Beer News
Trick or Treat: Craft Beer Please
Come to the Timeless Pints 1st Annual Halloween Party
One such event will be held at Timeless Pints, a microbrewery in Lakewood that recently celebrated their one year anniversary. The first ever Timeless Pints Halloween Party & Halloween Costume Contest will be held on Friday, October 31st from 2:00-8:00 PM. The winner of the Best Halloween costume will get a month of kickboxing classes at Sweat Shop Gym, four personal training sessions and a 60-minute massage from the Finely Kneaded Spa, in Lakewood. Second place winner will get a month of Boot Camp classes from Sweat Shop Gym and a t-shirt with the third place winner getting a free eight ounce pour of their Timeless Pints beer of choice.
If you are like me and can never come up with a costume idea; Timeless Pints offers a few ideas on their blog. Timeless Pints Brewing Company is located at 3671 Industry Avenue in Lakewood, California.
Naja’s Place Halloween Party Friday October 31
Aloha Linda Fundraiser – A true craft beer mom
This article is a little different than most of the articles you will find here; but this is a special situation that I find deserving, and I hope you will as well. While you may not be familiar with the name “Aloha Linda” Aloha’s real name is Linda Kral and anyone familiar with the Southern California craft beer scene has probably heard the name Kral. Aloha Linda is the mother of Firestone Walker Head Brewer Dustin Kral and Firestone Walker’s Regional Sales manager, Shane Kral. It would be difficult to deny that she has had a direct influence on craft beer in Southern California and anywhere else Firestone Walker is sold.
In 2008 Aloha Linda was diagnosed with kidney cancer. In the beginning she was treated by doctors in the United States and Mexico with some success. About a year ago year ago she found out that the tumor was back and she began doing natural remedies to shrink and kill the tumor. She recently had another CAT Scan that showed a very large malignant mass 10.7cm (tumor) on her left kidney again; it has metastasized and may spread to surrounding tissue. The reason for this article is that tomorrow Aloha is scheduled for surgery to have the tumor and her kidney removed. As you can imagine, this is a very expensive procedure so her friends and family are asking for our help.
A fundraising campaign has been started by a friend of Aloha’s as well as her sons Shane and Dustin on MyEvent.com. MyEvent has been around for 11 years and is a secure way of making donations to the cause. If you choose to mail a donation to her instead, her address is:
Linda Kral, 2052 Newport Blvd. 6-234, Costa Mesa, CA. 92627.
Any donations, large or small would be appreciated. If you cannot afford a cash donation, spreading the word via your favorite social media platform would be appreciated by the entire family. You can find all the details at http://www.alohalinda.myevent.com/. Thank you in advance and good luck to Aloha Linda.
Vegan Oktoberfest Photos
On Saturday afternoon, Santa Monica was the site of what was billed as the first ever Vegan Oktoberfest. I happen to have several friends in Germany and when I asked them if they had ever heard of such a thing they agreed that this very likely was the first; it was definitely the first any of them had ever heard of.
Since it is October, it is beer festival season which means I usually have a couple events I can photograph on any given weekend and Saturday was no exception as the Taste of Brews Oktoberfest was happening in Corona while Vegan Oktoberfest was happening in Santa Monica. I am not a vegan by any stretch of the imagination but since triple digit temperatures were expected in Corona and it is three times further away I figured the Santa Monica was the logical choice; after all, you could see the ocean from the festival site, it had to be cooler. Well, if it was cooler it was not by much as the air temperature was in the high 90’s and combined with the event being held on an asphalt parking lot the numbers just went higher.
With 22 breweries represented at this inaugural event, there were plenty of options available for those that wanted beer to quench their thirst but it seemed to me that there were almost as many food vendors and the food lines were definitely longer than the beer lines. We tried one of the vegan options, a grilled cheese sandwich that had macaroni added as a filler. It was enough to make me not want to bother with any of the other food options; like I said, I am not a vegan and tofu is not a viable meat substitute in my opinion. Continue reading
Red Car Brewery Owners: Torrance Citizens of the Year
On Thursday afternoon I headed to the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Torrance for the annual State of the City Address given by our mayor and for the awarding of the Citizen of the Year Award. For 2014 it was actually the “Citizens of the Year” as Bob and Laurie Brandt, owners of Red Car Brewery & Restaurant in Old Torrance were both honored as the 2014 Citizens of the Year by the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce for their support and contributions to numerous local charities over the years.
Red Car Brewery was the original craft brewery in the City of Torrance; helping Torrance to become the craft beer destination that it is now. Laurie Brandt thanked the Chamber for the recognition and reflected on Red Car’s time in Torrance, the organizations they donated to and the people they had the opportunity to interact with over the past 17 years. Bob Brandt also thanked the Chamber and encouraged local officials to speak up in favor of the new distilling industry stating that it is essentially in the same place as craft beer was 25 years ago.
