More Beer Week Recaps: Beer Wednesday!

As you may recall, I had written that I was excited to check out the FiftyFifty tap takeover at Verdugo Bar last Wednesday. It was great, but that wasn't the only beer encounter of my day!

I actually first had the opportunity to try a flight of the beers brewed over at Haven Gastropub in Pasadena, along with some lunch. My main course was a plate of pulled pork tacos, which you can never go wrong with in my opinion, but my true love of the hour was the macaroni and cheese with black truffles. As I learned at Blue Palms awhile back, truffled food and drinking beer is a sublime experience. I previously was unaware that Haven actually brewed beer onsite, so I was stoked to try their lineup. Of the eight beers I got to sip on, my two favorites were "Hello World," their pale ale, and "Brewmaster's Breakfast," their light breakfast stout. Both had great flavor, and for lunch on a hot day, neither felt too overpowering. They struck a nice balance of being bold but not heavy, which was exactly what I was looking for given the weather and the fact that it was mid-day lunch.

Photo credit: Friends of Local Beer

And look who it is! The back of my head is a celebrity! This event was really cool: I got to try two FiftyFifty beers I'd never had before -- "Rockslide IPA" and "4 Wheat" -- as well as the latest version of BART (Barrel Aged Really Tasty), a beer that changes with every batch basically based on what the brewer wants to throw in. I'm not entirely certain what was blended into this version, but it had the rich sweetness of a barleywine and some dark fruit flavors. Very decadent and delicious. I'm really looking forward to the Eclipse release at the end of the year. California and the west coast tend to be known more for their IPAs and hoppy beers than for their imperial stouts and barrel-aged beers, but the Eclipse series beers collectively rank in my top 3 for west coast barrel aged stouts (due to both the barrel treatment and the strength of the base stout, Totality) and prove that we go toe-to-toe with some of the more stout-heavy regions. Look out for reviews and tasting notes for those later this winter!

I'll write up the closing festival at Union Station in my next post, but be warned -- my precise recollection may be... unreliable?

Eagle Rock Brewery - Unity 2012

On the side of the bottle: "On August 20, 2012, a team of cohorts from the LA Beer Industry joined forces for the brewing of Unity to commemorate the 4th anniversary of Los Angeles Beer Week. The name "Unity" represents the collective idea of promoting ongoing growth of the beer culture in our city. The camaraderie and support we lend to each other in this industry inspires and enables Angelenos to realize the common goal of unity through better beer!"

This year's Unity is a Berliner "Rye" (as opposed to Berliner Weisse) brewed with prickly pear and is a very manageable 3.25% ABV. It was available from Eagle Rock throughout Beer Week, and as this is a one-off beer, when the bottles run out, it's done for good!

Appearance: The picture makes this look quite orange, but it's actually a very light, cloudy yellow. I poured off minimal head that recedes to approximately nothing.

Smell: There is definitely a funky foot smell from the sour character, and the prickly pear also hits the nose in a big way. There is a bit of grain/breadyness, and a slightly sweet note from the rye.

Taste: Overall light and fruity, with a tart kick. This isn't an overly complex beer, but it's certainly refreshing; the prickly pear and rye flavors work well together with the tartness to create a flavor balance that has an impact without feeling heavy or overwhelming.

Mouthfeel: Very light and dry, with a perfect amount of carbonation.

Overall: It has been so damn hot in LA over the past few weeks, and this is a very welcome beverage to beat the heat. The brewers and collaborators definitely knew what they were doing when they decided on this style for a late-summer beer. Berliners aren't necessarily a "wow" style in that they don't really specialize in huge flavors, but Unity 2012 is exactly on point for what I would expect a "Berliner rye" to taste like. Sessionable beers can be very tough, in that their more delicate flavors don't mask "off" qualities as well as a bolder flavors do. This didn't appear to be a problem for Unity, as I can't pick up on any off flavors and am thoroughly enjoying the delicate palate and mouthfeel on this 100-degree day.

4/5

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 - Brewer's Brunch at Eagle Rock Brewery

I just returned from the Brewer's Brunch at Eagle Rock Brewery, where Chef Jerry was serving up great brunch out of his food truck pop-up Tot Box (operating out of the Deano's Deli truck today.) I tried the Heisenberg tots, which consisted of tater tots with a variety of Italian sausage and maple syrup. If you like salty-sweet, it's a slam dunk. But, this is a beer blog, so I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the wonderful variety of Eagle Rock beers on tap today:

• Solidarity, both the "regular" version and the vanilla bean version on nitro -- this is their unofficial "breakfast beer," as I like to think of it. A black mild with a nice roasty flavor that is low in ABV
• Manifesto -- their version of a wit, a great light option with floral notes provided by the addition of rose petals
• Populist -- their west coast style IPA; you'll get citrus and resin out of this
• Revolution -- their XPA, which displays the character of the grain in nice balance with the hops

The above are their year-round offerings; in addition they also had some seasonal selections:

• Eradicator Jr -- the bock they brewed for the GABF ProAm category, with a sweet nutty character
• Imperialist -- the first DIPA they've brewed, it's a huge 10% hoppy delight
• Unity -- the official beer of LA Beer Week, this year Unity is a "Berliner Rye," or a twist on the Berliner Weiss style that is brewed with rye rather than wheat. Unity also has the addition of prickly pear, which lends a crisp fruit note on top of the tartness from the traditional BW style.

If you try nothing else new this week, make sure you grab the Unity when you see it on tap. This light, refreshing beer could not be more appropriate for the scorching heat of the past few weeks here in LA. I'm going to review it later this week in more detail, but before I get to it I want to let everyone out there know that they should be on the lookout for it!

The brunch is officially done by now, but the taproom at ERB is open until 6pm on Sundays and 4pm-10pm Wednesday through Saturday, which should give you plenty of opportunities to try Unity before the closing festival next weekend!

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?

Soon: LA BEER WEEK!

Fellow beer friends! Did you know LA Beer Week is coming up on us?

It's a glorious week filled with events held at different locales around the city, where craft beer admirers, newbies, and devotees alike have the opportunity to attend tastings, pairings, evenings with brewmasters and brewery owners, and other beer-related shenanigans all over the city, every day for 10 days (liberties are taken with "week," here!)

For last year's Beer Week, some of my favorite events included the kick-off festival at Naja's Place, featuring a TON of Stone beers, and a Trappist pairing with artisanal gourmet sausage at Wurstküche Venice. I also helped out at the 3rd annual Beer Float Showdown at Eagle Rock Brewery:

    Unfortunately, I missed the main event: the closing celebration at Union Station. I was away at a department retreat for school. But not this year! Beer Week falls in September this year, which has no conflicts with any retreat or conflicts I'll need to go to! So I'm looking forward to getting my fill of tasty craft beer at LA's most dedicated beer spots.

Remember that thing I said about possibly posting more about events? This may begin my foray into that, if I can remain coherent enough to take decent notes...