Only a few days into the new year and I have notched another brewery to my tally. I hadn’t expected to visit so early, but a window of time opened and without hesitation I drove down to Gardena to visit State Brewing.
The brewery seems to be in a residential section of town at first but it the area turns industrial as I see the roll-up door that opens up to the space. First thing I see are the rows of empty crowlers behind the bar waiting for to-go orders. There is a nice amount of seating and a TV menu board between two sports tuned TV’s. Said menu board is in a bad place in relation to the bar, forcing the person to swivel to the left and backward to see what is on tap. They probably need to add paper menus at the bar (which they might have, I didn’t see them though)
State is playing both sides and the fence with their beers as they do West Coast, Hazy and hybrid IPA’s as well as pils and many stouts.
Here are my notes on what I sampled:
Baby Merman– Hoppy Pils
Mosaic and Saaz – lemony and malt mix, a bit thin
Super Smoove Move– NE IPA
Fuzzy on the roof of the mouth pineapple. Quite bitter. Unbalanced
New Toy– Project Vanilla with mint and cocoa nibs
Very vanilla, followed by a lot of mint. Like leaves.
Project Nicaragua– RIS with coffee
Very bitter burnt beans. Silky texture. Not super balanced either.
Elbows Off– Table Saison
Very thin. Has the Belgian character though. Little bit of clove
Nice Chucks– NE IPA
Best of the bunch. Very fruity with minimal bitterness.
