Beer News
7th Annual Pliny Fights Cancer Charity Raffle Results
These photos were taken Monday afternoon at the Beachwood Blendery in Long Beach, where employees, friends, and family gathered for the drawing of the raffle tickets sold for Beachwood’s 7th Annual Pliny Fights Cancer Charity Raffle which is done in memory of a long time Beachwood friend, Tony Carbone who passed away in 2008 from stage 3 melanoma.
This morning, Beachwood BBQ & Brewing held their drawing for the 7th Annual Pliny Fights Cancer Charity Raffle at their Long Beach Blendery location. To enter the contest, one could purchase a ticket for $5.00 for a chance at a full pint of the 2018 Pliny the Younger. This year Beachwood raised over $10,000 from the ticket sales; which means they have raised over $85,000 over the past seven years for the beneficiary of the raffle, the Melanoma Research Foundation. The drawing was streamed live via the Four Brewers podcast and like last year, 200 winners were picked. Continue reading
Pints with Purpose at Smog City Brewing
Towards the end of 2017 I started noticing that Torrance’s Smog City Brewing Company was holding a Pints with Purpose fundraiser every Thursday. After speaking with Smog City co-founder/owner Laurie Porter about it, I discovered that, being the socially conscious brewery that they are, they were donating 10% of their sales every Thursday of each month to a different non-profit. In the past they raised funds for such organizations as Food Forward and the Keep a Breast Foundation.
Since the Porter family was busy in January, they took the month off and restarted it again last night; for the month of February, every Thursday 10% of their sales goes to Marine Mammal Care Center Los Angeles. These photos were taken at Smog City, where Marine Mammal Care Center had brought their Mobile Visitors Center. Continue reading
Chad’s Beer Cellar V Bottle Share Photos
These photos were taken Thursday evening at a Christmas Bottle Share benefiting the Richstone Family Center, which was held at the King Harbor Brewing tasting room.
In what has become a Christmas tradition in the South Bay, local craft beer aficionado and beer hoarder Chad Hazen, held the fifth in a series of bottle shares benefiting Richstone Family Center.
The first of the bottle shares was in December of 2014 when Hazen decided he wanted to quit drinking beer for a year while he trained for a marathon. As he travels a lot for work he had built up quite a collection of craft beer and he felt it would be too much temptation to have all that beer around while he trained. He got together with King Harbor Brewing Company, he is one of the investors, and they decided they would have a bottle share benefiting Richstone Family Center. Continue reading
Celebrating 200 Years of Guinness in America
These photos were taken Thursday, November 2 at the Guinness celebration of its 200th anniversary of being in the U.S.; coincidentally (?) it was also International Stout Day, which meant it was a pretty appropriate day to celebrate with a Guinness.
While some may be thinking that Guinness is more than 200 years old, they are correct; Guinness is 258 years old. However, in October of 1817, one John Heavy (pronounced Heevy) received the first shipment of Guinness in the United States; somewhere in South Carolina. He got eight hogsheads of Guinness West Indian Porter, the photos of the stacked barrels represent how much beer eight hogsheads is; it is about 512 gallons. Continue reading
Bernie Wire Farewell Party at El Segundo Brewing
It is an end of an era for the Los Angeles craft beer scene as long time craft beer photographer and general all-round nice guy, Bernie Wire enters his last few days as a Los Angeles resident.
Saturday afternoon, a steady stream of Bernie Wire fans and friends came to El Segundo Brewing Company to bid farewell to Bernie as he and his wife Anne Marie prepare to move back to Minnesota; Anne Marie hails from the Land of 10,000 (closer to 12,000 actually) Lakes, so they have plenty of family out there.
Bernie took time to visit with everyone that came out, and then treated us to a little concert. After the concert, I noticed lots of tears in the tasting room as people began to realize that this was really good-bye. Continue reading
Pennywiser Private Tasting at The Standing Room
These photos were taken Friday evening at The Standing Room, in Hermosa Beach, where local punk rock legends Pennywise held a private tasting of their new collaboration with Lost Coast Brewery, Pennywiser Session IPA.
All four members of Pennywise, Jim Lindberg, Fletcher Dragge, Byron McMackin, and Randy Bradbury, were in attendance along with huge contingent of their fans. The members of the band did interviews, posed for photos and enjoyed both pints and bombers of the tasty, low ABV IPA.
