Absolution Brewing Company
Absolution Brewing Company Celebrates One Year
These photos are from Absolution Brewing Company’s one year anniversary party that was held at their tasting room this past Saturday. While Absolution may have gotten off to a shaky start with their Grand Opening that found several brews tapping out before the day was over, I do not think anyone that has watched their progress over the past year can deny that Absolution Brewing has weathered the storm and have established themselves as a brewery that will be here for the long run.
When Absolution Brewing first opened the initial goal was to gain acceptance with the style of beers they brewed. Using “Old World styles and New World ingredients” their beers are not your typical “west coast” style; for example, you would never confuse any of their IPAs with any of the others brewed around here. Variety is what prevents over-saturation, so their style was welcomed by me and obviously many others as their tasting room always seems to have a nice group sampling their beers.
In November their original head brewer, Wes McCann, moved back east as his wife was transferred; so Absolution was forced to find a replacement which they did by bringing in Bart Bullington. The change in style and recipes was noticed almost immediately; Bullington’s tweaks to McCann’s recipes seemed to be just what Absolution needed to satisfy the palates of South Bay beer drinkers. Continue reading
L.A. Local Craft Beer & Artisanal Food Fest: Promo Code
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Join your friends at L.A. Local Craft Beer & Artisanal Food Fest April 18
As home to the biggest and longest running (almost 50 years) Oktoberfest this side of the Mississippi River, there is no doubt that Alpine Village has long been known as having one of the South Bay’s best selections of German and Czech biers; what has not been realized is what an outstanding selection of American craft beers they have. After their 2012 Alpine Bier Fest, which had almost as many craft beers to choose from as attendees, Alpine Village General Manager Otto Radtke confided to me that his intention was to make his craft beer festival grow into an internationally recognized beer festival. To that end he has had two more American craft beer festivals and last July they had their first Euro Bierfest. The L.A. Local Craft Beer & Artisanal Food Fest will feature Los Angeles area craft breweries and local artisanal food vendors. Continue reading
Brewtopia at Abigaile Restaurant Photos
These photos are from the Brewtopia Beer Garden which was held at Abigaile Restaurant and the Ocean Bar & Lounge located in Hermosa Beach. This was the second “beer garden” event held at Abigaile in the last four months that showcased LA Brewers Guild breweries and this time it featured a few breweries that came from out of the area.
The breweries that I noticed in attendance included Mammoth Brewing Company, Bootlegger’s, Hangar 24, Bravery, Kinetic, El Segundo Brewing, Monkish, Smog City, Taps Fish House, The Bruery, Three Weavers, Absolution, Golden Road, Eagle Rock, Coachella Valley Brewing, King Harbor and Noble Ale Works. Included in the price of admission was all the food you could get your hands on from Chef Tin’s grill which appeared to be quite popular; I just wish I had three hands so I could hold food and beer while still taking photos.
While this event seemed to be as well attended as the prior Novem-BEER-Fest as far as beer drinkers, the faces behind the breweries were not very well represented. Beerlebrity sightings while I was there was limited to Nigel Heath from Absolution Brewing and Brian Brewer, former brewer for The Brewery at Abigaile and brewer for the soon to be HopSaint brewpub that will be opening in Torrance. I also noticed several Craft Beer Guy followers, and I always personally appreciate that. Continue reading
2015 Taste of Brews’ Twilight Tasting Photos
These photos are from the Taste of Brews’ Second Annual Twilight Tasting that was held at Lyon Air Museum on Saturday evening. I have to start off by saying that this was one of the coolest, most photogenic locations for a beer festival that I can remember attending. As we walked in the door I told Tanya, “I will have to try to find some time to have a beer while I am here.”
While Lyon Air Museum was billed as a World War II museum, the first vehicle we were greeted by was a 1922 Ford Model T Roadster and it just got better from there. A beautiful 1931 Buick and the 1930 Cadillac V-16 Roadster were among my favorite cars; but there were military vehicles of all types and beautiful motorcycles. When you added in the aircraft it was pretty difficult to concentrate on the beer. But to be honest, I am not sure that craft beer was the number one thought of the attendees at this fundraiser for the Make-A-Wish Orange County/Inland Empire, The Little Red Dog out of Tustin and Ocean Education Outreach out of Newport Beach. I think it was one of those fundraisers that was priced so that it was more about the charity than the buzz. I don’t know, it just seemed a little classier than the standard local beer festival.
