San Pedro
Home Made Brew & Food Festival Photos
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
American Craft Beer Week 2014, Day1: Good, Better, Worst
Monday May 12 was day one of the 9th Annual American Craft Beer Week, and it is the third consecutive year that I have covered the event. In 2012 I participated by trying to find as many American craft beer locations as possible in the South Bay. In 2013 I set out to visit as many Great American Beer Festival gold medal award winning breweries as possible. Since there has been such an explosion of growth in the craft beer sector around here, I decided that this year will be devoted to the local craft breweries, brewpubs and gastropubs.
I started off by visiting San Pedro Brewing Company (SPBC), a brewpub that has been around for close to 15 years. They have won more than 40 medals at local county fairs, commercial beer competitions and international beer festivals. They have not entered competitions such as the Great American Beer Festival because they have a small brewing system and do not currently have the capacity to brew enough beers to handle the increased demand winning a competition like that would bring. That may soon change though as they are in the process of dealing with the paperwork to open a new location around the corner which will be called Port Town Brewing. SPBC Head Brewer Jason Welke will likely do the brewing for SPBC and Port Town with the SPBC system being used for experimental batches. The hope is to have Port Town Brewing open by next American Craft Beer Week. For those that like bourbon barrel aged brews, Wednesday evening at 6:30 SPBC will have their 2nd Bourbon Barrel Aged Beer Night featuring their Blitzen Belgian Winter Ale and Sunken City Imperial Stout. I went to their first barrel aged event in February and they had some delicious brews. If you are looking for something to do, you really cannot miss by attending this event. San Pedro Brewing Company is located at 331 W. 6th Street in San Pedro and is open seven days a week. Continue reading
Bourbon Barrel Aged Beer Night at San Pedro Brewing Company
Wednesday evening, San Pedro brewpub San Pedro Brewing Company (SPBC) held their first Bourbon Barrel Aged Beer Night featuring their Blitzen Belgian Winter Ale and Sunken City Imperial Stout. Both brews are delicious on their own merits, but it is pretty amazing the difference what a few weeks in a bourbon barrel will do. I have to admit, I came because I knew the Sunken City was going to be excellent but I was completely blown away with what a little barrel aging did to the Blitzen. It was like drinking the best candy bar ever made. Hosted by San Pedro Brewing Company’s manager Greg Arn and brewer Jason Welke, visitors had an opportunity to try these first time attempts by SPBC at barrel aging and from the comments I overheard, no one left disappointed.
The primary roadblock many brewpubs run into when it comes to experimenting with new recipes and styles is space, and SPBC is no different in that regards, but Welke still finds the time and space to turn out some great brews and lots of awards for them. The rumor about town is that San Pedro Brewing may be obtaining a 10,000 square foot facility right around the corner from their existing brewpub. We should know what is happening with that within the next few months; personally, I cannot wait to see what Welke can do when he is given enough space to spread his brewing wings.
San Pedro Brewing Company is located at 331 W. 6th Street in San Pedro and is open seven days a week. They consistently have six of their own beers on tap with a few taps reserved for guest beers. They also have a nice food menu with their bruschetta being a house favorite. I hope to see you there sometime. Cheers! Continue reading
LA Beer Week visit to Library Alehouse & San Pedro Brewing Company
I have some friends that just flew into LA from Paris, France to begin a road trip around the southwest; as they are fans of Craft Beer Guy and LA Beer Week (LABW5) is still going on they expressed a desire to go somewhere that served craft beer. Since they were staying in Santa Monica and I am not all that familiar with the gastropubs in the area, I put out a request for suggestions on my Facebook page; one of the suggestions was Library Alehouse, located at 2911 Main Street in Santa Monica.
The Library Alehouse looks pretty small from out front, but they have a pretty spacious patio in the back; if you have a party of more than two, that is probably the direction you want to head. They have a pretty respectable tap list and they do offer flights of four for $10; well, it is theoretically $10, but you have to be careful about the beers you choose as they can easily hit the $15 range. Our French guests both had the bison burger and really enjoyed it; we had the All-American and it was okay. It’s a burger, what can I say. I don’t spend a lot of time in Santa Monica, but I would not hesitate returning or recommending it to someone that wanted a good craft beer.
Since it was Friday and I had visited two of LA’s gold medal breweries the day before, I decided that I would head over to San Pedro and visit another award winning brewery, San Pedro Brewing Company (SPBC). SPBC is a brewpub nestled on 6th Street in San Pedro that has been in business since 1999. Back then there were a lot of “Brewcos” in the area with Manhattan Beach Brewing Company, Redondo Beach Brewing Company and San Pedro Brewing Company as just three of our local examples. It seems that most of them that opened back then either threw in the towel as far as brewing was concerned and became gastropubs, or they settled into a comfort zone and kept producing the same beers using the same recipes for years and years. SPBC is different in that they kept changing it up, being innovative and experimental, and the list of awards they have won under head brewer Jason Welke since they brought him on in 2006 shows that this is working for them. Continue reading
American Craft Beer Week, Day 5
San Pedro Brewing Company
As legend has it, in the beginning there were three microbreweries in the South Bay; Manhattan Beach Brewing Company, Redondo Beach Brewing Company and San Pedro Brewing Company. Manhattan Beach Brewing gave up on brewing and became a gastropub (Brewco Manhattan Beach), preferring to sell a wide variety of craft beers brewed by others. Redondo Beach Brewing Company continues to brew at their Riviera Village brewpub, but they do not experiment much and the beer recipes seemed to stay the same, batch after batch; it is a good entry level brewery to visit, but nothing exciting. Rumor has it that they will be discontinuing brewing there soon, preferring to go the route of Manhattan Beach Brewing. Of the three, San Pedro Brewing Company continues to brew and is opening a subsidiary of sorts, Port Town Brewing which has already won numerous awards.
Smog City Beer on Tap
San Pedro Brewing Company (SPBC) is a brewpub that has been at their current location for 13 years. They have won more than 43 medals in local county fairs, commercial beer competitions and international beer festivals. In addition to award winning beers, they have some pretty good food. SPBC gives tours on Friday afternoons, so if in the area, you might want to check it out. I was given a mini-tour and have to admit, I was quite surprised at the quantity and quality of beers they brew with such a small operation. When I was taken downstairs I fully expected to see a massive operation; as you can tell by the photos that was far from being the case.
While there I tried a flight of all seven in-house brewed beers that were available: Bruin Blonde Ale (2012 Silver Medal, California Commercial Beer Competition), Longshoreman Lager (2009 Gold Medal American Style Lager, Los Angeles County Fair), Port Town Hefeweizen, Mai Bock Spring Lager, Iowa Battleship IPA, Beacon Street Barleywine (2012 American Style Barleywine, Los Angeles International Beer Competition) and Sunken City Imperial Stout.
When I left San Pedro I headed over to Smog City Brewing as they just got their growlers in and I wanted to be among the first on my block to own one. While there I had a Quercus Circus Sour and an Amarilla Gorilla IPA; we picked up a growler of the 2012 Great American Beer Festival gold medal winner, Smog City Groundwork Coffee Porter. Smog City’s grand opening was held on Saturday, so that will be the subject of my ACBW day 6 report. All my photos from day five of American Craft beer Week will be found on GotBaddog.com.
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