Friday was day five of the 8th Annual American Craft Beer Week (ACBW) and I was able to visit two gold medal winners that are both located in the South Bay; San Pedro Brewing Company from San Pedro and Smog City Brewing Company (2012 Great American Beer Festival) in Torrance. San Pedro Brewing Company is a brewpub that has been in San Pedro for 13 years and currently has seven beers brewed on location. Smog City Brewing Company just moved to Torrance and is having their grand opening today, May 18 from 12-8 PM. Both locations have a wide variety of beers so there should be something for every palate.
You can read more about these visits and the other locations I visited during the 2013 American Craft Beer Week on CraftBeerGuy.com. Continue reading
Day three of the 8th Annual American Craft Beer Week (ACBW) found us out in Pasadena at the Stone Brewing, Company Store. When it comes to venerable Southern California, award winning breweries, it would be pretty tough to beat Stone Brewing. Stone Brewing had the first California beer tasting room that I visited on a regular basis, but it is out in Escondido which is a 100 mile ride. Fortunately, it is a pretty nice ride and Stone makes some quality beer. Recently, Stone Brewing opened a company store at the Del Mar Metro station. It is not nearly as nice of a ride, but it is at least 70 miles closer; and I get to visit my daughter, who lives down the street.
After enjoying a flight of award winning beers from Stone Brewing Company, we headed over to Haven Gastropub to meet my daughter for dinner. Haven brews on location now, and they have a very nice guest tap list. You can read about the experience at both locations on CraftBeerGuy.com. Continue reading
Tuesday was day two of the 2013 American Craft Beer Week (ACBW). Last year, I spent the 7th Annual ACBW going out and discovering as many different American craft beers that I was unfamiliar with. This year, my goal is to visit award winning craft brewers in our area. I am using the list of winners from prior Great American Beer Festivals (GABF); luckily, we have several that are pretty close to us.
For day two we headed out to Long Beach and visited Beachwood BBQ & Brewing, a nice brewpub that not only brews award winning beers, but their guest tap list normally has at least one award winner available. You can read all about the experience on CraftBeerGuy.com. Continue reading
Today is the first day of 8th Annual American Craft Beer Week (ACBW). We had such a good time finding new craft beers last year that I decided to try something a little different this year. I am going to do my best to visit as many Great American Beer Festival gold medal award winning breweries as possible. Today we rode down to San Clemente and visited Pizza Port brewing. After a little pizza and beer we headed back to Long Beach with the intentions of visiting Beachwood BBQ & Brewing. I did not know that they were closed on Mondays. Fortunately, the Congregation Ale House is virtually next door. While they do not brew beer there, they did have an award winning Wookey Jack available, so all was not lost.
You can learn more about our craft beer journey on CraftBeerGuy.com Continue reading
Last week I had a trade show to photograph out in the Phoenix, AZ area, so I had an opportunity to visit a couple brewpubs during my travels. We decided to leave on Tuesday evening and drive out to Indio to get out of the city and have an easier drive into Tempe the next day. We set our sights on Babe\’s Bar-B-Que & Brewhouse in Rancho Mirage. To be honest, we targeted Babe\’s for their peach pie; I had completely forgotten they were a brewpub. Naturally I got a flight, and each selection seemed perfectly suited for the desert. While we were there our server told me Alice Cooper and Cheech Marin were there so I went up and asked if they had a problem with my taking a photo; they didn\’t. We chatted a little as we had some connections, in a couple of ways. It was pretty cool and they were very nice guys.
On the way home from Arizona on Sunday, we took a detour on I-8 and stopped in Alpine, CA at Alpine Beer Company. I have only been able to try Alpine\’s brews on a few occasions, at special events, so it was a treat to be able to visit the brewery and get a flight of samples. Everything they do that I have tried is really good. It is a nice place to visit with some pretty good food; I know we will be back. Continue reading
It seems like there is a lot of action in the beer world around here lately and today was no exception. Strand Brewing Company, a microbrewery out of Torrance that my regular readers have undoubtedly heard me mention on numerous occasions, has graduated to the next step in the ranks of professional brewers; they are now bottling some of their beers. These photos were taken at their tasting room on Saturday afternoon as the first bottles became available.
Their first round of 16.9 oz bottled beers consists of their Beach House Amber, 24th Street Pale Ale, Atticus IPA and their latest, Second Sleep Russian Imperial Stout. To celebrate the event, they brought out Second Sleep on cask and they returned White Sand Double IPA to the tap rotation. Apparently, the actual bottling was completed several days ago; however, the labels did not make it in until 6:30 PM last night! It made for a very long evening for the Strand Brewing crew as they labeled all the bottles prior to the 12:00 PM launch.
