No-no-notorious on a hot ass day. Thanks a lot PORTLAND.
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LA BEER WEEK CONTINUES: DDB visits @threeweavers obtains no weaves, steadfastly remains unwoven @labeerweek
Three Weavers, for those instances when two weavers just isn’t quite enough. These rascals in Inglewood have not been up to no good, they are doing at least some good, if not significant good. They opened their doors about 8 months ago and have been slowly ekeing out a very significant market share in an area that was seemingly at its saturation point with upstart breweries, with a whole smattering opening within 2 years of one another. This is a place that is a standout in focus and execution, worthy of your time and attention.
It feels like if a Burning Man bookstore merged with Pizza Port
When I first heard about Three Weavers, I thought it was an urban hair salon. That isn’t an Inglewood joke, it is a hairstyling joke. But SRS they seem to provide a valuable new riff on a perpetually evolving area. The tasting room is a smattering of all demographics and it is in equal measure industrial and an artsy Birkenstock Lillith Fair extravaganza at the same time. For some reason, whenever someone previously would mention this place, it was always brought up immediately with PINK BOOTS SOCIETY noted in the same sentence. I mean sure they do Pink Boots events,have a Pink Boots societe beer on tap, they have a female head brewer, but you’d have to be a myopic shitlord if all you focused on was the fact that head brewmaster Alexandra Nowell was female. There is more to this brewery, but that appears to be a big part of it.
I don’t know what is a shittier move, taking candids or asking a server to pose in front of the taplist. Both are equally inconvenient and selfish
Seafarer Kolsch: this god damn style: easy to do, hard to fuck up, even harder to do well. They fall closer to the exceptional pin with what should be a glossed over entry, clean delicious and crisp like an anjou pear with a touch of grassiness. It reminds me of Reality Czech and those gentle as shit offerings from Moonlight Brewing, which is to say it is very good.
We Saw Them Coming: I am pretty sure this is just a riff on 21st Amendment’s mediocre as fuck saison “SNEAK ATTACK” and then they added watermelon to it. However, unlike the 21A offering, this is intensely dry and the watermelon isn’t some crutch they lean on like with HELL OR HIGH WHATEVERMELON, it is olfactory first and contributes a touch of salinity to the finish. As refreshing as an ice cube down your Lane Bryant stretchpants.
Return of Sassy Rye: This was meh, it was fine but if you went into this expecting some Nelson explosion of dry, oily hops, you’ll get more of a hoppy Roggenbier. Shit is clean and well done, just not exceptionally exciting, like IN THE BEDROOM starring Sissy Spacek, but with more rye and less depressing.
Bonus points for not having a heavy, needlessly ornate, stupid fucking themed serving board of like an entire Loom or some shit
Southbounder Coffee Stout: This got my sand dollar nips blasting like some Flintstones pushup Pops. This had all of the dry and well massaged yeast profile of their other gentle offerings but a blast of intense acidity and roast from the coffee. This is easily their best beer and fires on all cylinders. I emptied my wastegate immediately, straight blowoff, fully boosted.
CHOOSE YOUR CLASS WISELY
LOL like anyone even played shitty FFXIV
John Holl (All About Beer) and Ben Keane (Beer Advocate Managing Editor) discuss DDB in the latest STB podcast
@24:45
http://www.stealthisbeer.com/episodes/2015/6/22/episode-12-ben-keene-beer-advocate-magazine
WE FINALLY MADE IT TO THE MOUNTAINTOP.
NOTE: your LA beer week programming will continue after I post this shameless self-absorbed post about what others are saying about DDB.
LA BEER WEEK BONUS REVIEW: @smogcitybeer Cuddlebug, Compelled Cuddling is Really Just Pinning Someone Down
Alright before we jump right back into the fray with another brewery review, might as well address this stone fruit prodigy that people have been mentioning with regularity on the trade boards. The Smog City barrel program seemingly has blind sided consumers and top tier tickers alike with monthly releases spitting hot rounds, dropping mad 16s on the South Bay. Even crusty kids with Pennywise shirts are peeping the BAL game.
So what’s the deal with this shit? OH GREAT YET ANOTHER STONEFRUIT SOURED BLONDE WOW SUCH ORIGINAL MANY INSPIRE. I thought the same thing and furrowed my brow, knowing that hard as nails lineage it would need to compete with: Persica, Fen Tao, La Fosse, Veritas 15, Fuzzy, the list goes on and fucking on. Even making a 4.5% AWA with peaches and apricots already puts a red dot on a brewer’s head like Rodman.
Let’s go through the standard checklist that gets level 2 cicerones tumescent:
– Stonefruit
– 2000 bottle release
– brewery only
And then they need to clean the trub from those And1 basketball shorts because that’s all it takes these days. Except this beer is actually good, it’s really fucking tasty.
squeeze that peach until the juice runs down your leg
The pour looks a touch watery but leaves subtle cling before that carb crackles off and belies that potentially acidic affair waiting underneathe. It looks clean and radiant, glowing like a Super Mario Galaxy Star.
