Lloyd Brown

Alpine Village 2nd Annual Euro Bierfest Promo Code

UPDATE: Effective June 1, online prices for tickets has increased to $45. Use the NEW PROMO CODE: EURCBGA to save $7.50 per ticket. This expires June 26

1st Euro Bierfest

Join us at the 2nd Annual Euro Bierfest

On Saturday June 27, The Alpine Village Inn in Torrance will hold their 2nd Annual Euro Bierfest. This beer festival will consist of craft beers from all over Europe, including Belgium, Germany, England, Scotland, Iceland, Italy, France and the Czech Republic. If you attended last year, you know what a good time it was; if you didn’t, you don’t want to miss two in a row.

As I look through the partial list of breweries scheduled to be represented I see Chimay, Silly, Het Anker, Einstok, Orkney, Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan and Courage Brewery included. While this event will definitely be light on IPAs there will be lots of ciders, sours, Pilsners, stouts, porters, guezes, tripels, quads and various bocks to try. The first Euro Bierfest provided about 50 brews to 300 attendees and it was a very fun event. If history has proven anything, this 2nd Annual Euro Bierfest will be bigger and better than last year. To help make things a little easier at the door, this event will begin at 11:00 AM.

Prost!

Join us on June 27 for the 2nd Annual Euro Bierfest

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Photos from the 2nd Annual Bite at the Beach

These photos are from the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce’s 2nd Annual Bite at the Beach which was held Saturday at the MBS Media Campus in Manhattan Beach. The event was a fundraiser benefiting the StubHub Center Foundation and the LA Galaxy Foundation and featured 23 craft breweries and one winery paired with foods from 24 restaurants. Most of the breweries brought two different beers and the restaurants did likewise.

The breweries represented included Wolf Creek, Eagle Rock, MacLeod Ale, Saint Archer, The Dudes’, Stumblefoot, Mission, Lagunitas, Firestone Walker, Coronado, Aftershock, ABK Beer, El Segundo Brewing, Strand Brewing, Sapporo, Samuel Adams, Traveler Beer Company, Port Town Brewing, San Pedro Brewing, Bootlegger’s, King Harbor, Absolution Brewing, Phantom Carriage and Ballast Point. Strand Brewers Club was also in attendance with Pacific Gravity.

With foods coming from places such as Pitfire Pizza, Simmzy’s, Tin Roof Bistro, Little Sister, Sushi Akatora, Manhattan Beach Creamery, Cake Bakeshop, Rubio’s and Silvio’s there was literally everything from pizza to sushi, ceviche to beef skewers and bread pudding to ice cream sandwiches. There really was something for every palate; if you left hungry that was a personal decision. Music was provided by Vox DJs and The Lucky Ones. Continue reading

King Harbor Brewing Company: On the Waterfront

A few months ago, King Harbor Brewing Company co-owner Tom Dunbabin mentioned to me that they might be opening a satellite tasting room on the Redondo Beach Pier. Admittedly, I kind of filed it in the back of my mind as something that might happen in the future, but not something that would be happening in the immediate future. Last night, after our Business & Beer gathering at The Brewery at Abigaile I sent a message to Dunbabin to see if King Harbor Brewing would be interested in hosting the June meeting of Business & Beer. His response was immediate and with a twist I was not expecting, “Yes. Let’s do it at the new tasting room at the Redondo pier.”

Having watched the build-outs of numerous tasting rooms over the last few years, my immediate thought was; “Really? Next month?” I had serious doubts that this could be done that quickly so I headed over today to check it out. I was pleasantly surprised.

Apparently, the City of Redondo Beach and King Harbor Brewing Company has been working on this deal since September of last year. Redondo Beach owns the property and they approached King Harbor Brewing with the idea of them opening a satellite tasting room on the International Boardwalk. The location needed a lot of work but the city was eager to get King Harbor in there and within a few months it had been cleaned up enough for King Harbor Brewing to enter a three year lease with them.

They only started working on it Wednesday, but they have the cold box in and the bar top is close to being completed. They plan to have about 12 seats at the bar with another 12 at tables with some standing room along the side. When all is said and done there should be room for about 30 people to enjoy their brews at the new location. Continue reading

Business & Beer Experiences Resurgence at The Brewery at Abigaile

On Thursday evening the Business & Beer networking group met at The Brewery at Abigaile, a brewpub in Hermosa Beach. As one of the co-founders of Business & Beer I will admit that over the last couple of months we have been seriously discussing whether or not to continue with the monthly meeting format. Recent gatherings have been very small; the blame can be placed on weather, holidays, the loss of Daylight Saving Time or any number of factors; the reality is that the only reason it was decided to continue was because over the past couple of weeks three or four people said they really wanted to come to their first Business & Beer. Since the Brewery at Abigaile is one of my favorite locations in the Business & Beer rotation and the meeting date happened to coincide with the Craft Beer Guy anniversary date, it was decided to carry on at least one more month. It was a great decision.

