food trucks

Craft Beer Guy Visits Huntington Beach

These photos were taken Friday in Huntington Beach, where I did a small craft beer tour with my friends, Jeff and Yurany. We visited Riip Beer Company, Flashpoint Brewing, and Beachwood Brewing.

Those of you that were following my Craft Beer Tour 2021 may have noticed that it had a pretty abrupt ending; as a result, I decided that instead of driving thousands of miles to visit new breweries, I would try to fit in a few day trips to breweries that were a little closer. As Jeff and Yurany had the day off, we decided to venture out together to Huntington Beach. Continue reading

Craft Beer Tour 2021: Medford, OR

These photos were taken Thursday evening, September 30, day 16 of my Craft Beer Tour 2021, when I visited Medford, Oregon. My reasons for visiting Medford were pretty simple; I do not really enjoy driving in the dark when on these trips for the simple reason that I cannot see and appreciate the country I are driving through, this pretty much guaranteed I would be spending another night in Oregon. Since I had already visited Grants Pass in 2018 I decided that Medford would be my home for the night.

I don’t know if you have ever visited Medford, but it is not an easy town to navigate for a first time visitor; at least in my opinion.

As I have mentioned before, when I do these trips I pretty much fly by the seat of my pants, and Medford was a perfect example of that as I had zero clue where I would be staying and the name of one brewery that may, or may not, still be open according to rumors in Eugene. Since I really had no idea what else to put in my GPS, I aimed for Opposition Brewing Company. Continue reading

Craft Beer Tour 2021: Vancouver, WA

These photos were taken Tuesday, September 28, day 14 of my Craft Beer Tour 2021, when I visited Trap Door Brewing in Vancouver, Washington. Yes, you read that right, I am in Washington.

Hopefully you have been following along and recall that when we left off, I was planning to drive to Boise in the morning. Continue reading

Craft Beer Tour 2021: Yakima, WA

These photos were taken September 25, day 11 of my Craft Beer Tour 2021, and I must admit, I was looking forward to what this day would bring. Actually, I had a very good idea of what this day would bring because I was headed to Yakima, Washington; home of Bale Breaker Brewing Company, one of only two breweries I consider to be one of my destination breweries.

A destination brewery to me, is one that if I am within 200 miles of it, I must do all I can to get there. As I was staying a mere 193 miles from them, I don’t see that I had much of a choice in the matter. I knew I was going to find fresh hop beers there. Continue reading

Smog City Brewing 10th Anniversary Photos

These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at the Smog City Brewing Company’s 10th Anniversary celebration held at the production brewery in Torrance. It was a nicely attended event that probably had about 100 people attending during the couple of hours I was there.

Yes, Los Angeles County is still abiding by COVID protocol, but we are in the least restrictive yellow tier which allowed Smog City to throw an actual in-person event for their 10 anniversary. Yes, things were toned down a little from previous anniversary celebrations, but Smog City’s fan base was not going to let that stop them.

To commemorate the occasion, Smog City had 26 brews on draft, including their 10th Anniversary IPA, eight special bottle pours, and an anniversary flight consisting of This Sour Future (2015), Benny and the Bretts volume 1, The Nothing (2017), Buzzworthy (2016), and BBA Coffee Porter (2017). Continue reading

Photos from the Boomtown Brewery 5th Anniversary

These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at Boomtown Brewery, a production brewery in the arts district area of Los Angeles, where they celebrated their fifth anniversary. The event featured 24 Boomtown brews, including their Anniversary Ale, a very nice west coast IPA, and several barrel aged brews.

Entertainment was provided throughout the day by a host of DJs, as well as Boomtown’s standard entertainment of pool, darts, pinball, video games, and cornhole. Food, while I was there, was available from Highland Hickory BBQ (Buddy loved their pork shoulder) and Tripp Burgers, as well as a churro popup. Continue reading

Photos from the LA Ale Works 3rd Anniversary Block Party

These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at Los Angeles Ale Works, Hawthorne’s first production brewery, where they celebrated their third anniversary with a massive block party. The event featured a quadruple can release, four food vendors, DJs and live music, anniversary merchandise, and a michelada bar.

I had two events to cover Saturday; one was inside and the other, LA Ale Works’ Block Party, was outside. As it was a beautiful day in the South Bay it was not too difficult to decide which one I was going to do first.

After taking a few photos I decided it was time to try their “anniversary beer” which turned out to be seven different beers. They included Infinite Potential Munich lager, Cosmik Debris IPA, Flight Path DIPA, Scrappalicious Juicy IPA, From the Roots farmhouse ale, In For the Long Haul bourbon and rum barrel-aged barleywine, and Tropic Punch In mixed fermentation barrel beer; I opted to begin with Flight Path and had no regrets. Continue reading

Photos from the Juicy Brews Beach Party at Brouwerij West

These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at Brouwerij West in San Pedro, where they hosted the Hop Culture Juicy Brews Beach Party Craft Beer Festival. The festival, which was also a fundraiser for the Palos Verdes Land Conservancy, featured craft beer from more than 25 of the top breweries in the country. In addition to copious quantities of really good beer, there were food trucks, including The Highroller Lobster Company and Love Hour, as well as music provided by DJ Thom Lessner.

While I am not sure it was actually “beach party” weather, it was a very pleasant day without being too cold or too hot. As Hop Culture is out of Pittsburgh, I am sure our weather was more beach-worthy than a January afternoon in Pittsburgh.

The sold out event featured a who’s who of craft breweries, such as Arizona Wilderness, Bottle Logic, Creature Comforts, Great Notion Brewing, J Wakefield, The Rare Barrel, Russian River, and Homage Brewing. There were fewer than 1,000 tickets sold, so the Brouwerij West beer garden area was more than large enough. I only noticed two lines the entire day; one was for Homage Brewing and another for the J Wakefield booth which featured several collaboration brews they have done. As one participant noted, it was one of the few craft beer festivals where Russian River did not have the longest line. Continue reading

Photos of the Absolution Brewing Company Christmas Party 2019

These photos were taken Saturday afternoon, December 14, at Absolution Brewing Company in Torrance, where they held their annual Christmas Party. The event featured live music from Nasty Bad Habit, Montero Y Murillo, and The Noir. They had the Yuyo Bros food truck there for people seeking solid nourishment, and I guess Santa made an appearance after I left; we seem to always miss each other.

I am sorry for the delay in getting these photos up, but I have been under the weather (it took two days to write this!). Continue reading

Three Weavers 5th Anniversary Photos

These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at Three Weavers Brewing Company, in Inglewood, where they celebrated their fifth anniversary with a tiki themed dance party featuring food trucks, live music, and a variety of beer slushies, mocktails, barrel aged brews, and the release of a collaboration anniversary beer.

While I was there, live music was provided by the Blackball Bandits and The Hula Girls; as I prepared to leave a third band, Skapeche Mode, was just arriving. Sadly, I needed to get Buddy home for his dinner so I missed their performance but I hear they are a lot of fun to watch. Blackball Bandits and The Hula Girls were definitely entertaining. Continue reading

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