Beer News
2nd Annual Froth Awards Coming March 15
2nd Annual Froth Awards, March 15
Those of you that attended last year’s event will recall that it was originally set up as a competition with each brewery pairing one of their beers with a dish prepared by a local gastropub. This year it will be a little different in that the “competition” has been eliminated and instead it will be a day of craft beers and tasty locally prepared foods. As they put it, this year it will be “less of a competition and more of a party.” I don’t know; last year was a pretty great party. Just like last year, there will be live Bluegrass and Irish music all day as well as various raffles and contests going on.
The 2nd Annual Froth Awards: Beer Experience and Gastropub Invitational begins at 2:00 PM Saturday, March 15, 2014. The doors open at 1:00 PM. Tickets are $25 each, but because you read CraftBeerGuy.com you are entitled to a 20% discount; that means you get in for $20 each if you purchase your ticket ahead of time online. After you choose the number of tickets you want, click Checkout; on the top of the next page is a spot for you to put in your Promo Code: BADDOG (all caps) and your discount will be applied. Admission includes entry into the event; 8 oz tasters from all participants, raffle tickets to win valuable prizes and a commemorative glass. Saint Rocke is located at 142 Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa Beach. I hope to see you there; I had a great time last year. Cheers! Continue reading
Pliny Fights Cancer raffle held at Beachwood BBQ & Brewing
As I announced last month, Beachwood BBQ & Brewing was holding their 3rd Annual Pliny Fights Cancer fundraiser by selling chances for an opportunity to win a pint of Pliny the Younger, the seasonal triple IPA released by Russian River Brewing every February. Raffle tickets for the chance at one of the 130 pints were drawn Monday afternoon. Beachwood raised $7,000 in 2012 and $9,000 in 2013 with a goal of $10,000 for 2014. Thanks to all of Beachwood’s loyal customers they shattered this goal by raising a little over $14,000 with 100% of the proceeds benefiting the Melanoma Research Foundation.
On Monday morning staff from both the Long Beach and Seal Beach Beachwood BBQ locations along with friends of Tony Carbone, the inspiration behind this fundraiser, select regular patrons and various media types like Craft Beer Guy, Beer Paper LA and New Brew Thursday who streamed the event live, gathered at the Long Beach location for the drawing. For those that were unable to watch the New Brew Thursday podcast, do not fear; the winning raffle ticket numbers have been posted on the Beachwood BBQ website. Winners will also be contacted via telephone and/or email so you might want to check your email today and be sure to answer your phone, even if you do not recognize the calling number. Winners must collect their pint of Pliny between Tuesday February 25 and Thursday March 6. You must bring your raffle ticket with you and redeem it at the location designated. Unfortunately, where you bought the ticket may not be where you will have to go to redeem it.
Congratulations to Gabe, Julian, Brandon, Lena and all the staff from both Beachwood locations for putting on a very successful charity drive and to Russian River for providing a beer that seems to bring out the best in beer people. Cheers! Continue reading
LA Beer Bloggers Summit at Smog City Brewing
Sunday afternoon, February 23, the LA Beer Bloggers held their 10th LA Beer Bloggers Summit, this time at one of my favorite local microbreweries, Smog City Brewing Company. The LA Beer Bloggers are a group of craft beer aficionados that promote craft beer either professionally or as a hobby. The summits are held every month or so at various breweries, brewpubs and gastropubs in the greater Los Angeles area. These events give the writers and photographers an opportunity to network with others that have the same passion for craft beer and to experience new locations they may not have visited before.
Today’s event included a panel on photography and how it is utilized as a marketing tool to promote businesses that are too new to afford a marketing team. The panel, moderated by John Michael Verive, featured Joshua Liberman from The Tao of Photography; Bernie Wire of Friends of Local Beer, Laurie Porter of Smog City and Tyler Graham from the Stone Brewing Company marketing team. Their discussion included topics such as how they got into photography, the use of social media, favorite tools and methodologies. Of course there was lots of networking and plenty of great beers. Cheers! Continue reading
LA Beer Bloggers Summit #9 at 38 Degrees Ale House
Sunday afternoon I headed out to Alhambra to attend the 9th LA Beer Bloggers Summit which was held at 38 Degrees Ale House & Grill. In addition to the networking opportunities with other beer bloggers and other various media formats we were treated to talks by 38 Degrees co-owner Clay Harding, Danny and Franny Fullpint and the Ohana Brewing Company crew. Clay Harding talked about his history and how 38 Degrees Ale House & Grill came about and spoke a little on their upcoming events. Danny Fullpint and Franny Fullpint gave us a brief rundown on how they got The Full Pint to its current position in the craft beer world. Ohana Brewing Company owner Andrew Luthi introduced us to his brewing team consisting of Eric McLaughlin, Erick “Riggs” Villar and Robert Sanchez. Ohana Brewing also provided samples of three of their craft beers; Pacific Ale, Saison Noir and Wee Smokey. As Ohana Brewing was just recently granted a Conditional Use Permit to open a tasting room and growler fill station literally right next door to 38 Degrees, we were given the opportunity to visit the storefront location. All in all it was another fun afternoon of networking and enjoying good craft beers.
