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The Craft Beer Guy 2015 Year in Review

HopSaint brewpub

HopSaint Brewing Company Now Soon!

Well, there are still a couple of days left in 2015 but I think it is safe to write my year-end review of 2015. To be honest, there has been so much activity in the craft beer world this past year that I would not be surprised to have something new pop up before Thursday night.(So, this is taking me a while to write, and yes, there have been updates since I started).

There were several beer buyouts that seemed to dominate most other craft beer sites, but the craft world in my immediate domain only seemed to increase. Yeah, Golden Road got bought, but I only went there for special events and I guess that means there will be fewer of them there in the future. In the meantime, the reach of this site seems to be increasing. In the beginning people pretty much pigeonholed this site as covering the South Bay craft beer scene only. This year I covered various local beer events from the Antelope Valley to Orange County. Attendees have come up asking if I am now covering the west side, or wherever we might be. I guess the answer is yes; and I will expand my area as long as it is requested.

2015 in the South Bay ended pretty much as it started, with the soft open of a new brewpub. In January Phantom Carriage officially opened, and at the end of December HopSaint Brewing Company opened their doors. While they are open daily, the official opening of HopSaint will be January 1, 2016 when they will start serving lunch at 11:30 AM. Continue reading

2nd Annual Holiday Bottle Share Benefiting Richstone Family Center

On Saturday afternoon, local craft beer hoarder Chad Hazen put about 150 bottles of his collection of rare craft beer up for his 2nd Annual Holiday Bottle Share Benefiting the Richstone Family Center; the event was held at the King Harbor Brewing Company’s tasting room. All of the monies raised went to the Richstone Family Center which is located in Hawthorne. The Richstone Family Center is dedicated to preventing and treating child abuse.

I tried making sure all of you knew about this event, but a relatively few showed up. There was a cap of 100 tickets being sold, but if they sold 50, I would be surprised. If you meant to go but forgot, you blew it. Take a look at the list of brews we had available to us:
Continue reading

For your eyes only: HopSaint Soft Open Going on Now

Okay, I am going to make this short and sweet; the HopSaint Brewing Company brewpub in Torrance has unofficially begun their soft open. I say “unofficially” because they are not really advertising it quite yet; consider it a soft, soft open.

The photos were taken over 14 months, but primarily from their initial opening for investors and family and then again Saturday night. They are open seven (7) days a week, but right now food service will not begin until 4:00 or 5:00 PM and some items may be limited. Tonight was the first time I had an opportunity to look at the food menu and there are a few items that I cannot wait to try.

Currently, Brian Brewer has three of his brews on tap; Cacophony IPA, $1.00 from every pint sold goes to Ales for ALS, Eleven-Eight which is like an ESB and Bubble Butt Blonde which is as tasty as it sounds. They have a very extensive tap list so there are no worries about not finding something you will like. Continue reading

Business & Beer Ends 2015 at The Brewery at Abigaile

These photos are from the December gathering of the Business & Beer networking group which met at The Brewery at Abigaile in Hermosa Beach. It was Business & Beer’s first return to the Hermosa Beach brewpub since they brought on the new brewer, Paul Papantonio. The last time I visited Abigaile in mid-October, Papantonio had only one brew under his belt with his new brewing system; a very nice black IPA. As of last night he had added three more brews to his portfolio, including a Vienna lager, a brown ale and an IPA. Everyone in our group seemed to enjoy the brews, with special praise given to the barrel-aged Sugar Daddy that I am sure has been aging since Brian Brewer’s days.

