LA Beer Week - 9/24/12 - 9/30/12

Let's look now at the week coming up, where I will again give you my picks for LA Beer Week! Let me remind you that I'm tending to stay on my side of town, but please check out the whole calendar to see all of the events and figure out what appeals most to you!

Monday, September 24: Dogfish Head Ancient Ales Dinner at Little Bear
Quite honestly, I'm too broke to go to this. This meal of beer and food pairing will be $75 a head, and it includes five courses which sound absolutely delicious. As a fan of the food at Little Bear, and of DFH's ancient ales, this is something I myself would love to go to, but shall probably have to live vicariously through those who do go. If you go, make sure to let me know how it was!

Wednesday, September 26: FiftyFifty Night at Verdugo Bar
I am really looking forward to this one. Though I haven't officially reviewed any FiftyFifty beers yet on this blog, I am a huge fan of their Eclipse, a barrel-aged imperial stout that is released in December every year. Outside of the Eclipse, which sees limited distribution in California, we don't really see FiftyFifty beers down here in SoCal much, so this will be a fantastic opportunity to try some of those other beers that I wouldn't have an opportunity to without trekking up to their brewpub in Truckee, CA. (Which I would love to do eventually, but haven't had a chance to yet.)

Thursday, September 27: This is a toss-up between the Port/Lost Abbey night at Surly Goat and the Firestone Walker pig roast at King's Row.
Either one could be great; the P/LA event will be more strictly beer-focused, with the Surly Goat having an array of some of the brewers' more specialty offerings, including some aged vintages. The FW event, on the other hand, appears to be a relatively inexpensive dinner option, including a pig roast in FW beer, plus mac and cheese, and beer on the side. At the moment, I'm leaning more toward the food event, but I'll have to see where the night takes me!

Saturday, September 29: Flight Night at 38 Degrees
This event is no joke. Several brewers, tons of beer. I'm definitely going to have to rally if I want to do this the night before the closing event at Union Station, but from everything I hear this is not a party to be missed.

Sunday, September 30: Aaaaand this one is obvious. The Festival at Union Station features ~70 localish breweries, as well as a bunch of LA's famous food trucks, all together in an all you can drink madhouse, cleverly located on the public transit hub of downtown. Who is getting nowhere near a car that day? This girl!

My wallet is going to hurt at the end of this week, but as a beer lover, I'd be nuts to not take advantage of some of these awesome events. If anyone else is planning on going to any of these, I'd love to say hello and talk beer with you.

LA Beer Week Starts TOMORROW!

Hey! So did you know my Aroma Coma review was my 100th post on the blog? Not quite my 100th review, but that's probably coming up since I haven't done that many non-review posts! I'll probably stick a fashionable confetti GIF or something to mark the "milestone" review, or something. Anyway -- onward to the important news, which is that LA Beer Week is back! Here are some of the events I'm going to try to hit up this weekend:

TONIGHT (Wednesday, September 19th): Women's Beer Forum at Eagle Rock Brewery
Though Beer Week doesn't officially kick off until tomorrow, Ting at ERB has done a Women's Forum once a month for about a year and a half, encouraging women to come and try flights of different styles of beer. She conceived the forum as a way to encourage women to find out what they like in a beer, and to try to develop a vocabulary around how to describe what those taste preferences are! It's a great opportunity for lady beer novices and "experts" to come try different beers, and tonight the focus will be on "LA Beer," including Unity, ERB's annual LA Beer Week Brew.

Thursday, September 20th: Dogfish Head invades Little Tokyo at Far Bar
I love the Far Bar, a tucked away little spot with a great outdoor patio in Little Tokyo. I don't always give a lot of love to Dogfish Head beers on this blog, but I credit them with being some of the first beers I tried as I got into craft beer. I think overall they produce solid, innovative beers, and the "tap takeover" includes 120 Minute IPA and Burton Baton, two beers we don't see too often out here in California.

On Friday, September 21st:, I'm going to take it easy.

Saturday, September 22nd: I'm going to be at UCLA vs. Oregon St football game during the day, so I'm not holding my breath for having a ton of energy left to hit up a lot of beer week events after tailgating. Since it's during the game, I definitely won't be able to make the Saturday with Kern River at Far Bar, but that would be a top pick for the day. KRBC is a fantastic small brewery, and their beers are in such high demand out here that getting a taste of any of their stuff at all without having to drive to Kernville is a freaking treat. If I can make it to anything in the evening, I might want to try to make it out to one of the Walker's Wild Ride events, where rare sours are going to be randomly tapped by out-of-a-hat (or similarly random) drawing at various bars around LA.

Sunday, September 23rd: I'm definitely interested in hitting up the Brewer's Brunch at Eagle Rock Brewery, both for the opportunity to hang out at my favorite LA craft brewery again, and for the (sure to be) delicious food that Jerry, family of the brewery owners, is going to be cooking. Guy is damn talented. I may head later to Beer Belly to participate in Crap for Craft, a charmingly named opportunity to trade in craft beer for local craft beer at the bar. Their food is also great...

I'll check back in early next week with some more events I'd like to attend. You should definitely check out The Calendar for yourselves, as there are tons of events every day, and I'm selecting events partially based on my geography. There will be something that interests you, whether it's drink specials at bars or more structured "learning" or "meet and greet" activities, and the events are all over the city! 

Will I be seeing you out at Beer Week?

Firestone Walker - Wookey Jack

Wookey Jack is Firestone's black rye IPA, which is made periodically, and it is 8.3% ABV. Firestone has good national distribution, and my understanding is that everyone in their normal distribution areas had access to this beer.

Appearance: This beer is dark brown, very nearly black, but not completely opaque. It pours off a tall, light tan head, that leaves dense lacing around the sides of the glass.

Smell: Floral and earthy hops, a touch of rye, slight hint of roasted character and chocolate.

Taste: The taste is primarily roast and rye at the foreground, but a grassy hop bitterness washes through in the mid-palate and persists in the finish. As the beer warms, the rye becomes more and more dominant throughout the whole body of flavor.

Mouthfeel: Medium to full-bodied, and smooth. The bitterness from the hops adds a bit of perceived prickliness to cut the overall thickness.

Overall: This was a really tasty beer, and another really nice black IPA (with rye, which is a nice touch.) For some reason, this didn't really light my fire, but I certainly liked it, and it is definitely a solid beer I would recommend (particularly if you like black IPAs.)

3.5/5

Firestone - Double Jack

Double IPA, 9.5% ABV

Appearance: Dark blonde, honey orange, deep brass. There is very little head, less than one finger, but it leaves a trace of lacing around the glass.

Smell: Heavenly! Aromatic citrus, pineapple and mango, and trace hops.

Taste: Fresh citrus, spicy pine throughout the body and on the finish, with a nice balance of bitter hops and sweet malt. A really clean, balanced beer. Very tasty. The tang/spiciness of the pine is a really unique element here that adds a lot to the standard DIPA formula.

Mouthfeel: Pretty light in the mouth, moderate carbonation and a thin but not weak consistency. Substantial, but not overbearing in the least.

Overall: I first had this on tap at Verdugo Bar and knew instantly I wanted to find it in bottles. I frequently have the experience of the beer just not being quite the same in the bottle as it is on the tap, but I have to say I wasn't disappointed here. Double Jack holds up very well in the bottle and reminded me perfectly of why I liked it so much the first time. I'll definitely seek this out in the future, and highly recommend it to other hop heads -- particularly those who like the sweetness in their IPAs to come from the fruit characteristics, not from overpowering malt.

5/5