Even though it was a rather cold and blustery evening we had one of the largest turnouts in close to a year; we had a nice mix of regulars, returnees and several first time attendees. As Abigaile is currently seeking a new brewer (their former brewer, Brian Brewer, is concentrating on his new endeavor as a partner with the soon-to-be HopSaint brewpub in Torrance) the selection of house brews was down to three with their Amber Ale, Pale Meridian and Beetlejuice DIPA; but there were plenty of guest taps for those that desired something different. Between the beer selections, the food and the great group of people that came out, we had a great time. I would like to thank Michael and Peggy Michino who were kind enough to bring a bottle of Green Flash Silva Stout that was autographed by Green Flash head brewer Chuck Silva, as an anniversary present. Continue reading

Naja’s Place 7th Annual IPA Festival Begins

These photos are from opening day of the week-long 7th Annual IPA Festival which is being held at Naja’s Place in Redondo Beach. They are holding it a little earlier this year, which may be because they decided to coincide it with American Craft Beer Week; I will try to find out. It is safe to say that this event has become very popular and brought in people from at least as far as San Diego. Naja’s opened at 2:00 PM and by 4:00 I heard people asking, “Don’t these people have jobs?” The selection of IPAs ran the gamut from sessions to barrel-aged and there were plenty for a hophead like me to try that I only heard of; and some that I had not. It was a nice opening to what promises to be a week of great, hard to find IPAs.

The 7th Annual IPA Festival runs through Tuesday, May 19th. Today featured local IPAs from places like Strand Brewing, El Segundo Brewing, Smog City, Monkish, King Harbor, Phantom Carriage, Three Weavers and about 60 other taps from all over. Tomorrow, Thursday, will be their Ballast Point day featuring five different types of Sculpin; Saturday will be their Pizza Port day, always a crowd favorite, featuring at least 13 of their brews. They open at 2:00 PM on weekdays and noon on weekends.

If you like IPAs, and who doesn’t, be sure to head over to Naja’s Place between now and May 19th; you will be glad you did. Naja’s Place is located at 154 International Boardwalk in Redondo Beach. Cheers. Continue reading

2nd Annual Bite at the Beach May 16: Promo Code

beerfest

Come join your friends at Bite at the Beach, May 16

On Saturday May 16, the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce will host their 2nd Annual Bite at the Beach at the MBS Media Campus in Manhattan Beach. Bite at the Beach is a fundraiser benefiting the StubHub Center Foundation and the LA Galaxy Foundation. This event is a little different than most beer festivals you may have attended in that it is a food and craft beer pairing event; with 24 craft breweries being paired with dishes from 24 local eateries. I did not attend last year’s event but heard nothing but good things about Bite at the Beach, so when I heard it was coming around again, just in time for American Craft Beer Week, I knew I wanted to become involved.

The breweries scheduled to appear include ABK Beer (they have been brewing for over 700 years), Absolution, The Brewery at Abigaile, Aftershock Brewing, El Segundo Brewing Company, Firestone Walker, Strand Brewing, San Pedro Brewing, Port Town, King Harbor and many more. The foods will come from such places as Simmzy’s, Tin Roof Bistro, Little Sister, Sushi Akatora, Manhattan Beach Creamery, Cake Bakeshop and Paul Martin’s American Grill. Music will be provided by Vox DJs and The Lucky Ones. As you can tell, there is definitely going to be a wide variety of foods to go along with the beer options; it sounds like a very fun event. You can see a list all of the breweries, restaurants and sponsors on the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce website. Continue reading

Smog City Brewing Company 2nd Anniversary

These photos were taken at the Smog City Brewing Company’s 2nd Anniversary party which was held at their tasting room on Saturday afternoon and evening. Unfortunately, at this time of year there are a host of beer events going on just about every weekend and even some mid-week. It makes it difficult to attend every event that I would like. This, combined with the fact that for some reason I thought Smog City was open until 9:00 PM when the reality is they are only open until 8:00 PM on Saturdays, resulted in my very late arrival to the festivities. To be honest, when we arrived the parking lot was still packed so it did not really dawn on me that it was close to closing time.