Next month, January 14, Business & Beer will be meeting at Torrance’s newest brewery, HopSaint Brewing Company. HopSaint is a brewpub and the brewer is Brian Brewer, who most of you know from his stint at The Brewery at Abigaile. I have had a little preview so you can trust me when I say that you definitely want to be there on January 14 between 6:00 and 8:00 PM. Please RSVP on Business & Beer or the Business & Beer Facebook page. Cheers! Continue reading

Beer Dinner at Jimmy’s Bar & Grill Featuring El Segundo Brewing Company

On the second Wednesday of every month, Jimmy’s Bar & Grill in Redondo Beach holds a beer dinner featuring a specific craft brewery; frequently they pair up with one of our local breweries. Last night the four course meal was paired with fine brews from El Segundo Brewing Company. As I mentioned before, Marc Dix is the chef/partner at Jimmy’s and he is one of the owners of Barley Hops Grill, a popular food truck frequently seen at various tasting rooms; this has enabled Dix to do in-depth research and chose the perfect beer for the dishes he serves. I have the opportunity to attend many beer dinners and I can say without reservation that it would be tough to find anywhere that puts in as much effort and thought as Dix does for the Jimmy’s beer dinners.

While these dinners are four courses, they always start off with a beer to get your taste buds flowing; last night we began with a Citra Pale Ale. The first course was a chicken thigh brined in Mayberry IPA, with a butternut squash, coconut milk puree that was amazing; naturally it was paired with the Mayberry IPA.

The second course consisted of a baby spinach and kale salad with roasted mushrooms and goat cheese with an orange-bacon vinaigrette. The bacon almost made you forget you were eating a salad. This was paired with a Hop Tanker DIPA. Continue reading

Photos of the 4th Annual Alpine Kraft Bierfest

These photos were taken at the 4th Annual Alpine Kraft Bierfest which was held at the Alpine Inn Restaurant at Alpine Village in Torrance. The craft beer event featured beers from all over the United States with a couple very rare Belgian brews added for good measure. While I did not take the time to count each of the breweries represented or the number of various beers available for sampling, they advertised over 40 breweries and 100 beers. I know there were a couple other craft beer events going on in Southern California this past weekend, but if you drove away from the South Bay instead of towards it, you may have messed up.

The Kraft Bierfest was held over the course of two sessions, beginning Friday evening and concluding with an afternoon session on Saturday afternoon. This was the second time they have split the event up over two sessions. Last year, to avoid the possibility of the best brews running out during the first session, Alpine’s event coordinators decided to split up the beers by day and put up a schedule of appearance for the brews so people could choose which day would have the most beers that they wanted to try. This time they made every brew available on both days but cut off serving brews that were limited on Friday so some would be available on Saturday. While there were people that were not too happy when the Agrestic or Winter Harvest ran out on Friday, the people that showed up on Saturday were quite grateful.

While I do not have the final numbers, it seemed like there may have been people in attendance on Friday night than Saturday afternoon; I doubt if either session had more than a couple hundred people in attendance. The only line I recall seeing that had more than four people in it were the first few people that arrived Saturday and headed straight for the Agrestic. I would not be surprised to see this event go back to being a one session deal. Continue reading

Nineteen & Twenty at Library Alehouse

These photos are from the Nineteen and Twenty Firestone Walker tap takeover which was held at Library Alehouse in Santa Monica on Wednesday evening. The event was to celebrate Library Alehouse turning 20 so they brought in Firestone Walker’s XIX Anniversary Ale, along with an amazing assortment of Firestone brews to make it a real party.

In addition to the XIX Anniversary, they also had XVIII Anniversary, Walker’s Cuvee, Sour Opal, Bretta Weisse, Agrestic, Velvet Merkin, Sucaba, Parabola, Stickee Monkee, Helldorado, Union Jack, DBA and Pivo Pils. They had a few preset flights set up so one could try as many Firestone Walker brews as they might desire.

