For the 20th beer of the holiday ale round-up, we head to nearby-ish Sierra Madre and the new RT Rogers Brewing Co. for their spiced Brown ale. Sounds like a good option for a Christmas meal beer.
1st Visit – RT Rogers
I had not heard anything about RT Rogers Brewing minus one Facebook post from noted home brew expert Drew Beechum. On a recent (and rare) cloudy day in Los Angeles, I hit the 210 freeway to check out this 5 month old brewery in Sierra Madre.
RTR has a lovely little front garden with patio seating at the entrance and a little beer tank seating nook inside the warm and cozy space. Forties music was on the spotify and fairy tale beer names and a German tap tower with the five beers that were pouring. That total will be augmented by a German pils, Amber and other beers coming through the coupler with an aim of nine beers in rotation.
The taster tray was really solid and I was most impressed by the IPA’s which seemed just left of center enough to make you sit up…
The Shoemakers Red IPA – quite zippy. Really good. Little spicy and medium hoppy
The Woodchoppers IPA – lemon and cat pee. Interesting. Would stand out in a tasting
The Milk maids milk stout – Solid if a little lactose light
The Henny Penny English style brown porter – not bad but a little light to me.
The Gold Spinners hefe – light on the banana. Not much clove but still tasty
One of the rare breweries new breweries that has started on solid footing. Gonna check back on this one and you should too.
Canning on the Move in SoCal
Sierra Madre may be known as an “off the 210” town but now Greg Kinne and Mike Nalick, co-owners of Beer Monks Mobile Canning will be driving their truck to breweries in the Southland.
The “company delivers and operates equipment on-site to produce as much as 1,800 gallons of canned beer a day. The canning machine fits on a box truck and can go anywhere a truck can — and the machine is small enough to fit through a standard door.”
This is that helpful “bridge” service for breweries that don’t have the capital to invest into lines (either bottles or cans) and / or don’t have space for said lines in their brewery. Kinne says “Our service allows us to deliver smaller quantities of cans and packaging materials — six packs and case trays — in a just-in-time fashion.”
Maybe Pacific Plate or Federal could do a test drive?