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8th Annual IPA Festival at Najas Place

It is that time of year again; Naja’s Place in Redondo Beach began their week-long 8th Annual IPA Festival on Wednesday afternoon. The event will feature well over 100 IPAs from around the country.

We headed there early Wednesday afternoon as this was not my first rodeo, and Naja’s fills up fast every year as hopheads descend upon the International Boardwalk at the Redondo Beach Pier.

Each day of the event will feature a special IPA; Wednesday’s was Russian River’s Pliny the Elder. Thursday will feature Dogfish Head’s 120 Minute IPA; Friday will have El Segundo Brewing’s Hop Plunge and their anniversary beer El Segundo El Cinco Del Segundo. Saturday will be Pizza Port day featuring more than 20 of their specialty IPAs. Sunday will feature Knee Deep’s Simtra Triple IPA, with Monday’s featured brew being Russian River’s Blind Pig and Tuesday will have Pliny the Elder again. Continue reading

Photos from the 3rd Annual South Bay Beer & Wine Festival

These photos are from the 3rd Annual South Bay Beer & Wine Festival, which was held Sunday afternoon at Ernie Howlett Park in Rolling Hills Estates. Presented by the Rotary Clubs of El Segundo, Palos Verdes Peninsula and South Bay Sunrise this charity event featured almost 40 craft breweries as well as 15 wineries and food from about 36 local restaurants. In addition to the beer, wine and food, music was provided by Detour.

Moving the festival to Ernie Howlett Park was a smart move as it is much more spacious than the South Coast Botanical Gardens, where the event was held last year, as there were probably 10 more breweries than last year and it allowed them to sell more tickets. When I asked how many attendees came out, I was told they sold about 1,400 tickets, which was almost double from last year. The additional space made it really difficult to judge the number of people in attendance because it was so spread out. The main thing is that there were no lines that had more than four or five people in them. Continue reading

Endless Rant Release Party at King Harbor Brewing

These photos were taken at the Endless Rant IPA Release Party that was held Saturday evening at the King Harbor Brewing Company tasting room in Redondo Beach. For those of you that were unaware, King Harbor Brewing created Endless Rant for Adam Carolla’s Carolla Drinks label. Although the beer officially became available a couple weeks ago, last night’s event was the official launch with friends, family and fans descending upon King Harbor Brewing for an evening of tasty beer, good food, music and laughs as attendees enjoyed pints of Endless Rant and other King Harbor brews.

I happened to try Endless Rant a couple weeks ago when it was first released to the public at the tasting room, and was lucky enough to run into King Harbor’s head brewer Phil McDaniel so I asked him how this opportunity came about. I did not take notes, but this is pretty accurate.

The three principles at King Harbor, Tom Dunbabin, Will Daines and McDaniel are all long time fans of Carolla. Apparently a friend of one of the regulars at King Harbor works with Carolla on one of his ventures and happened to mention it to one of them. One of the King Harbor guys casually mentioned that if Carolla wanted to hold some type of beer related event, King Harbor Brewing would be more than happy to host it. Continue reading

Scholb Premium Ales Hosts First Business & Beer

These photos were taken Thursday evening, when the Business & Beer networking group paid their first visit to Torrance’s newest production brewery, Scholb Premium Ales. There was a nice group in attendance, with about half of them visiting Scholb for the first time. With a menu of 10 brews available, there was something for just about any palate.

Established in 2012, Business & Beer is a networking group for the small business owner or anyone whose job description includes networking; and enjoys craft beer. On the second Thursday of each month they meet at a different tasting room or brewpub in the South Bay. There are no dues or mandatory meetings; just show up and enjoy a brew with like-minded individuals and perhaps make a new business connection, so bring business cards.

Scholb Premium Ales is located at 2964 Columbia Street in Torrance. The next Business & Beer will be held June 9, from 6:00-8:00 PM at Monkish Brewing Company. Cheers! Continue reading

Jimmys Bar & Grill Beer Dinner Featuring Bells Brewery

Wednesday evening we went to Jimmy’s Bar & Grill in Redondo Beach for their monthly beer dinner; this month featuring Bell’s Brewery. As it was the one year anniversary of Jimmy’s first beer dinner, with Absolution Brewing Company, there was Bell’s Brewery swag and Jimmy’s gift cards for all the attendees. That was on top of what promised to be another outstanding meal.

I have mentioned before that Jimmy’s co-owner/chef Marc Dix puts a lot of thought into his pairings and Wednesday’s dinner was no exception. If you did not know, Dix is also a co-owner of the Barley Hops Grill and for this dinner he brought in co-owner/chef Alex Bouffiou to help out in the kitchen; and they did another great job.