Because Firestone Walker does have a special relationship with Library Alehouse, David Walker was in attendance and he brought a couple special guests including Duvel Moortgat President, Simon Thorpe, Duvel’s LA Market manager, Ian Hendrickson, and the General Manager of the soon-to-be opened Firestone Walker Venice location, Brad Ellis. Continue reading

Goose Island Bourbon County Black Friday at Surly Goat

These photos are from the Goose Island, Bourbon County, Black Friday tap takeover that was held at The Surly Goat this past “Black Friday” evening. Regular readers may recall that a few weeks ago I wrote about a Bourbon County tasting I was supposed to attend at The Surly Goat that had to be canceled at the last minute. In it I happened to mention that one incentive for driving out to Hollywood was that I had never been to The Surly Goat before and that I was looking forward to checking them out. Well, someone from The Surly Goat read the article and invited me to their Goose Island, Bourbon County Black Friday tap takeover which I accepted.

Unlike the Bourbon County event at Whole Foods that I attended earlier, this was purely a tap takeover that featured several Goose Island brews. Featured were 2013-2015 Bourbon County Brand Stout, 2013-2015 Bourbon County Brand Barleywine, Lolita, Matilda, Sofie, Illinois, Goose IPA and Class of ’88. They also held a few raffles that included a bottle of the 2015 BCBS Rare; with the proceeds going to The Trevor Project.

I have to say that The Surly Goat is a spot worth checking out if you find yourself in West Hollywood. As you can tell from the photos, they have a pretty nice tap list even without the Bourbon County; and the people that work there are very nice. If you have never been there and decide to stop by, be sure to tell them the Craft Beer Guy sent you; thanks. Cheers! Continue reading

Goose Island BCBS Release at Whole Foods Market Playa Vista

These photos are from the Black Friday Goose Island bottle release which was held at the Whole Foods Market in Playa Vista on Friday afternoon. According to Whole Foods beer buyer Raul Moran, this particular location had one of the highest allocations of the new Bourbon County series in the entire Los Angeles area; judging by the number of cases they had I have no doubts. In fact, they had five of the six varietals available for purchase; Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout, Bourbon County Brand Stout, Bourbon County Brand Barleywine, Bourbon County Brand Regal Rye Stout and Rare Bourbon County Brand Stout.

In addition to the bottle release, the Astro Pub featured several flight options for those that wanted to compare various releases as well as some pretty tasty food to go along with it. The preset flights included 2013 through 2015 of BCBS with a Sophie, and a 2013 and 2015 Barleywine with a 2015 Coffee Stout and a Matilda.

While there was a pretty good crowd, Whole Foods managed it quite nicely; they were quick and efficient and I think everyone that showed up was able to purchase at least one bottle. Cheers! Continue reading

Christmas Shopping Survival Tips – For the South Bay, anyway

As you probably heard, Thanksgiving is around the corner and based on my server stats that means for most of you the Christmas holiday shopping/spending season will begin Friday. Since I live in Torrance and we are the center of the craft beer explosion in the Greater Los Angeles Area, I figured I should give some tips to those of you that will be coming to our malls; primarily Del Amo Fashion Square and the South Bay Galleria. You are in luck; if you do have to venture to these locations for your Christmas shopping there is quite a bit of good beer available without having to give up your parking spot. Of course, if you can drop the wife off you can take your own mini craft beer tour and avoid the parking situation entirely, but if you have to go inside I have you covered.

I ventured off to the newly remodeled Del Amo Fashion Square and immediately rewrote this article in my head. I had planned one thing but parking was mind blowing and it was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving at 1:00 PM. My advice is that if you are shopping at Del Amo, find a central parking spot and stick with it. Trying to drive to the other end would just be silly. I don’t visit the mall often, but when I do I find the parking is best on the east side; so you want to get to the southwest corner of Madrona and Fashion Way. When you see the AMC sign, turn south into the parking lot. You may end up having to use the structures, but they are new and I really have no knowledge of how well they are set up.

On the outside of the mall, on the east side, there is a large courtyard area that features places like Starbucks, PF Chang’s and has the entrance to the theaters. Also in that group are three locations that have pretty decent offerings of craft beer and most carry at least a couple local brews. Continue reading

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