LA Beer Bloggers is an informal network of bloggers from Los Angeles and Orange Counties that dedicate their time towards the promotion and growth of the local craft beer scene. With all the new craft breweries popping up brewers and brewery owners rely on word of mouth to become known to the beer drinking public; beer writers help make this possible on a larger scale.
38 Degrees Ale House & Grill is located at 100 W. Main Street in Alhambra, CA. They have a very nice tap list and very good food. When Ohana Brewing gets their tasting room open you will want to be sure to kill two birds with one stone and visit both locations. Cheers! Continue reading
Beachwood Brewing’s 3rd Annual “Pliny Fights Cancer” Raffle Coming Soon
In the craft beer world there are few annual releases that are awaited with such anticipation as Russian River Brewing’s annual release of Pliny the Younger. Initially brewed in 2004, Pliny the Younger is released on the first Friday of every February. This true triple IPA is made in very limited quantities so is limited to draught pours at the Russian River pub for a mere two weeks at which point a few kegs are sent out to select Russian River accounts. One of these special accounts is Beachwood BBQ & Brewing who will have it at both their Long Beach and Seal Beach locations in February.
As you might imagine, it is not uncommon to see long lines outside of these locations when Pliny comes to town. I went to a Pliny release party last year that had 400 people lined up outside; the event started at 11:00 AM and the first guy in line had been there since 7:30 AM! The folks at Beachwood, being the nice guys they are, decided that instead of dealing with long lines of beer aficionados clamoring to get their yearly Pliny fix they would make this a fundraiser by selling raffle tickets for the chance at one of the 130 pints they will have available between the two locations with 100% of the proceeds benefiting the Melanoma Research Foundation. This is the third year they have done this; raising $7,000 in 2012, $9,000 in 2013 with a goal of $10,000 for 2014.
The tickets, a mere $5.00 each, went on sale January 14 and will continue through February 22. Be advised, the raffle tickets are a cash only deal, so when you visit Beachwood for some of their great beers and/or food, be sure to bring some cash for the tickets. They won’t add it to your bill. On February 24th, 2014, 130 raffle tickets will be drawn at random. The drawing will be streamed live on the New Brew Thursday webcast; winners will also be notified via email or phone. Winners will be able to redeem their Pliny the Younger pint between February 25 and March 6, 2014; Because of the limited quantities, winners will be directed to either Long Beach or Seal Beach to get their Pliny. Continue reading
LA Beer Bloggers Holiday Potluck at Sunset Beer Company
Back in June I became familiar with the LA Beer Bloggers, a group of altruistic craft beer bloggers living or working in or around the City of Los Angeles; working together to foster craft beer culture. As King Harbor Brewing Company’s Head Brewer Philip McDaniel put it, these are the people that keep the local craft beer breweries in business and help make them successful. After all, there is only so much one can hope to accomplish with paid advertising, especially for start-ups that do not really have a large advertising budget. Nothing beats word of mouth when it comes to referrals and the LA Beer Bloggers do just that via their blogs and other forms of social media.
Sunday evening, December 8, the LA Beer Bloggers held their first annual Holiday Potluck at Sunset Beer Company, a bottle shop and tasting room located in Los Angeles. We had about 20 people show up with munchies ranging from bread sticks to shrimp and hummus to salads. As it is the Christmas season, there were quite a few sweets involved but when mixed with craft beer it made for a pretty healthy meal. For our part, Tanya made breadsticks, pretzel rolls and mustards using spent grains and beers donated by Redondo Beach’s first production craft brewery, King Harbor Brewing Company (KHBC). For dessert she made Russian Tea Cakes / Mexican Wedding Cakes from flour she produced using brown ale malted grains also donated by KHBC along with various dipping sauces; some of which were flavored with KHBC’s Brown Ale. Judging by the responses to these treats, I suspect all the LA Beer Bloggers will be heading to Redondo Beach when King Harbor opens their doors early next year.
It was a good time of networking and enjoying beer and food; as you can see from the photos, everyone seemed to be having a good time. Thank you to the LA Beer Bloggers for the invitation and to Sunset Beer Company for hosting the event. Special thanks to those that contributed to the meal with food or special beers that were brought from home or purchased in the bottle shop; and extra special thanks to King Harbor Brewing Company for donating the main ingredients to our contributions.
Sunset Beer Company is located at 1498 Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles. King Harbor Brewing will be at 2907 W. 182nd Street in Redondo Beach. Happy Holidays and cheers! Continue reading
Happy Thanksgiving from the Craft Beer Guy
Just a quick note to say Happy Thanksgiving to each of you and your families. Today, Tanya and I will head over to my dad’s for dinner with my daughter and a bunch of siblings. There should be about 15 people there. Since Tanya has been experimenting a lot with her baking, she got put on dessert detail which resulted in three pumpkin pies made from scratch; she even used fresh pumpkin instead of that canned stuff. She also made up some vanilla whipped yams, so the food should be delicious. Naturally, I was assigned beer duty, so Wednesday I traveled around to a few of my favorite places.