Since Pennywise is a South Bay band, they initially contacted a few of the South Bay’s numerous breweries to do the collaboration with, but they ended up going with Eureka’s Lost Coast Brewery, most likely because Lost Coast brews about 20 times more beer than any of our local breweries are capable. Apparently, Lost Coast Brewery owner/founder Barbara Groom came out of retirement to brew this particular IPA which was dry-hooped with Cascade, Crystal, Chinook and Citra hops, which provides a nice citrus nose and a pleasant, mild hoppy flavor. Continue reading
LABW9: So You Want to Open a Brewery in LA?
These photos were taken Tuesday evening at Los Angeles Ale Works, in Hawthorne, at the sixth edition of “So You Want to Open a Brewery in LA?” an LA Beer Week panel discussion moderated by Celebrator Beer News writer Tomm Carroll. If you have attended any of the previous five seminars hosted by Carroll, you know that he typically puts together a great group of panelists and last night was no exception.
The panelists included Laurie Porter of Smog City Brewing, Greg Bechtel of Simmzy’s Burbank, Gary Croft of Yorkshire Square, Bill Baker of Zymurgy Brew Works & Tasting Room, Rick Blankemeier of Modern Times, Will Shelton of Concrete Jungle Brewing Project, Brent Knapp of Common Space Brewery, Kip Barnes of LA Ale Works, and Brendan Lake of Burnin’ Daylight Brewing Company. Continue reading
Chad’s Beer Cellar IV Photos
These photos were taken Saturday at the Chad’s Beer Cellar IV bottle share which was held at King Harbor Brewing Company in Redondo Beach. This event was the fourth and possibly final bottle share put on by local beer hoarder and King Harbor Brewing investor, Chad Hazen. All the funds from the event went to benefit the Richstone Family Center which is located in Hawthorne. The Richstone Family Center is dedicated to preventing and treating child abuse.
First off, I would like to personally thank everyone that showed up. While my involvement with the event was limited to getting the word out, the previous events never sold out, which I found incredulous considering the quality of the beers that were made available. I made it a personal goal to see that they did sell all 100 tickets this year, and it happened. While all the monies have not been tabulated yet, with ticket sales, raffles and the silent auction, over $8,000 was raised for Richstone. Of course, none of this would have been possible without Chad.
The first of these bottle shares was held in December of 2014 when Hazen decided he wanted to quit drinking beer for a year while he trained for a marathon as he felt his collection of beer was just a little too much temptation. He got together with King Harbor Brewing Company and they decided they would have a bottle share benefiting Richstone Family Center. Continue reading
Tap It for 10 Fundraiser for Jesse Esphorst at Smog City
South Bay residents may recall hearing about a terrible crash that happened in Torrance on March 7 that resulted in the death of 16 year old South High School student, Jesse Esphorst, Jr. The circumstances surrounding the accident and Jesse’s death were bad enough; but Jesse’s father, who was driving when they were hit by two cars that blew through a red light, was also seriously injured. The family, who had numerous other obstacles draining their bank account at the time of the accident, now had to deal with funeral expenses for Jesse and medical expenses for his father who is currently unable to work due to his injuries.
If I have my facts right, Jonathan and Laurie Porter of Smog City Brewing live next door to a family whose mother went to school with Jesse’s mother. Being the community involved people that they are, Smog City Brewing held a fundraiser Thursday evening to assist the Esphorst family with their financial burden. Continue reading
Guinness Beer Dinner Debuts Guinness Irish Wheat
On Tuesday evening, a couple dozen craft beer fans, social influencers and Guinness beer ambassadors met in Los Angeles at the Salt’s Cure restaurant to participate in the debut of the latest creation coming from Open Gate Brewery at St. James’s Gate, Guinness Irish Wheat.
Anyone that really knows me knows that my desert island beer is Guinness Stout, so whenever I am invited to try anything new from Guinness, you can be sure I will do my best to be there.
Guinness Irish Wheat is probably best described as a hefeweizen created with 100% wheat grown in Ireland and the same Guinness yeast found in every pint of Guinness Draught. My initial sip of Irish Wheat was crisp and seemed slightly lemony/citrusy flavor which was followed by subtle clove with a banana finish. My immediate thought was that this was the perfect time of year to release this beer as it comes across as very light compared to your standard creamy pint of Guinness; I was not the only one to suggest that this would be a very good beer to drink after mowing the yard or while grilling burgers and steaks in the back yard. I would go so far as to suggest that this might be one of the few beers I would consider drinking from a bottle at a barbecue. Continue reading