe tune names, you can see in the above photo.

My favorite and my top choice is The Session Gap. It is ordinary in name only. Lots of grain taste here. Crisp with some citrus notes to it. And like all four beers, it is way easy to be halfway done with a pint before you know it.

The Kings Taxes and Jackie Tar are both on the darker side but are still worlds apart from other dark beers. Even with the added creamy mouthfeel from the hand pump, these two are not viscous or over chocolate/coffee tasting. I keep coming back to the fact that the malt bill is the star here. The Yorkshire yeast is background and the hops are off stage somewhere.

And that is a refreshing change for an over IPA’d LA market.

I strongly recommend visiting their taproom which is open Wednesday through Sunday and look for their beers to be on tap at places like Story Tavern and Glendale Tap in the coming months.

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