You can find all the photos from the State of the City Address and the Citizens of the Year ceremony on GotBaddog.com. Red Car Brewery & Restaurant is located at 1266 Sartori Avenue in Torrance and is open daily at 11:30 AM weekdays and noon on the weekends. Cheers! Continue reading
San Pedro Brewing Company Celebrates 15 Years
Thursday October 2, San Pedro Brewing Company celebrated 15 years of doing business in San Pedro. Originally opened in San Pedro in 1999, the brewpub was essentially a bar and sandwich shop when James Brown initially opened up shop; two years later, they started brewing. Since then they, fondly know by locals as Brewco, have been through a couple brewers, with the last one deciding he would rather be an attorney. As luck would have it, current head brewer Jason Welke happened to come in, looked around and said he would like to become an apprentice. Eight years later, Welke has accumulated more than 40 medals at local county fairs, commercial beer competitions and international beer festivals. San Pedro Brewing Company was even named one of LA’s Top Five Craft Beer Bars by the Brew Dogs when they came to LA a couple months ago.
San Pedro Brewing Company, with Port Town Brewing will be opening a 10,000 square foot facility right around the corner from their existing brewpub. I cannot wait to see what Welke can do when he is given enough space to spread his brewing wings.
San Pedro Brewing Company is located at 331 W. 6th Street in San Pedro and is open seven days a week. They usually have seven of their own beers on tap with a few taps reserved for guest beers. They also have a nice food menu with their bruschetta being a favorite in this household. Congratulations to San Pedro Brewing Company and here is to another 15 years. Cheers! Continue reading
LA Beer Week 6 Day 5: Tap Takeovers at Simmzy’s & Naja’s Place
Wednesday was day five of the 2014 LA Beer Week and in the South Bay we had a tap takeover by Firestone Walker at Simmzy’s in Manhattan Beach and another by Allagash Brewing Company at Naja’s Place in Redondo Beach. We started off at Simmzy’s where Shane Kral, Regional Sales Manager at Firestone Walker hosted the event. In addition to the Firestone Double DBA, Union Jack, XVII Anniversary, Pivo Pils and Bretta Weiss, he also brought along Jeffers Richardson, the original brewmaster for Firestone Walker and the current Barrelmeister and Director of the Firestone Walker Barrelworks in Buellton. It was interesting to talk with him a little about Firestone Walker and their planned location in Culver City. As of now, look for that location to open sometime in the middle of 2015.
I have only visited Simmzy’s a few times, but I have always been impressed with their tap list and the food is pretty good too. We had a salad that was delicious but I admit I saw a coupe burgers come out of the kitchen that looked really good; I just do not know that my mouth would open wide enough to fit one in. Simmzy’s is located at 229 Manhattan Beach Boulevard in Manhattan Beach.
After leaving Simmzy’s we headed over to Naja’s Place in Redondo Beach where they were holding their Allagash Brewing Company tap takeover. This was a “must attend” event for any Allagash fan as Naja’s brought out several archived Allagash beers and Allagash brought some special beers that have never made it out here before. With 20 different taps pouring Allagash brews there was definitely something for everyone. Continue reading
Finding Craft Beer: The Mega Stores
As much as I like to support local business; sometimes it just makes sense to shop at the major chains. This can hold true whether you are buying tires for your car or craft beer for your fridge. My last article about the local bottle shops was an article that I have been planning on writing for several months, but I wanted to give one of the locations a chance to finish some construction first. Initially I was going to compare two independent bottle shops to Total Wine, after I discovered that Costco had a wide selection of craft beer I decided that I would write two articles; the last one about the local independents, and another about the chains that carried craft beer. This article will visit Total Wine & More in Redondo Beach, Costco in Hawthorne and Whole Foods in El Segundo. You should probably know this going in, not all Costco or Whole Foods are created equal; not all locations are as good as those visited for this article.
Of any place I go to buy craft beer, Total Wine in Redondo Beach gets more of my business than probably everywhere else combined. The reasons for this are many, but the main reason is that it is basically across the street. It takes almost as much time to drive and park as it does to walk there. The convenience factor is strong with this one. The second thing is that they carry about 3,000 different varieties of beer and you can purchase individual bottles/cans so experimenting is a piece of cake. Not only do they carry American craft beers but their International beer selection is better than any place I have ever been. Their pricing is usually very good; I have found locally brewed beers being sold for significantly less that it would cost at the tap room it came from.
