Yorkshire Square Brewery
8th Annual South Bay Tap Takeover Photos
These photos were taken Thursday, September 1, at Tortilla Cantina in Torrance, where they hosted my 8th Annual South Bay Tap Takeover. The event, meant to celebrate the South Bay’s vibrant craft beer scene featured 19 breweries from Torrance, Redondo Beach, Inglewood, Torrance, Carson, Lomita, Hawthorne, El Segundo, Gardena, and Lawndale.
The featured South Bay breweries included Smog City, HopSaint, Scholb, Hermosa Brewing, Yorkshire Square, King Harbor Brewing, Far Field Beer, Crac, Honest Abe, Eureka Brewing, Common Space, LA Ale Works, Tortugo Brewing, Three Weavers, Crowns & Hops, El Segundo Brewing, Upshift Brewing, Burnin’ Daylight, and Project Barley. Continue reading
Platinum Jubilee Celebration at Yorkshire Square
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon, June 4, at Yorkshire Square Brewery in Torrance, where they held their Platinum Jubilee Street Party celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years as the monarch of England.
The free event featured live music, beer and food specials, a special wine list, and fun activities happening throughout the day. The special food menu included Platinum Pudding, the dessert created by Fortnum and Mason especially for the Queen’s Jubilee. The festivities included beer specials, including eight cask ales and a Jubilee Ale in cans to go.
I have to admit, I was a little surprised how busy it was, but the beertenders made short work of the lines. Continue reading
Photos of the 7th Annual South Bay Tap Takeover
These photos were taken Thursday at Tortilla Cantina in Torrance, where they hosted my 7th Annual South Bay Tap Takeover, featuring 28 of the South Bay’s craft breweries, with more than 50 taps pouring, and a couple brews that came in cans as keg space was becoming an issue.
I do not know what to say other than thank you to everyone that came out to enjoy the liquid gold provided by the participating breweries, cidery, and meadery. And thanks definitely have to be given to the servers who were kept pretty busy from noon until well after 10:00. The star of the day has to go to Rick who literally took things into his own hands when kitchen staff came up short. Continue reading
South Bay Breweries To-Go / Delivery Options Revisited
UPDATE: June 24 – Most local breweries now have some sort of dine in service, however, in my opinion this is still far too fluid for me to spend the hours to update manually, so please follow the links provided to see what the updated hours might be.
Phantom Carriage is now open for limited beer pickup.
It is hard to believe it has been more than two months since I wrote my initial South Bay Breweries To-Go and Delivery Options article; but here we are. The fact of the matter is that my initial article is getting cluttered with updates, and some links have been changed by the breweries. This update should be good through the Memorial Day weekend; I will update this as necessary.
Like the original article, this is solely a reference guide, so all breweries will be listed in alphabetical order for your ease and mine. Hours subject to change, be sure to contact the brewery directly. Continue reading
Photos from the Yorkshire Square Brewery 2nd Anniversary
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at Yorkshire Square Brewery in Torrance, where the South Bay’s only brewery specializing in cask-conditioned ales celebrated their second anniversary. The day-long, free to attend event featured an LA Galaxy vs. NY Red Bulls watch party, followed by another match after that ended, a bottle release, a free drawing that coincided with the Kentucky Derby, two food trucks, an artist selling his wares, and lots of Yorkshire Square ales.
Saturday had lots of competing events, such as the BeachLife Festival and the Southern California Homebrewers Festival, which probably accounted for why Yorkshire Square did not opt for another parking lot event, which means extra permit fees. Nonetheless, it was a nicely attended event and everyone seemed to have a good time.
Yorkshire had about 15 of their ales on cask, including their anniversary beer, Burton Pilgrimage, an Export Pale Ale that was done in collaboration with El Segundo Brewing Company. They also had a couple beer cocktails for those that are into that sort of thing. Continue reading
The Craft Beer Guy 2018 Year in Review
It is that time of year again, when I try to summarize what has happened in the past year, as far as local craft beer is concerned and the highlights of the Craft Beer Guy year. As I typically do, I read over last year’s review to see what predictions I may have made, and how they panned out.
