food trucks
Smog City Brewing Celebrates 4th Anniversary
These photos were taken Saturday at Smog City Brewing Company where several hundred of Smog City’s fans gathered to help Jonathan and Laurie Porter celebrate four years of brewing at their Torrance location.
It has been a lot of fun watching Smog City grow since their soft open; not only in the number of beers and styles that they turn out, but the massive growth of the brewery itself and the fact that they now have their satellite SteelCraft location in Long Beach. If you look at the photos of the brewery from the soft open the brewery and tasting room were vast; compare it to the photos from Saturday and you can see that it has almost become a forest of stainless steel. According to Jonathan, there is even more to come. Continue reading
Photos from the King Harbor Brewing 3rd Anniversary
These photos were taken Saturday at the King Harbor Brewing Company 3rd Anniversary celebration. The event featured three bands, three food trucks and over 30 variations of King Harbor Brewing’s craft beer which was enjoyed by well over 500 attendees.
To give you an idea of how much progress King Harbor has made since they opened their doors in 2014; on their opening day they had two variations of The Quest, and two variations of Abel Brown. On Saturday they had three variations of their King Swirly the 3rd anniversary ale.
In addition to the music, food and King Harbor brews that were available, there were games like corn hole, giant beer pong, a dunk tank and Jenga. There was also an Employee Beer Contest which consisted of six beers that were created by teams made up of King Harbor’s employees. The beers included Guava Lava Gose, One Night in Brussels Belgian Strong Ale, Muffin Top Sour, Just a pHaze Pale Ale, The Real Slim Hazy NE IPA, and Ruby Redondo Rye IPA. Attendees voted on their favorite which gives the brewers bragging rights; the winner has not been announced at the time of this writing. Continue reading
Inaugural Long Beach Craft Beer Festival Photos
These photos were taken at the inaugural Long Beach Craft Beer Festival which was held Saturday afternoon and put on by the Forty-Niner Shops at California State University Long Beach (CSULB). Proceeds from the event went to help support student education through the growth and development of the Hospitality Management program at CSULB.
When I first started thinking about what I would write about this event, I was going to say that for an inaugural event it was very well run; but the fact of the matter is that would not really be a fair assessment. This may have been their inaugural event but you would not know it if you had not been told beforehand. Someone had done their homework; it was run like they had been putting on craft beer festivals for years.
I could nitpick and complain about the plastic tasting “glassware”, or maybe suggest that the food options be spread out a little more equally; but other than that I am not sure what anyone could complain about. One thing is for sure, the beer options were outstanding. Continue reading
North Platte Rail Days and Nebraska Craft Beer
If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times; timing is everything. It was Friday morning; day six of Craft Beer Tour 2016, day eight on the road and Tanya wanted Cracker Barrel. The closest one was pretty far out of the way and backtracking from whence we came; but it was what she wanted. The point being that we got a pretty late start out of Denver; and we were starting off deeper than when we had ended the prior day.
We took I-76 eastbound which landed us about 100 miles into Nebraska when it connected to I-80; Tanya was not having much luck finding anything around us on her iPhone, so I asked her to text a friend of mine that lives in northern Nebraska for some assistance. Cliff suggested we continue east to North Platte, where we would turn off and go down the road to Loop Brewing Company. Cliff knew nothing of the brewery, but it was the closest thing happening; so we headed that way. Continue reading
Photos from the 2nd Annual Summit Beer Festival
These photos were taken Saturday at Matsuyama Japanese Fusion in Roseville, and the 2nd Annual Summit Beer Festival which was held at the Capitol Mall in Sacramento.
While I knew I would be attending the Craft Beer Summit, I was undecided as to whether or not I would be attending the Summit Beer Festival because I have friends that are a lot closer to Sacramento than I am and I really wanted to visit them. On Friday I discovered that the Summit Beer Festival was just a few blocks from my motel; when I realized that the festival did not start until 3:00 PM I figured I could drive 20 minutes to Roseville and visit my friend Song Kim, the owner of Matsuyama Japanese Fusion. I have mentioned Matsuyama once before here; suffice it to say, if you enjoy sushi and are anywhere in the Roseville area, you owe it to yourself to visit Matsuyama Japanese Fusion. You will not regret it; be sure to tell Song I sent you. Continue reading
LMU Beer Festival 2016 Photos
These photos were taken Saturday at the LMU Beer Fest 2016, which was held on Hannon Field on the Loyola Marymount University campus. The event featured beer from 24 craft breweries, live music by Phoenix Rising, access to six food trucks and a few games of skill. As one person mentioned to me, it was one of the best inaugural events in recent memory.
The beer festival was hosted by the LMU Alumni Association and was a fundraiser to support student athletes through the Lions Athletic Fund. As it turns out there are a lot of brewery owners in the LA area that are LMU alumni, like Allison Kolb of Scholb Premium Ales and Tom Dunbabin of King Harbor Brewing; Steve Farguson of Absolution Brewing has a son that currently attends LMU.