They did have some good food provided by Stonefire Grill, Rubio’s and Sol Agave; and some pretty tasty desserts from Nothing Bundt Cakes and Paradise Bakery to go with the various wines I saw being poured, so maybe that had something to do with it. So while I may have stayed for the cool museum pieces, I came for the beer. Continue reading
Twilight Tasting Returns to Lyon Air Museum: Promo Code
Taste of Brews Twilight Tasting 2015
Breweries from Orange County, Los Angeles County, San Diego County and the Inland Empire will be featured as well as a few from Northern California, Vermont, Illinois and even Iceland. Local breweries scheduled to be on-hand include Beach City Brewery, Four Sons Brewing, Barley Forge, Bootlegger’s, Phantom Ales, Left Coast, Coronado, Karl Strauss, Stone Brewing, Mission Brewery, Hangar 24 and Absolution Brewing. Other, not so local breweries featured in the lineup include Firestone Walker, Drake’s, Einstok, Lagunitas, Sierra Nevada and Goose Island. The growing hard cider community will be represented by Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider and Woodchuck Cider. Continue reading
Brewtopia at Abigaile: Sunday, March 8
Join the Fun at Brewtopia – March 8, 2015
The breweries scheduled to attend include Absolution, Alosta, Angel City, Beachwood, Bootlegger’s, Bravery, The Bruery, Eagle Rock, El Segundo, Golden Road, Kinetic, King Harbor, Ladyface, Monkish, MacLeod, Noble, Phantom, Progress, Smog City, Strand, Timeless Pints, The Dudes’ and Three Weavers. The food menu includes short-ribs, skewers, sliders, garlic knots and a lot more. If you have ever been to an Abigaile event you know the special treats that Chef Tin comes up with; if you have not, you are in for a special treat. I could tell you that the skewers will be made up of Katsu glazed salmon or Korean beef coconut or curry chicken sate; or that there will be Chilled Peanut Somen Noodle but the names, as exotic as they are, will fall short in describing the tasty foods you will experience if you show up at Brewtopia.
Brewtopia Beer Garden featuring 23 local craft breweries
Photos from the Torrance Craft Brewery Walk
On Sunday afternoon, we held the second of what will hopefully become a series of walks and, possibly later, bicycle rides between the craft breweries located in the South Bay area. If you will recall, last Saturday we had our first walk, the Super Bowl Warmup Brewery Walk. That walk started off at Smog City Brewing Company before walking to Monkish Brewing then The Dudes’ Brewing before heading back to Smog City. For our first walk we had a very nice turnout, with close to 20 participants and two dogs. Yesterday we had 10 participants and four dogs. We also reversed the route to mix it up a little by walking from Smog City to The Dude’s before moving on to Monkish and back to Smog City.
Last week I polled a few of the people that joined us and I knew ahead of time that many of the people that came last week would not be able to make it this week; as it turned out only three of us have participated in both walks and we have people coming in from as far away as Echo Park and El Monte so this was a first time visit to our local tasting rooms for several in our group. I would, once again, like to thank everyone that came out yesterday; it was a lot of fun.
Next week we are going to do something a little different by increasing the distance on our next walk. The first two walks were just a little over one mile in total; the walk between King Harbor Brewing and Absolution Brewing is 2.5 miles each way. There are very few hills; in fact I would not really consider any portion of the route to be hilly. Each direction should take about an hour, so figure four hours in total between drinking and walking. Please visit https://www.facebook.com/events/1406342963000228/?ref=3&ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular for more details and to let us know if you will join us. At this time we have five people that have said they are walking; I do not really expect a bigger group, but it would be nice. I have mentioned to a few people that I would like to develop this into a charity walk, so I am testing some mobile apps that we can use to track our mileage and make donations accordingly. If you have suggestions, please don’t hesitate to tell me about them. Continue reading
Photos from the 1st Super Bowl Warmup Brewery Walk
At the end of 2014, my girlfriend Tanya decided that she was going to start doing some extensive walking. We already walk twice a day, every day for a little over a mile each time; but she wanted to do some distance walking, with hills to build up the strength she lost because of years of a misdiagnosed illness. She decided she was going to walk to the beach every day. Now, the beach is only about three miles from here, but there are some pretty steep hills involved so an indirect route is a little longer but the hills are not as intense; it also ends around Naja’s Place by the Redondo Beach Pier. A couple weeks ago we attempted to get people to join us for an eight mile round trip walk to Naja’s and back; I wasn’t too surprised when we ended up walking it by ourselves.
