These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at Three Weavers Brewing Company, in Inglewood, where they celebrated their fifth anniversary with a tiki themed dance party featuring food trucks, live music, and a variety of beer slushies, mocktails, barrel aged brews, and the release of a collaboration anniversary beer.
While I was there, live music was provided by the Blackball Bandits and The Hula Girls; as I prepared to leave a third band, Skapeche Mode, was just arriving. Sadly, I needed to get Buddy home for his dinner so I missed their performance but I hear they are a lot of fun to watch. Blackball Bandits and The Hula Girls were definitely entertaining. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at one of El Segundo’s newest craft breweries, Upshift Brewing Company, where they held their official grand opening. Attendees had 10 Upshift brews to choose from, as well as two food trucks; Cheddr Wheel and Swami’s Sandwiches. For entertainment there was a raffle, live music provided by Green Hills Band, and there was a mini car show in the parking lot shared with the food trucks. Of course, there was Giant Jenga and cornhole for the competitive types.
The beers Upshift currently has on tap includes their Kolschwagen, Bench Seat Blonde, PRNDL Pale Ale, Track Sesh IPA, Wind Wing IPA, Big Block Brown, Off Camber Amber, Pole Position Pale Ale, Pit Stop Porter, and their newest, G.T. Oatmeal Stout. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at Absolution Brewing Company, in Torrance, where they held Barktoberfest 2019; an afternoon where the dogs literally took over the production brewery’s tasting room, with a portion of the proceeds from the beer sold going to benefit spcaLA.
After leaving the Craft Beer LB Fest I headed home to get Buddy, one of the South Bay’s well known brewery dogs to join me at Barktoberfest. He was in doggy heaven.
The extremely dog friendly event featured live music from Nasty Bad Habit, a food popup, and lots of dogs that all seemed to enjoy each other’s company. It is not unusual for there to be a dog or two that is not as ecstatic to hang out with other dogs, but everyone seemed to happy to be there; there were dog smiles everywhere. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at the Project Barley ribbon cutting, Lomita’s first nano brewery. The event was well attended by friends, family, the Lomita Chamber of Commerce, and various representatives of the Lomita City Council, the State Assembly, State Senate, and the County of Los Angeles. And with that, Lomita became a craft beer destination, sharing the city with Burnin’ Daylight which is about a mile away.
The tap list consisted of their Witbier, Mexican Lager, Pacific Cream Hwy Creme Ale, Parkers Milk Stout, Neverland IPA, Marine Layer Hazy IPA, and Blonde Kettle Sour. There was a hotdog and brat station provided by The Standing Room, whose owner is one of the owners and co-founders of Project Barley. Live music, while I was there, was provided by Barclay Roach; music continued through the day with performances by three other soloists and duos.
The Grand Opening weekend continues when they open at noon Sunday. After that, Project Barley is scheduled to be open seven days a week. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon in Redondo Beach, where King Harbor Brewing celebrated their 5th anniversary at their brewery and main tasting room. The ticketed event included a 1 1/2 hour VIP session, followed by a four hour long General Admission session.
VIP attendees were treated to a special menu that included tasters of their award winning Ride the Wild, Radberry Wild, and King Swirly II through IV. VIP attendees also received a bottle of King Harbor’s anniversary beer, Grand Cru; a Flanders style wild red ale aged in Cabernet Sauvignon oak barrels to take home with them. Head Brewer Phil McDaniel gave tours to those interested in how he makes his “sugar water.”
All attendees received very nice commemorative glassware and had access to close to 30 different King Harbor brews, including nine previously unreleased beers, a couple slushies, several beer cocktails made with Tiki Hut and Hermosa Cerveza, and the three entrees to the Employee Beer Contest. Continue reading
These photos were taken Sunday afternoon at Firestone Walker Brewing Company’s – The Propagator location in Marina del Rey, where they held a block party in their parking lot to celebrate their third anniversary. The event featured live music, games, and lots of Firestone Walker brews and food. There was an on-site art sale with the proceeds benefiting the nonprofit Venice Arts. They also had a graduate of the Venice Arts creating art in real time, as well as an area for attendee to create their own street art.
While it was a free to attend event, they did offer a $15 punch card which was good for two beers, a small plate of food, and a commemorative Klean Kanteen stainless steel pint cup. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at Burnin’ Daylight Brewing Company, a brewpub that is the first for the City of Lomita, where they celebrated their long-awaited grand opening. The event featured a ribbon cutting (that I missed) and a beer garden featuring live music, a DJ, a silk screener, food from the Burnin’ Daylight kitchen, and unlimited pours of dozens of beers.
The grand opening was a ticketed event for those attendees that wanted to go out back to the parking lot that was set up as the beer garden. For the price of admission, attendees received a commemorative tasting glass and unlimited pours of Burnin’ Daylight’s brews, as well as the collaboration brews they had done with El Segundo Brewing. Since Burnin’ Daylight is a brewpub, they are able to have guest taps; they took advantage of this by including brews from El Segundo Brewing, Riip Beer, Smog City, Three Weavers, Beachwood, Stone, Tortugo, and HopSaint. If you did not want to go to the beer garden, you were able to buy full pours in the brewpub. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at Absolution Brewing Company in Torrance, where the production brewery celebrated five years of brewing beer. The free-to-attend event featured about 20 Absolution brews, live music, karaoke, food trucks, and games. Attendees that purchased a VIP ticket also received anniversary glassware with a pour of their anniversary beer and a 4-pak of their anniversary beer.
As Absolution has recently begun canning some of their beers, they used their anniversary to release a canned version of their Floc-Ness Monster DIPA. On Saturday, the 4-pak cans were available on a 1-to-1 basis only, so I am not sure if they were all sold or not. You might stop by the tasting room and see what their new brewer, Erik DeBellis, has been doing. They have completely revamped from the Old World/New World theory.
While I was there, Nasty Bad Habit provided the live music, which was followed up with karaoke. There was another band that finished the evening, but I had left long before they came on. Food was available from Seafood Anarchy and Chow Down, with some cheese goodies from Spicy Mos. Continue reading
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at the Common Space Brewery and Tasting Room in Hawthorne, where they celebrated their first anniversary with several hundred of their fans. The event featured their first can release, an anniversary beer, several food trucks, live music, and games that were enjoyed by adults and children alike. And there were dogs; lots and lots of dogs.
While I try to visit as many of the local breweries as possible, there has been so much growth around here that it just is not possible for me for me to visit everyone as much as I might like; Common Space would be one of those. One thing I noticed right away was that Common Space has become a very family and dog friendly taproom to visit. I think it would be safe to say that a large portion of the people attending had either a dog or a kid with them, and while I see a lot of whining on social media about kids and dogs at breweries, it was obvious that Common Space welcomes both with open arms. Continue reading
These photos were taken Sunday afternoon at the King Harbor Brewing Company tasting room in Redondo Beach, where they held their first in what is hoped to be a continuing series of monthly Matinee Meltdowns; an afternoon of live music, DJs, local art and, of course, King Harbor Brewing’s craft beer.
Matinee Meltdown is the brainchild of former King Harbor Brewing rep, Pete Mauch, who also happens to have a band called Doom Lodge, a self-described Doom Punk Trio out of Hawthorne, whose musical genre falls under Psych Rock. In addition to the live music, DJ Dan Kennedy aka ShoeBox spun records when Doom Lodge wasn’t playing one of their two sets. Continue reading