As a tip, if you visit Total Wine, feel free to walk into the cooler; there are lots of surprises to be found including Pliny and Blind Pig. Most of the time there will be bottle limits, so bring your friends and neighbors. Continue reading
Bottle Shops: The South Bay’s Hidden Treasures
The president of the newly formed Los Angeles County Brewers Guild, Jeremy Raub, said that the goal of this 6th Annual LA Beer Week is to “showcase the many diverse components” of the local craft beer scene. This includes the brewers, bar owners, distributors and journalists that help get fresh craft beer to you and make you aware of these brews. Since I usually spend my time promoting breweries, craft beer bars, home brew clubs and gastropubs, I thought I would do something a little different and discuss some of the local bottle shops that specialize in good beer; whether local or international as long as it is craft. It is nice to be able to walk into a tasting room whenever you like, but that just is not possible [around here] primarily due to the limited hours that tasting rooms are open. Besides, as much as I enjoy the beers that are brewed around here, when it comes to beer variety is definitely the spice of my life. Today I am going to introduce you to three locations in the South Bay that will likely provide many of the hard to find brews that are available to the person that doesn’t mind searching a little. The three bottle shops are Number 1 Liquor and Adam’s Fine Wines & Liquors in Redondo Beach; and 3Ten Liquor in Torrance.
Number 1 Liquor has been at the same location on the corner of Aviation and Grant Avenue since the 1970’s; although they did not start promoting craft beer until 2012. To be honest, the first time I heard about Number 1 I was told to not tell anyone about it. They were one of the only bottle shops in the South Bay that had a Russian River allocation, making it one of the few places around here that you could buy a bottle of Pliny the Elder, Blind Pig or any other Russian River beers. The downside to it was that you had to know that they had it in stock in order to get some. That was actually my main turn off to the place; it seemed like they had more beer in the back room than they had displayed and you had to know what to ask for otherwise it was a matter of telling them what style or brewery you preferred and they would bring out what they thought was close. It was less than ideal; but there was no doubt that they carried more varieties of hard to find craft beer than any other independent liquor store that I was aware of. Continue reading
Locals Night at Naja’s Place LA Beer Week 2014
The 6th Annual LA Beer Week begins Saturday, September 20 but Naja’s Place in Redondo Beach kicked it off a day early with their “Locals Night” which included close to 50 beers on tap from 18 local craft breweries. The local breweries spotlighted in last night’s event included, The Brewery at Abigaile, Angel City, Beachwood, Bottle Logic, The Bruery, The Dudes’ Brewing, Eagle Rock Brewing, El Segundo Brewing, Golden Road, Hangar 24, Kinetic Brewing, King Harbor Brewing, Ladyface, LA Ale Works, Monkish Brewing, Noble Ale Works, Smog City and Strand Brewing Company.
Naja’s Place will continue their celebration of LA Beer Week on Saturday by showcasing 30+ Pizza Port beers, followed by an Allagash tap takeover on Wednesday and a Firestone takeover next Saturday, September 27.
Los Angeles Beer Week (LABW6) officially runs from September 20 through September 28. There are events happening all over the Greater Los Angeles area; you can find the most up to date schedule of events on the LA Beer Week website. There are some great beers being brewed around here now, go out and celebrate it. Cheers! Continue reading
Vegan Oktoberfest Santa Monica, October 4
As October steadily creeps up on us, so do the additional Oktoberfest celebrations; including Vegan Oktoberfest which will be held at Beach Park 1 in Santa Monica on October 4. While I am not sure I ever heard of a German vegan, this event looks like it should be pretty entertaining.
This inaugural event is a fundraiser for Expand Animal Rights Now, an organization that uses the legal system to help animals. Since this is a vegan event it is a safe bet that you are not going to find any bratwurst or sauerbraten available but there will be plenty of gluten free pretzels and food trucks such as Sage Organic Bistro, The Grilled Cheese Truck, The Green Truck, and Southern Fried Vegan which will be providing traditional Bavarian food such as pretzels, potato pancakes, chicken, sauerkraut and ice cream. There will be vegan sausages available also.
The breweries in attendance that will be pouring their vegan beer include Angel City, Anderson Valley Brewing, Bravery Brewing, Golden Road Brewing, Saint Archer Brewing, Karl Strauss Brewing, Drakes Brewing, Lagunitas, Bison Brewing, Modern Times Beer, Epic Brewing, Oskar Blues Brewery, Ace Premium Hard Cider, Eel River Brewing Company, Coronado Brewing Company, Hangar 24, Venice Duck Brewery, Four Sons Brewing, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Ninkasi Brewing Company, The Dudes’ Brewing Company, Lammsbrau and Einstock. Continue reading
You must be logged in to post a comment.