Burnin’ Daylight Brewing – Coming soon!
I have to admit, with all the growth that is going on around here, I kind of feel like a slacker. It used to be a lot easier to keep up, but I am ashamed to say that there are at least two breweries in the South Bay that I have yet to visit; trying to keep up with the Long Beach area has proven tough. I have to rely on craft beer festivals like Festival Obscura to keep me somewhat in the loop. Continue reading
4th Annual South Bay Tap Takeover Photos
The photos were taken Thursday at Tortilla Cantina in Torrance, where they hosted the 4th Annual South Bay Tap Takeover. While this was their first time for hosting this event, it was the largest collection of local craft breweries since I first started putting on the event in 2015; with 22 local breweries participating and 49 taps of craft beer!
Since this was the fourth tap takeover, I have become accustomed to last minute issues coming up, resulting in either a brewery not getting the beers to the venue on time, or a mislabeled keg. As I have read that this is fairly common with even the most efficiently run craft beer festival, I just kind of grin and bear it as most of the time the attendees never even notice. While I was putting out proverbial fires at 10:30 Wednesday night, by the time Thursday morning rolled around everything somehow was falling into place. Continue reading
Yorkshire Square One Year Anniversary Photos
These photos were taken Saturday afternoon at Yorkshire Square Brewery in Torrance, where the brewery specializing in cask-conditioned ales celebrated their first year of being open for business. The event featured about 20 brews available on cask and/or draft, several beer cocktails, and English Morris dancing by the Rising Phoenix Morris dancers; food was available from the BatterFish food truck. Yorkshire Square also used the celebration as an opportunity to release two new beers; At Last the 1948 Mild, and Double Doors, a punched-up, double-mashed reinterpretation of their Early Doors, which they bottled.
This past year has been a pretty good one for Yorkshire Square. In November they became the second brewery in California to receive the Cask Marque’s certificate of excellence award. Cask Marque is an accrediting program that sets cask ale standards for 10,000 pubs and breweries worldwide via unannounced, twice a year inspections. There are only 17 breweries in the entire country that currently have this award.
Just last week BeerAdvocate named Yorkshire Square Brewing as one of the top 50 new breweries in the U.S. and Canada for 2017. Continue reading
The Craft Beer Guy 2017 Year in Review
As the year draws to a close, it is time to think back on what 2017 has brought to the craft beer world; more specifically what has happened in the Craft Beer Guy world. As 2016 came to a pretty crappy end for me, I did not do one last year; for that reason, I will begin with the end of 2016 as it segued into 2017.
Smog City – Steelcraft – Bixby Knolls
My coverage of 2016 ended pretty much the way 2017 started, with the opening of Smog City Brewing Company’s satellite tasting room, Smog City – SteelCraft in the Bixby Knolls area of Long Beach. They opened the location at the end of December; by the middle of January they had applied for, and were granted the ability to sell growlers and bottles to go.
Later in January the inaugural L.A. Beer and Food Festival was presented by the Los Angeles County Brewers Guild. The sold-out event featured close to 50 member breweries of the LA Brewers Guild as well as 15 local food vendors. This year the L.A. Beer and Food Festival will be held Saturday, January 27. Buy your tickets now, before it sells out.
Just a bit of trivia; while there were about 50 LA County Brewers Guild members in January of 2017, today there are almost 70! Continue reading
Photos from the 3rd Annual South Bay Tap Takeover
These photos were taken Thursday at the 3rd Annual South Bay Tap Takeover, which was held at Flights, in Hawthorne. The event featured 18 of the South Bay’s best production breweries and brewpubs, filling up 39 tap handles.
Although I did not arrive until a little after 4:00 PM, my Facebook feed indicated that people began streaming in pretty much as soon as the doors opened. By 6:00 we had the place packed and it remained that way until close to 10:00; after that, people kept arriving to sample some outstanding brews.
I had the opportunity to speak with many of the attendees and discovered that this was the first time visiting Flights; it seems safe to say that they will all return. Continue reading
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