As the dinners always consist of five beers and four courses, attendees were all welcomed with a Two Hearted Ale to wake up the taste buds; they were not going to want to miss a thing. Continue reading

A Class of Beer at Select Beer Store

For those that think I made a typo in the title, I didn’t. A Class of Beer: An Overview of the Craft Brewing Renaissance is a class that was offered this spring through UCLA’s continuing education program; UCLA Extension. The class, taught by local beerlebrity, beer hoarder and writer for Celebrator Beer News and Beer Paper L.A. Tomm Carroll, explored the history of beer from ancient times to today’s craft beer explosion. With Carroll leading the class, students learned about different styles of beers as well as how to differentiate between a flawed beer and a good one. Essentially, by the time they completed the eight week class, attendees should be well on their way to being capable of pursuing a rank from the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) or to begin the Brewers Association’s program to be certified as a Cicerone.

As we all know, sitting in a classroom listening to beer experts like Carroll, John Palmer, author of Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers; Devon Randall of Arts District Brewing; Rob Croxall of El Segundo Brewing, as well as various craft beer bar owners, homebrewers and judges is all well and good but until you can see, smell and taste the beer the talking can only go so far. To remedy this, Carroll has beer tastings of four different beers for each classroom session and arranged a few field trips to locations like Monkish Brewing to discuss brewing styles and yeasts; Mohawk Bend to learn about running a craft beer bar or brewpub; and this past Monday they visited Select Beer Store in Redondo Beach, where I caught up to them. Continue reading

Dog Adoption Sunday at Brouwerij West

These photos are from the Dog Adoption Sunday event held at Brouwerij West this past Sunday afternoon. The Los Angeles Animal Services and ARF Harbor Shelter brought six dogs to the Brouwerij West tasting room for adoption; I know at least two of them found new homes that day. I have to say, I had an opportunity to meet most (if not all) of them, and they were really very well-behaved dogs. I kept thinking they must have brought the cream of the crop.

In addition to the adoptable dogs, many others brought their pups to the obviously dog friendly tasting room and they all seemed to enjoy the company of the others. ARF Harbor Shelter is looking for homes for their residents and I am sure volunteers are always welcome.

I also had a personal first, and that was my first time having chorizo. Apparently I had it from one of the best, The Chori Man; a fourth generation chorizo artisan from San Pedro. I definitely recommend stopping by if you see his food tent set up anywhere. Cheers! Continue reading

Photos from Laughs By Volume III

These photos are from Laughs By Volume III, which was held Saturday afternoon at Honeypot LA (HNYPT) in downtown Los Angeles. There were probably 50 or 60 people in attendance that were treated to various beers from such breweries as Stone Brewing, Absolution Brewing, Four Sons, Mission Brewery, Smog City, Refuge Brewery, Anaheim Brewery, Telegraph Brewing, Pizza Port, Julian Hard Cider, 21st Amendment, The Lost Abbey, Victory Brewing, Oskar Blues, Ska Brewing, Brewery Ommegang, Boulevard Brewing, Maui Brewing, Double Mountain, Gentse Gruut and a host of others.

As Laughs By Volume is about the comedy as much as it is the beer, we were treated to about an hour of standup provided by Martin Montana, Daniel Storrow, Jeff Capri, Lance Paullin, Melissa Shoshahi, and Chad Shapiro. It was pretty obvious that the audience enjoyed the show as much as they did the craft beer. Continue reading

Photos from the Scholb Premium Ales Ribbon Cutting

These photos were taken at the ribbon cutting for Torrance’s latest craft brewery, Scholb Premium Ales; which was held at the production brewery’s tasting room in Torrance on Friday afternoon. The Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce (TACC) ribbon cutting was attended by friends and family of the Schulz’s and Kolb’s as well as the City of Torrance Mayor Pat Furey and city council members Kurt Weideman, Heidi Ashcraft and Mike Griffiths along with many TACC representatives.

For their grand opening, Scholb introduced a couple new beers to their taps, bringing the number of brews currently available to eight. Today they offered their SoCal Blonde, Roll With It Brown, Cherry Wood Smoked Brown, Columbia Street Pale, Havanuther Session IPA, Dad’s IPA, Not Lyin’ Rye IPA and my current favorite, Bat Ray Red IPA. Continue reading

Craft Beer and Sushi

This past Sunday was Tanya’s birthday and I wanted to do something special for her. Initially we had discussed doing a craft beer tour down in San Diego or perhaps head up the California coast towards Paso Robles; both ideas were definite possibilities until I asked, “Do you want to go have sushi?” It was at that point that craft beer became a secondary destination and Matsuyama Japanese Fusion in Roseville became our primary destination.

Now, one might think that driving 400 miles for sushi was a little extreme, but if you have ever had a meal prepared by Matsuyama’s owner Song Kim, you know that it isn’t all that extreme. I have known Song since around 2008 and have introduced his work to friends of mine from around the world and everyone has loved it; even those that were not sure that they even liked sushi. Heck, Tanya would never consider sushi until she tried Song’s. I figured that since Roseville is up by Sacramento, and Sacramento’s craft beer scene has been growing, it should be easy to find a craft brewery not too far from Matsuyama. Continue reading

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