Tag: Van Nuys

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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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MacLeod Ale Brewing Company

MacLeods

Considering how many British actors are starring in major Hollywood movies, it is amazing that they haven’t clamored for some beer to remind them of home.  The old school stuff from cask.

Well, that dry spell will come to an end (and hopefully earlier rather than later) this year with the introduction of MacLeod Ales.  Based in Van Nuys they project themselves as “the valley’s other production brewery”.

Their brewing plans are to “replicate and celebrate the traditional brewing methods of the British Isles.”

When they start up, an empty spot in our craft beer eco-system will be filled and hopefully it will make our bars more open to cask spots in their taplines instead of 5,000 IPA’s and it may encourage more cask beers from our current and future brewers.

Who knows, maybe in 5 years L.A. will have a major cask beer festival.  For now we will have to rely on MacLeod for draft, cask and bottle.