Being the inaugural event, ticket sales were limited; I am going to guess that there were a lot of alumni that purchased tickets to the event with no real intention of attending. This is just a guess, but the VIP session had sold out and there were not very many people for that session. By the end of the day, I would guess that they had a few hundred attendees. Continue reading
Dog Adoption Sunday at Brouwerij West
These photos are from the Dog Adoption Sunday event held at Brouwerij West this past Sunday afternoon. The Los Angeles Animal Services and ARF Harbor Shelter brought six dogs to the Brouwerij West tasting room for adoption; I know at least two of them found new homes that day. I have to say, I had an opportunity to meet most (if not all) of them, and they were really very well-behaved dogs. I kept thinking they must have brought the cream of the crop.
In addition to the adoptable dogs, many others brought their pups to the obviously dog friendly tasting room and they all seemed to enjoy the company of the others. ARF Harbor Shelter is looking for homes for their residents and I am sure volunteers are always welcome.
I also had a personal first, and that was my first time having chorizo. Apparently I had it from one of the best, The Chori Man; a fourth generation chorizo artisan from San Pedro. I definitely recommend stopping by if you see his food tent set up anywhere. Cheers! Continue reading
Hoppy 2nd Birthday at Absolution Brewing Company
These photos are from Absolution Brewing Company’s Hoppy 2nd Birthday celebration that was held at the production brewery’s Torrance location on Saturday, March 5. The event featured the release of their Anniversary Ale which was featured on CO2 and cask, as well as cask versions of Angel’s Demise, Fallen Archangel and Padre Bravo.
For entertainment, the overcast day began with the bluesy sounds of Nasty Bad Habit; then as the day cleared up a bit the rocking music of Barley Legal kept everyone on their feet. Since it would be irresponsible to provide so much beer and not have food, there were two options available; Barley Hops Grill and Felice Italian Catering.
Several hundred people showed up throughout the course of the day, many from as far as San Diego where Absolution’s roots sprouted; and one guy from Milwaukee showed up. It was kind of funny because I met him a year or so ago at The Bruery but he did not know the party was going on and I did not know he was back in town; he just happened to be around and showed up. He really enjoyed the tasting room scene as they have mostly brewpubs in his part of the country and brewpubs tend to be less social than a tasting room. Continue reading
Photos of the Brouwerij West Grand Opening
On Saturday, San Pedro’s latest production brewery opened their doors to the general public as Brouwerij West held their grand opening. To say it was well attended would be on the same level as suggesting beer is damp. When I was at Brouwerij West on Friday evening for the Founders’ Club pre-opening party I was speaking with the ever humble co-owner and head brewer, Brian Mercer, and he seemed to have concerns on whether people would show up the next day or not. When their event coordinator asked me how many people I thought would show up, I guessed that they would probably hit 1,000 with ease. The event began at noon, when I arrived a little after 3:00 I immediately knew I had severely underestimated the turnout. I had failed to take into consideration how supportive San Pedro residents are to their local businesses. I would be willing to bet they had at least 2,000 people show up throughout the course of the day.
Update: On Sunday evening Brian Mercer texted me to say that they actually had 4,500 people attend their event with a maximum of 1,500 at any point in the day. I don’t know who else around here could handle a day like that with virtually no issues other than maybe running out of a couple beers. They are definitely to be congratulated.
While most craft beer tasting rooms could not handle a group of that size, Brouwerij West has a couple advantages over the others. Their tasting room is huge and they have a large area outside that not only took care of the overflow of people, but it also held four food trucks, an auxiliary pouring station and a stage for the live entertainment. If there is any brewery around here that is built for a crowd as large as they had Saturday, Brouwerij West is the place. Continue reading
Strand Brewing Company Ribbon Cutting Photos
On Thursday afternoon, production brewery Strand Brewing Company officially opened their new Dominguez Street location with a ribbon cutting attended by numerous city and state representatives, the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce and lots of friends and family. One might venture to say that while the group of a couple hundred probably would not fit in the doors of the old Telo location, the crowd began to make the new tasting room somewhat full for the first time since they opened the doors at this new location. A quick note about parking; if the parking lot looks full, there is additional parking on the north side of the building; that is the same side the food trucks set up.
The numerous attendees enjoyed their choice of brews including Beach House, 24th Street, Atticus, Batch 100, White Sand, Expression Session and Harvest Ball. Currently, 24th Street is the only beer brewed on the new system but that should be changing soon. For those with an appetite, the Barley Hops Grill was serving up plenty of their pulled pork treats.
Strand Brewing Company’s Grand Opening Weekend continues Friday, October 23 from 4:00-9:00 PM when they will have the BreadCrumbs Gourmet Sandwiches available for food. On Saturday, Strand will be open from noon until 9:00 PM, featuring the return of Barley Hops Grill; and the weekend will finish on Sunday when they will be open from noon until 8:00 PM and will feature the Brew Wings food truck. Strand Brewing Company is now located at 2201 Dominguez Street in Torrance. Continue reading