Smog City Brewing Opens & Strand Brewers Club Party

Saturday was day six of the 2013 American Craft Beer Week and in keeping with the theme of the week these photos are from the Smog City Brewing grand opening and a birthday party for the President of the Strand Brewers Club, a local home brewers club. If you have been following this site recently, you probably noticed that Smog City Brewing, a 2012 Great American Beer Festival Gold Medal winner, has been holding a few soft-opens in preparation for their grand opening. Well, Saturday was the big day. As Tanya really enjoys the Smog City Groundwork Coffee Porter and …

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San Pedro Brewing Company and Smog City Brewing

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 …

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American Craft Beer Week, Day 4

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 …

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Business & Beer Meetup at Alpine Inn

These photos are from our Business & Beer gathering at Alpine Inn last night. Alpine Inn is a German gastropub at Alpine Village in Torrance. While a German restaurant might not seem like a likely setting for a Business & Beer gathering during American Craft Beer Week, the general manager is a home brewer and makes it a point to have a good selection of American craft beers on tap. Unfortunately, about one third of their taps were nonfunctional last night, so we were limited as to the number of American beers while there were plenty of German beers available. …

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American Craft Beer Week with Stone Brewing

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 …

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American Craft Beer Week at Beachwood BBQ & Brewing

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 …

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American Craft Beer Week, Day One

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 …

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American Craft Beer Week: San Pedro Brewing Company

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 …

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American Craft Beer Week: Hermosa Beach

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 …

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American Craft Beer Week: Spotlighting local brews

Day five of American Craft Beer Week found us at three local brewers; Monkish Brewing, El Segundo Brewing Company and Strand Brewing Company. Monkish and Strand are both located in Torrance; I will let you guess what city El Segundo Brewing is in. While we have tried some of the craft brews from each of the brewers, it was at Select Beer Store during their South Bay Tap Takeover; so we had only tried one or two of their brews. We were impressed with all three enough that it was not a problem making a special visit. Monkish Brewing specializes …

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