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
This group of photos are from American Craft Beer Week 2013 (ACBW), day 4. Regular readers know that on Thursdays we have our Business & Beer gatherings; so it was a little difficult for us to get out of town long enough to get to a Great American Beer Festival (GABF) winner and get back to the area for our Business & Beer meetup. Business & Beer was scheduled to be held at Alpine Inn at Alpine Village in Torrance, which could have been a great idea as they do have a wide selection of beers from local craft brewers as well as microbreweries from around the country. Unfortunately, a significant portion of their taps were out of service and while they did have a couple GABF winners (Firestone Walker and Uinta Brewing); they were not serving anything I was particularly interested in. When we finished with Business & Beer, we drove out to Hot\’s Kitchen in Hermosa Beach.
Hot\’s Kitchen has a very good tap list; but unfortunately, their servers do not seem to know craft beer very well. They recognized me, but did not know it is American Craft Beer Week which I think is pretty odd for a bar that seems to specialize in American craft beers. I think they have a nice selection, but you had better know what you want because getting suggestions will be a matter of the blind leading the blind. On the upside, getting tastes of beers you are interested in seems easy as long as you are only asking for a couple freebies. They offer flights, but they are preset. I happen to know that if you have the right beertender, at the right time, you can make up your own flight.
You can read about my day four experience of American Craft Beer Week by visiting 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
These photos were taken Saturday at a new gastropub, Schooner at Sunset, which is located at 16821 Pacific Coast Highway, Sunset Beach, CA. For those not sure where Sunset Beach is, it is the very north end of Huntington Beach, just south of Seal Beach. Your car\’s GPS is most likely going to call it Huntington Beach, so don\’t worry, it is all the same place.
To be honest, I am not really in the habit of going down there unless I am taking a weekend motorcycle ride down the coast. The fact of the matter is, when I initially left the house this afternoon I was headed north; but since the destination I had in mind was not to be found on the Charger\’s GPS, I remembered hearing that Schooner at Sunset had opened, and put their address in the GPS instead. The only reason I knew of Schooner at Sunset was that a friend of mine, Daniel Drennon, told me he was involved as their Director of Craft Beer. Having met Daniel during the last American Craft Beer Week when he was the \”beer guy\” at LA Weekly, I knew that the craft beer menu would be something I could get into. When I saw his list of available craft beers on tap for their grand opening I was very disappointed that I was going to have to miss it due to a schedule conflict with a couple event photography gigs I had. Continue reading
Last month, during American Craft Beer Week (ACBW), I accidentally discovered The Rockefeller Gastropub on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach. I will never forget our first visit there. It was day six of ACBW and it was my goal to find as many American craft beers that I had never tried before as possible. The fact that I was able to come up with 12 new brews at that point of our adventure truly said something about the quality of the brews they pour. As Colleen, the manager, said, \”We try to keep a good turnaround of quality brews.\” They are doing a great job. I think it was at The Rockefeller that I first heard the term \”gastropub.\” For those wondering, a gastropub is a restaurant that specializes in good food with upscale beers brewed by others. A brewpub serves food and their own beer.
I let Tanya chose our meal since we were splitting it, and she opted for the Arugula Parmesan Salad with a Royale Burger. Both were pretty tasty, with my leaning towards the salad. As it turns out, Hangar 24 was doing a beer tasting, so Daren, another manger asked me if we wanted to join in. You can probably guess our response. Since we were staying a little longer we decided to try the Cinnamon Apple Bread Pudding for dessert. I know if we have dessert again, I will be urging a repeat try. Continue reading
It is Sunday evening and the 7th Annual American Craft Beer Week (ACBW) has come to a conclusion. We ended our week long adventure at San Pedro Brewing Company, in beautiful downtown San Pedro, CA. I have been to San Pedro Brewing at least once before and they are an award winning brewpub that definitely rotates the beers they brew. It was somewhat fitting that we ended up at San Pedro Brewing on the seventh day of the 7th Annual ACBW since they had seven different home brews available. Naturally, I got a flight of all seven. I just now put together that 7-7-7 deal as I wrote this, did not think of it earlier.
The brews available today were the Harbor Hefeweizen, Port Town Pilsner, Bruin Blonde, Kings \”Blackout\” Lager, Shanghai Red, SoCal Tattoo Ink Ale and the Munich Spring Lager. The amazing thing to me was that they had seven different tastes that were so good that it took Tanya quite a while to figure out which one she wanted. The fact that she opted for the Harbor Hefeweizen shows me how much her taste for craft beer has evolved over the week. We may have to do an International Craft Beer Week, or maybe an International Beer Friday. We have met some great people, tasted some fantastic beer and found some nice alternatives to BJ\’s when I want a flight without the travel. Continue reading
Saturday was day six of American Craft Beer Week (ACBW), and we actually found a gastropub and a brewpub we were unfamiliar with; and in the process were able to come up with 19 American craft brews that we had not tried yet. That in of itself is a pretty noteworthy accomplishment. For day six we visited The Rockefeller and Abigaile, both located in Hermosa Beach, within a couple blocks of each other.
The Rockefeller is a gastropub; meaning they serve food and upscale beers brewed by others. I had called ahead of time to see if they offered beer flights and the manager, Colleen, assured me they did. When I arrived I discovered that they offer a wide array of draught beers, both domestic and foreign. They do not have flights made up; you create your own. Since they do not offer four different dark American craft beers, I had my work cut out for me trying to create a flight Tanya would like. Since Tanya\’s palate has evolved over the past week, I just avoided the hoppy brews and came up with Jamaican Red Ale, Bayhawk Chocolate, Mission Blonde and Boont Amber. She liked them all, with the Jamaican Red being her favorite. I started off with a flight of Sofie, Allagash White, Green Flash IPA and Palate Wrecker. Since the brews were all delicious we decided to stay for some food and I created a second flight, with Colleen\’s assistance. The flight consisted of Victory Prima, Helles, Bootleggers and Islander IPA. I honestly could not tell you which was best; I would not have a problem ordering any of them. Continue reading