In the meantime I started noticing articles discussing the craft beer boom in the South Bay; some even included inane suggestions of potential “pub crawls” that could now be done in the Torrance area. Perhaps I was reading “pub crawl” too literally, but a pub crawl to be has always meant to walk between the locations; it was pretty obvious to me that the authors were not all that familiar with the Torrance area and had not bothered to use Google Maps to see how far apart some of the breweries are from each other. Since I am from the area and well-familiar with where the breweries are in relation to each other I knew a brewery crawl could be done as long as we picked the right breweries.
I posed a question on the Craft Beer Guy Facebook page about a week ago asking if there was any interest in participating in a realistic South Bay Brewery Crawl; I must admit, I was a little surprised at the number of people that said they would be interested. As a result I scheduled the first in what will hopefully become a weekly series of craft beer walks; we had our first walk on Saturday afternoon. Continue reading
The 2014 Craft Beer Guy Year in Review
As 2014 winds down I faced the question posed to me by a few people; “Will Craft Beer Guy be writing an article about the year?” Initially I thought I would do a Top 10 list and just discuss the Top 10 breweries and brewpubs in the South Bay. I figured it would be easy because there were only 10 craft brewers here, but in the last month so many new locations have opened that we now have 12 if you count Phantom Carriage that has not “officially” opened yet. The South Bay now has the following breweries and brewpubs in its confines; in order of seniority (I think) they are: Red Car Brewery, San Pedro Brewing Company, Strand Brewing Company, El Segundo Brewing Company, Monkish Brewing Company, The Brewery at Abigaile, Smog City Brewing, The Dudes’ Brewing Company, Absolution Brewing Company, King Harbor Brewing Company, Three Weavers Brewing and Phantom Carriage. 2015 should bring us a few more including Hop Saint, Brouwerij West and Port Town Brewing; and those are just the ones that come to mind. There will also be some moves and expansions among those listed above. With that I now present you The 2014 Craft Beer Guy Year in Review.
Noble Ale Works Flight
As I look through my articles from January I see that it was a pretty mellow month or the calm before the storm if you prefer. I would have to say my personal highlight of the month was a Sunday afternoon that we spent visiting several of the Orange County craft brewery tasting rooms and brewpubs. The day included stops at Bootlegger’s Brewery, Taps Fish House & Brewery, Noble Ale Works, Tustin Brewing Company and Brewbakers. Each of these stops were first time visits and I would not have a problem recommending any of them. The thing is, in the past year Orange County has opened so many new tasting rooms and brewpubs that it is getting tough to try and keep up with them all; but I will try. Continue reading
Wanderin’ Star Bottle Release at Absolution Brewing
On Sunday evening, members of Absolution Brewing Company’s MUG Club were invited to Absolution’s first bottle release; the Wanderin’ Star Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Porter. Muggers were treated to pours of the newly released brew along with various snacks and sweets to snack on as they enjoyed their beers.
The limited release Wanderin’ Star Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Porter comes in individually numbered 750ml champagne bottles and are available at the Absolution tasting room for $18.00 each. They also have gift packages that include Absolution Brewing Company glassware for $30.00 at the tasting room. You can reserve yours by emailing nigel@absolutionbrewingcompany.com. This would make a nice Christmas gift for the beer geek in your family.
While at Absolution you might ask them about their ABC MUG Club; an exclusive membership for fans of Absolution Brewing Company and comes with many perks, including discounts and invitations to private parties like this bottle release. It really is a great deal and would make a wonderful Christmas present. Cheers! Continue reading
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