On Sunday afternoon I headed to the Port of Los Angeles for the Home Made Brew & Food Festival held to commemorate the second anniversary of Crafted, Southern California’s largest permanent market for handmade goods. As part of the anniversary celebration several homebrew clubs joined in to provide a wide selection of home brews provided by their members. In addition to the beer there were food trucks and live music. If one wanted to get out of the sun for a while, the historic Navy warehouse No. 10 was open with dozens of vendors inside providing everything from beads and jams to deep sea diving equipment (for decoration only).
The homebrew clubs that participated included The Crude Brew Crew, Long Beach Homebrewers, Yeastside Brewers, Maltose Falcons, F.E.R.M. Club and Strand Brewers Club. Live music was provided by The Gumbo Brothers. I got there a little late but I understand there was a home brewing demonstration also given. While I may have been late there were still plenty of nice brews to sample with just about every style of beer you could hope for from ales to stouts with several sours and many types of mead also available. There were also some food samples available, but I never did run across them; I may have been too late for that or they were in a portion of the warehouse that I did not get to. It was a fun event and everyone appeared to be have a great time enjoying the beer, music, sunshine and camaraderie with other beer brewers and consumers. Monies raised at the event were used to fund arts education programs put on by the San Pedro Art Association.
This was my first visit to Warehouse No. 10 and Crafted but I doubt it will be my last. I was a little surprised by all the cool items that were available; maybe even more surprised that I never knew the place existed. Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles is open every weekend; Friday, Saturday and Sunday. For hours and their schedule of special events you can visit their website at CraftedPortLA.com. Admission and parking is free. Cheers! Continue reading
Breweries scheduled to be featured include Almanac Beer Company, Ninkasi Brewing Company, Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, Shipyard Brewing Company, Anderson Valley Brewing Company, Hangar 24 Craft Brewery, New Belgium Brewing, Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company, Drake’s Brewing Company, Mikkeller, Stone Brewing Company, Allagash Brewing Company, Phantom Carriage, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Rodenbach Brewery, Boon Brewery, El Segundo Brewing Company, Rough Draft Brewing Company, Valiant Brewing Company and Wolf Creek Restaurant & Brewing Company.
BeerFest for BeerGeeks will be held over the course of two one three hour-long session with the first running from 1:00 PM to 4:00 and the second starting at 5:00 PM and ending at 8:00 PM. You can purchase tickets online for $60.00 each or you can take your chance and try to buy tickets at the door for $70.00 each. You should probably know that they are only selling 200 tickets for each session, so there is a good chance that they will sell out. Save yourself $10 and ensure your entry by buying your tickets today. UPDATE: USE PROMO CODE ‘stoutpromo’ AND SAVE 33%! JUST $40 PER TICKET. Continue reading
From my brief discussions with them I have learned that at least some of the events paid staff was turned away at the gate; however, this may have been due to improper procedures with the credentials. Karma Media has stated that they really cannot talk about things at this point in time due to “politics.” What they have told me is that the fairgrounds played a significant part in the “debacle” when staff was turned away. They also assured me that they are already processing refunds for session two tickets issued directly through them and they are waiting for a determination from third party voucher issuers as to how to proceed. I would take that to mean that if you got your tickets through Living Social, you are going to have to wait until they decide how they want to handle the refunds. When I hear more, and I am sure I will, I will pass it along. Cheers! Continue reading
This evening I headed out to The Factory Gastrobar to participate as a judge in the Drink Good Beer Mash-up Homebrew Competition to help decide the Best of Show from the six finalists as determined by the AHA/BJCP judging that was held a couple weeks ago. There were 17 entries, of which six made it as finalists and there were two additional brews added in the Supporting Category. The winner of the competition gets to brew their beer with Evan Weinberg of Cismontane Brewing Company; the winners will be announced Saturday at the 2nd Annual Drink Good Beerfest.
The Best of Show finalists were:
Jon Silvertooth – Lampo Bianco (Saison)
Gabriel Gonzales – Chocolante (Chocolate Pepper Porter)
Peter & Kimberly Mynar – Tread Lightly (IPA)
Ray Grace – Flop Guts (American Ale)
Sarah and Mathew Luker -Citra (IPA)
Peter & Kimberly Mynar – Black Eye (Black IPA)
The runner ups (Supporting Category) were:
Josh Keliner and Rick White – Dr Strangelove (Belgian Strong)
Peter and Kimberly Mynar – Russian Spy (Imperial Stout)
Congratulations to the finalists and thank you for the opportunity to try your homebrews. I am looking forward to meeting you at the 2nd Annual Drink Good Beerfest. Continue reading