These photos were taken Friday afternoon at Five Point Five Brewing Company in El Segundo, when they officially opened their doors to the public, bringing El Segundo’s craft brewery count back up to four, joining El Segundo Brewing, Upshift Brewing, and Boardroom Brewery. Five Point Five is at the location previously occupied by Surfridge Brewing, and is now owned by the brewer for Surfridge, and his family.
Friday was their official Grand Opening, and while I arrived within the first couple of hours of their opening the doors, it was very well attended, not only by friends and family, but they also had attendees from El Segundo Brewing and Upshift, which is always a good sign, in my opinion. Continue reading
These photos were taken over the course of three years, beginning with my first visit in January 2020, a follow-up visit in January 2023, and ending with my visit on Memorial Day 2023 to Boardroom Brewery, El Segundo’s newest craft brewery.
So yeah, this tale begins back at the end of 2019 when Brouwerij West co-founder Dave Holop asked me if I knew anything about what was to be El Segundo’s fifth craft brewery. I was given an address and started dropping by every time I went to El Segundo. On January 8 I lucked out and showed up on a day that Forchi, the owner, happened to be there, having lunch as I recall. I introduced myself, and got permission to grab some photos. At that point in time Forchi knew he wanted to open a brewery; he was pretty much waiting for approval from the City of El Segundo and did not even have a name picked yet. If he did, he was holding it close to the vest. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon, May 6, at Syncopated Brewing Company in Lakewood, where they were celebrating day two of their three day celebration of their second year anniversary and the birthday of Jason Van Fleet, one of the co-founders of syncopated brewing. The day featured food, live music, games, and a beer release.
While I was there, food was provided by Big Brian’s Meats. Music was provided by assistant brewer Elic Evans and his wife Mel. As I was preparing to leave The Bodleys were setting up; I was tempted to hang out later, but I try to avoid traffic. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at The Dudes’ Brewing Company Torrance location where they celebrated their 10th anniversary of brewing in Torrance. The event featured live music, games, a food popup, and vendors selling clothing, plants, chocolates and coffee. Naturally, there was plenty of Dudes’ beer available for the attendees.
To be honest, I think this was the first anniversary party put on by The Dudes’, and I am not sure why they did not publicize this more, but the end result of the lack of publicity is that there were not very many people there. Luckily, since I had advertised it, I ran into several friends and Craft Beer Guy followers. Continue reading
These photos were taken Wednesday afternoon, March 22, at Urban Roots Brewing and Smokehouse, and Oak Park Brewing Co., two of Sacramento’s Black owned brewpubs; in the interest of full disclosure, I have been unable to figure out if Sacramento has any other Black owned breweries, but that has nothing to do with this article.
After the final session of the California Craft Beer Summit, Tomm and I decided to hit up a couple local breweries because he had never visited any in Sacramento. Even thought I visited Urban Roots in 2021, I got there kind of late in the evening and they were still observing COVID protocol so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to pay another visit post-COVID. Oak Park Brewing had a booth on the expo floor at the Craft Beer Summit and we had both enjoyed a couple of their offering, so we decided to make them our second stop. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at Brouwerij West, in San Pedro, where they celebrated their seventh anniversary. The event featured a morning brunch, food trucks, live music, a DJ, a beer release and games. I probably missed something, but I was only there for a couple of hours, and while the event started at 10:00 AM, it lasted late into the night.
I got there around 2:00 which means I arrived well after the brunch was completed, but I was able to chat with a couple attendees that were still hanging out. Pancakes and stouts made up the primary part of the menu, which sounds like a pretty good way to start the day. Continue reading
These photos were taken Wednesday afternoon, when I visited Gardena’s newest craft brewery, Two Coast Brewing Company. I have been cyber-stalking Two Coast since the end of 2016, so when I recently noticed a Facebook post that screamed out, “They must have a tasting room coming soon,” I reached out to them for the first time in more than six years to see if I could swing by. I met with co-founders Roger Kunsemueller and Jan Dreier to get a little history as well as a look into the future.
When I arrived, Jan was busy keeping a cleaning mess under control, while Roger was milling grain. I took advantage of the time to walk around and grab photos of their 15bbl brewhouse and 30bbl fermenters as well as what will soon become the South Bay’s newest craft beer tasting room. Oh yeah, I may have tried a few of their brews Continue reading
These photos were taken on four separate visits to the new Hermosa Brewing Company location in Torrance, between July 30 and December 27, when I went to photo-document the build of their new production brewery and tasting room.
Hopefully you saw my post last week when I attended their soft open. At the time I said that the Torrance location should open within the next couple of weeks; well, the time has come. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday, November 5, at Upshift Brewing Company and Surfridge Brewing Company, both of which are located in El Segundo and coincidentally, were both celebrating their third anniversaries. Both events featured food trucks and live music.
I started my day off at Upshift Brewing, for no particular reason (at the time) other than it was the only anniversary party I knew was happening. They had a ticketed VIP hour, but I showed up after that. There were a couple dozen people there when I arrived, but it did not take long for the inside and outside seating to begin filling up. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon, when I visited 8bit Brewing Company, a brewpub located in Murrieta, California.
So, Saturday afternoon I left the mild clime of the beach (71 degrees) to head out to Murrieta (low 100s) to watch a play that my number one grandson and favorite granddaughter were performing in. Since traffic out there can be very unpredictable, I left a few hours early hoping traffic wouldn’t suck too much and I might be able to visit one of the breweries out there that I had yet to visit. Luckily, it only took a couple hours to get there, so I had time to stop by 8bit Brewing Company. Continue reading