Entering the tasting room, things were still in full swing even if some of the specialty brews that had been available were tapped out and several of the bottled beers were sold out. If you did not get a chance to visit Smog City on Saturday you might want to head over there today to see what you can grab before it is gone. Smog City Brewing is open until 6:00 PM on Sundays and is located at 1901 Del Amo Boulevard in Torrance. Congratulations to the entire Smog City family/team; you have been a great addition to the local craft beer scene and I know I speak for many of us when I say we cannot wait to see what develops over the next year. Cheers! Continue reading

Crawl 4 Nepal in the South Bay

On April 25, the village of Barpak in the Gorkha district of Nepal was hit with a severe earthquake with a magnitude ranging from 7.8 to 8.1. The earthquake was the most severe to hit Nepal since 1934 and killed upwards of 8,000 people with more than 14,500 injured. The quake literally flattened villages and left hundreds of thousands homeless. The earthquake triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest, which killed at least 19, making it the deadliest day on the mountain in recorded history. Needless to say, when I opened up my Facebook and Twitter feed that morning Nepal was definitely trending, to use the vernacular of the day.

To be honest, I am not really sure where I saw it first, or whose suggestion it was, but someone in the local craft beer community suggested that the beer community should do something to raise monies to help the relief efforts in Nepal. It was not long before Kelly Erickson and Nick Gingold of Craft Media Solutions teamed up with Global Giving and more than 30 craft breweries, brewpubs, gastropubs and bottle shops to form Day of Action: Crawl 4 Nepal OC/LA. Each location had a selection of beers that you could purchase with a portion of the proceeds being donated to the Global Giving account.

I decided to visit three of the South Bay locations that were participating, beginning with Phantom Carriage in Carson. Phantom Carriage tapped a one-off keg of Muis, their 100% Brett wild blonde, with organic blood oranges. When I was talking with Phantom Carriage co-owner, Martin Svab and Assistant Brewer Brendan Lake they both relayed the same story to me in that the day before they were not sure how the blood oranges were going to work as the flavor just was not coming out the way they hoped. By Saturday morning the flavors had settled and it was delicious with subtle blood orange flavor at the finish. It was so good that the keg tapped out in a couple hours; 100% of the proceeds from this keg were donated to Crawl4Nepal. Continue reading

Photos from the 2nd Annual South Bay Beer & Wine Festival

These photos were taken at the 2nd Annual South Bay Beer & Wine Festival which was held at the South Coast Botanical Garden in Rancho Palos Verdes on Sunday afternoon. This outstanding event was hosted by Toyota and South Bay Equity Lending and sponsored by the Rotary Clubs of El Segundo, Palos Verdes Peninsula, and South Bay Sunrise. 100% of the proceeds from the event will go to support the humanitarian programs of the El Segundo Rotary Club, Palos Verdes Peninsula Rotary Club, and South Bay Rotary Club. Live music was provided by Detour.

While this was the 2nd Annual South Bay Beer & Wine Festival it was the first one that I attended, so I cannot compare it to last year’s event other than to say that I overheard a couple people that suggested that yesterday’s festival was bigger than their inaugural event. As a first time attendee I have to say that the stars must have been in perfect alignment as it appeared that Sunday’s event went off flawlessly.

I do not know how many people were in attendance, but when divided up between almost 30 breweries, close to 10 wineries and more than 20 restaurants lines were pretty much non-existent. There were not even lines for the restrooms. Continue reading

Einstok Tasting at Stout Burgers & Beers

These photos were taken Thursday evening at an Einstok beer tasting held at Stout Burgers & Beer in Santa Monica. The event was held to introduce local beer media to the Einstok leadership and to let those that have yet to experience Einstok’s numerous offerings an opportunity to rectify that. In attendance were Einstok co-founders David Altshuler and Jack Sichterman as well as Einstok Street Viking and California Brand Manager Jeramy Duncan. The tasting menu consisted of Einstok’s White Ale on draft and bottled, Arctic Berry Ale, Arctic Pale Ale, Toasted Porter on draft and bottled, Einstok Doppelbock and their most recent, very limited release Snorri’s Awakening Coffee Pale Ale. Stout Burgers kept our food to alcohol intake balanced by providing a couple versions of their delicious gourmet burgers.

If you are unfamiliar with Einstok, do not feel too bad. Einstok was founded in 2010 by Bernard La Borie, David Altshuler and Jack Sichterman after visiting Akureyri, Iceland while on a search for the purest water in the world. Having located their water source, 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle, Einstok brews using what they describe as the purest water on earth. By the end of 2011 Einstok was available for purchase in Iceland and the United Kingdom. In the beginning of 2012 Einstok was introduced to California with their three core brews, White Ale, Toasted Porter and Pale Ale. I have to admit, it took a while before Einstok became a familiar brand to me and I suspect I am not the only one. In my opinion, it was the efforts of their Street Viking and California Brand Manager Jeramy Duncan that made the Einstok name known in this part of California. Continue reading

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