I started at Beachwood BBQ & Brewing where I picked up a growler of Annihilator, a 12% American Barleywine. I then moved along to Monkish Brewing where I brought home a growler of Magnificat, a 10.1% Belgian Strong Dark Ale, spiced for Christmas. My next stop was El Segundo Brewing Company because no meal is complete without an IPA. I walked out with a growler of Two 5 Left, an 8.2% Double IPA. For dessert we headed to The Brewery at Abigaile where I picked up a growler of Coconut Imperial Red; a 9.4% Imperial Red Ale. I think everyone should be able to find something they will like.
Have a safe day and appreciate all you have. Cheers! Continue reading
Photos from Alisha & Shane’s going away party
As I mentioned in a recent article, the craft beer scene around here consists of a pretty tight-knit community. Something about craft beer just seems to bring people together; perhaps it is because craft beer is really breaking out here and we are excited and happy to be part of it. Traveling to the various tasting rooms and brewpubs is like going off to visit friends and family as much as for the beer. This is especially true whenever we walk into Beachwood BBQ & Brewing in Long Beach; everyone that works there seems to like each other and they appear to really enjoy their jobs. Last night, the craft beer community met at Beachwood to say good-bye to two of the family; Alisha Inkrote and Shane Stewart.
Alisha and Shane are moving to Denver on Friday and they held a going away party last night at Beachwood’s Long Beach location. Even though Beachwood is normally closed on Monday, owner Gabe Gordon opened it up so a few of Alisha and Shane’s friends and family could gather for a final beer together. The kitchen was closed, so some people brought food and others brought bottles of their favorite brews to share. It really was a fun night; Alisha and Shane are going to be missed. If you were not able to make it last night, they will be there Tuesday and Wednesday if you want to stop by, say good-bye and wish them well.
Beachwood BBQ & Brewing is located at 210 E 3rd Street in Long Beach, California. Cheers! Continue reading
Damn You Dengue Fever Benefit for Helen Kral
If there is one thing I can say about the craft beer community in Los Angeles, it is a very tight-knit group. This goes beyond the brewers for the numerous breweries we have in the area, who are known for being eager to help each other out. It extends to those that own or manage bottle shops and gastropubs, people that write about craft beer and the sales teams for the various craft beer distributors in the area. This community and camaraderie was displayed again Saturday evening as friends and family of Firestone-Walker Regional Sales Manager, Shane Kral gathered in Huntington Beach for the ‘Damn You Dengue Fever Benefit’ for Shane’s wife, Helen.
During what should have been a dream vacation for Helen and Shane’s Hawaiian getaway last July, Helen apparently was bitten by a mosquito carrying Dengue Fever; an infectious tropical disease caused by the dengue virus. While the symptoms can be as minor as a fever or headaches, Dengue Fever can be life threatening. In Helen’s case, she became paralyzed. As time continued, Helen’s condition improved and she is now able to maneuver her wheelchair and last week she was able to stand with assistance. Prayer, positive thoughts and physical therapy are helping, but as Helen must stay in a nursing home and expenses are piling up. Saturday evening’s benefit was held to help alleviate the family expenses.
For a small donation at the door we were treated to food and drink with plenty of Firestone-Walker beers available. There was also a raffle and silent auction for the host of items that were donated to the cause. Some of the items donated included tickets to selected performances at Club Nokia from Yo Gabba Gabba to Mushroomhead, skate decks from Attic, artwork from Bernie Wire and Stork, gift certificates from restaurants and gastropubs from Manhattan Beach to Newport Beach, signed sports memorabilia, brewery tours and hard to find-one of a kind-blow your mind beers including Firestone X-XVII. Continue reading
Discover Torrance presents: Shop, Hops & Slumber Fest
Shop, Hops & Slumber in Torrance
“Shop, Hops & Slumber Fest,” a holiday campaign spearheaded by Discover Torrance Visitors Bureau has decided to take advantage of the craft beer craze in Torrance by combining our numerous tasting rooms with the ability to shop at the fifth largest shopping mall in the country and providing numerous locations for you to relax and get some sleep before doing it again the next day. The concept is pretty simple.
Book a room during the promotion which runs from November 4, 2013 through January 6, 2014 and automatically receive a “Shop, Hop & Slumber Fest” kit that includes a shopping tote for trips to the Del Amo Fashion Center, a beer mug and a sleep kit with eye mask, ear plugs and more. Participating hotels are offering special rates and added value to make an overnight shopping stay a no-brainer. I was looking through some of the hotel rates and I would have no problem referring a friend to any of these locations and the prices were very reasonable.
As far as the hops portion of this deal, Torrance is home to Strand Brewing Company, Monkish Brewing Company, Smog City Brewing and the Red Car Brewpub. LA Beer Hop is participating with a discount special of $20 off. If you spend a night or two, I would suggest reviewing my South Bay Beer Guide of local breweries, brewpubs and gastropubs and make it a very special visit. Continue reading
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