The festivities continue Sunday and the pricing on the bottles is excellent, so head over and pick some up for your St. Patrick\’s Day dinner. I recommend the Second Sleep for dessert. Continue reading
This weekend marked one year that our friends at Monkish Brewing Company in Torrance have been in business, brewing Belgian style beers. A microbrewery that started off with 9 beers (from what I read), Monkish Brewing has now done 17 different beers, with the latest being a collaboration with Select Beer Store owner, Wes; who was Monkish Brewing\’s first account and is a home brewer. The beer is called Select Monk 1, and is a variation of Wes\’ recipe; an abbey-style ale with oats, wheat and barley. It is pretty tasty, if you like Crux or Oblate, you will enjoy Select Monk.
Speaking of Oblate, as part of the Monkish Brewing Company\’s one year anniversary, Henry (the owner) brought out a keg of Oblate from the first batch he brewed; it was delicious. I think Henry should consider doing that recipe once in a while. There are rumors that he is aging an anniversary batch as I write this, and I heard he will be bottling soon; so sounds like it will be a busy second year for Monkish. On Friday night, Vella Pizza came out with their portable oven; if you enjoy fresh pizza you will like Vella Pizza. It really cannot get any fresher.
These photos are sponsored by BusinessNBeer.com, the South Bay\’s business networking group that combines good networking with good beer. You can learn more on their website or on Meetup.com. Continue reading
I am usually the one trying to get someone to go for a bike ride and coming up with the destinations, so when my friend Phil asked me if I wanted to join him for a ride out to Chino I said yes and searched Google for a microbrewery in the area. When I woke up Saturday, I knew it was going to be a great day for a ride as it was already 70 at 9:00 AM.
Since the person Phil wanted to visit in Chino was not home yet, we decided to visit some mutual friends in Lake Elsinore to kill a little time. While we were visiting I happened to ask if they had tried out Craft Brewing Company since I knew it had to be pretty close. As it turns out, it was about a mile away and our friends were unaware of their existence; so we all headed over there. As it turned out, Sebring\’s Catering out of Temecula was there serving chicken wraps, meatballs and penne salad, so we had some beer and food before heading out to Chino. Continue reading
Saturday was Groundhog Day and it was the first annual Rheumatoid Awareness Day; for patients with Rheumatoid Disease, previously known as Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) or Rheumatoid Autoimmune Disease (RAD). February 2 was picked as Rheumatoid Awareness Day because just as Punxsutawney Phil pokes his head out of his burrow to see if his shadow is visible or not, Rheumatoid Awareness Day was started in the hopes of getting the truth about this disease to the masses and to help bring it out of the shadows.
Groundhog Day has long been a favorite day of mine, beginning back in the 70\’s when I worked at the telephone company. In addition to the standard holidays that most union employees expect to have off with pay (Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July), we were given \”floating holidays\” that were days off with pay that we could take whenever we want. I always chose February 2 since there were so many holidays between November and January, and the next one would not be until the end of May, so it made for a nice break.
This year, CNN\’s iReport set up a project for people to take photos of their shadows. I already had plans to go one a nice bike ride and thought I would be able to get some cool shots of the shadows cast by me and my bike; but it was far too overcast for there to be anything in the way of shadows. Luckily, I had my point & shoot camera with me when I took the dogs on their morning walk, so I did my best to get some shadow pics with them. Continue reading
These photos were taken Sunday at Enegren Brewing Company in Moorpark, CA and Lab Brewing Company in Agoura Hills, CA. A few days ago I was at El Segundo Brewing Company and was introduced to Joe Nascenzi, one of the owners of Enegren Brewing Co., a microbrewery in Moorpark, CA. After talking with him for a while, and hearing what kind of beers they were brewing over there, I knew that I had to head out there with Tanya. While I am a definite hophead, Tanya is more into saisons, porters and stouts. When Joe told me about their oatmeal stout and chili pepper saison, I promised to pay them a visit.
While one microbrewery is frequently like the others, with the only difference being the taste and variations of the beers they brew, Enegren Brewing is definitely different than any other I have visited. Brew Captain Chris Enegren studied mechanical engineering at Loyola Marymount University and when he graduated from brewing in his kitchen he put this knowledge to work in designing a proprietary brewing system unlike any I have ever seen. Complete with a computerized command center, their brewing system is entirely automated. It is a very cool system to check out, and they produce a quality product. When we got there Sunday they were in the process of building a new refrigeration unit as they had moved their larger one to a unit next door. In other words, they are expanding, with the hopes of beginning to bottle beers in the near future. Continue reading