Monthly Archives: December 2019
The Craft Beer Guy Recap of 2019
As the year comes to an end it is time for me to sit down with a beer and try to figure out what I did that made this year go by so quickly. To be honest, I feel like I have really slowed down on my coverage of the local craft beer scene, but the growth has been so rapid that I cannot keep up. Heck, there were two new breweries getting ready to open in El Segundo that I did not know about until three months before they opened! Oh well, I will continue to do what I can; if I don’t visit a particular brewery as much as I used to it is probably because there are so many breweries around here now. In fact, while my personal craft beer life may have slowed, the growth over the past year is kind of mind blowing. Let’s see what happened in 2019.
Tortugo Brewing, Inglewood
In my review of 2018 I had mentioned there were two new local breweries that I still had not visited, one of those was Tortugo Brewing. I started off 2019 by remedying that. If you have not been, it is a nice location and they have some good brews; you should check them out. Continue reading
Christmas Eve at The 4th Horseman
These photos were taken Tuesday, Christmas Eve 2019, at The 4th Horseman in Long Beach. The 4th Horseman is a pizza and beer bar that opened in November of 2018; they specialize in craft beer, fine wine, and apocalyptic pizza. The primary reason it is even on my radar is that two of the four founders are Martin Svab and Ryan Hughes, previously of Carson’s Phantom Carriage Brewery. The other two founders are Jeremy Schott of The Dark Art Emporium, and Chef Adam Schmalz who helped open Gabi James in Redondo Beach and used to run the kitchen at Phantom Carriage.
While The 4th Horseman has been open for a little more than a year, this was my first visit. While I am not really a pizza guy, I could not help but notice the accolades they have been receiving in the press over the last several months, as well as some amazing photos I have seen friends post on Facebook and Instagram. When The 4th Horseman first opened, they did not open until 4:00 PM and driving to Long Beach from the South Bay at that hour just didn’t make sense. Well, they now open at 11:00 AM, and since they were having a Christmas Eve special going on I headed out, confident traffic would not be an issue. 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
December 10 is National Lager Day
National Lager Day – December 10
Spain’s largest independent brewery, Estrella Galicia has always led with lager – and has a lot to celebrate this year. Named Spain’s Most Loved Lager, Estrella Galicia has won the hearts and minds of beer lovers by focusing on more complexity and leaning into the lager style. Founded in 1906 and still family-owned, the brewery is based in the cool, northwestern region of Galicia in the coastal town of A Coruna. This beautiful Spanish city on the Atlantic Ocean is the only place in the world where the family brews beer. The result is a more complex, quality lager infused with Galician identity. Estrella Galicia uses untreated, natural water sourced from a protected natural reservoir, grows their own hop crops to support production, and uses a proprietary yeast strain. Trends come and go – Estrella Galicia has been making complex lager for over 110 years and is thrilled that craft makers are finally taking this refreshing, ever-popular style seriously. Continue reading
Pawsitive Pints – A Great Christmas Gift for Craft Beer Fans
Get $1 Pints at participating taprooms
Pawsitive Pints is a fundraiser for Zelda’s Foundation for Animals, formerly known as Dirty Dog Squad, a small, all-volunteer organization that saves homeless and abandoned pets on death row at high-kill shelters. They depend completely on private donations to continue their mission.
Holders of a Pawsitive Pints card will get one pint for $1.00 from up to 50 craft breweries, brewpubs, and gastropubs between Santa Barbara and San Pedro. The list of participating breweries includes: Continue reading
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