The nose is intense pithy apricot flesh, cut nectarine, less peach and more farmers market clementines and satsuma almost. The bouquet seems so representative of the fruits in question is feels supra-real, like when that yellow smelling marker smelled more like lemons than real lemons do. This goes over the top and the acidity isn’t really anywhere to be found. There isn’t much brett C or musky funk interplay and this is one of those “squeaky clean” sours that boost crushability in lieu of cheesy gristiness.
WHOA WAIT THIS IS NOT THE PEACHES I WAS SEEKING. i will accept this willingly.
The taste is endlessly balanced, a fruit profile that never becomes cloying or artificial. It has moderate acidity but you could easily crush a 500ml without a second thought. There is a touch of drying along the gumline but it never feels like they are learning on the fruit as a crutch. With some fruited wilds, you toss 2 lbs per gallon of anything and YOU WIN THE GAME THIS TASTES LIKE FRUIT, but that isn’t the case here. The fruit tannins serve to compliment rather than outshine the delicate drinkability of this beer, it’s like an ultra competent Steve Buscemi performance that makes everyone else appear even better as a whole.
A complaint that perhaps isn’t even a valid gripe is that it is TOO easy to drink and unless you actively contemplate this beer, it will be gone. One phone call from your ex wife pestering you about DID YOU BORROW MY STEPLADDER and boom the entire beer is gone. THANKS A LOT, JANET, YOU STOLE YET ANOTHER THING FROM MY LIFE. It isn’t insubstantial like some of the Bu’s, and it isn’t over the top like some nameless Floridian offerings, it his this perfect inner wall of satisfaction you want to rock upon until you crack your pit and juice it hard.
WAIT WUT.
how long been on them stone fruits? ALL DAY TICKER
In sum, yet another fucking great beer without a clear parallel, that is absolutely worth putting in and around your face.
GHOSTS IN THE WHIP: DDB takes a ride to @phntmcarriage Brewing, LA Beer Week Cant Stop Wont Stop
Oh shit the LA Beer week reviews continue after yesterday’s Absolution write up gave people srs feels. Today we focus that malt soaked gaze upon some oddly charming macabre upstarts: Phantom Carriage.
So what is the deal with these Carson ballers whipping up american wilds, leveraging in equal measure macabre golden age Horror films and South Bay oil refinery microflora? Their business model at the outset appears to be a “Rare Barrel from the South” of sorts, with an emphasis on barrels, blending, bats and Black Lagoons.
Even in night mode, it is difficult to demonstrate how fucking dark this taproom is. Snaggletooth nightbeasts can get mad love here.
The tasting room is the typical industrial park complex but when you enter the pitch black tasting room it feels like a cross between Disney Thunder Mountain and the Haunted Mansion. There are chalk murals of Boris Karloff and Vincent Price and it looks like it needs one of those dry ice machines and fake cobwebs to nail down the “Horror Section” milieu of a VHS rental store.
The taplist doesn’t offer a incredible variety but that is like going to Kuhnhenn and complaining about the multitude of massive beers. They maintain a decidedly Awa verve and even when they set out into the farmhouse realm it still feels lactic and acidic throughout.
Would you like a tart saison, a sour wild, an acidic american wild, or a sour berliner? SUCH CHOICE TO BE MAKE.
So is their beer any fucking good, or should it be buried in a graveyard with some Troma DVDs?
Broadacres: Their berliner was refreshing, watery, Gatorade with a touch of salinity akin to De Garde Petite Mosaic. Pretty deece.
Ambler: not really farmhouse so much as it was just a straight up sour golden ale you have encountered a billion times before. Nothing exceptionally deficient, but given the layout of most mediocre breweries, this would be top tier for the average brewery, if they had a single sour at all.
Cushing: this is syrupy, acetic, with a cloying abrasiveness in the vein of a less attenuated Upland “lambic.” Shit was WNBA 100% not bitches.
These photos are even shittier than the usual DDB photos because the brewery is about as well lit as a 8th grade makeout party with nothing but bandos
Leapwood with Brett: The special offering of Leapwood with Brett was easily the best beer on draft and was so good that it seemed out of place amongst some of the the forgettable sours padding out the ranks. When placing it against the serviceable but decent Muis, Leapwood seemed like it was from a completely different brewery, this would be legitimately worth seeking out to purposefully avail yourself of this phenomenal beer.
Muis: like a more watery version of Cushing, this was basically all Brett Lambicus, kinda one dimensional, dry, but with a nice lemongrass finish that lingers. 6 nugs on the dro scale.
Their bottle list was on point with a wide array of bottles from local breweries, other Saisons, wilds, Shelton brothers items, and even limited beer from the “would be” competitor, Smog City brewing. You would have to be a persnickety complainer to not be able to find something to enjoy, even if you don’t find Phantom Carriages lineup completely compelling, the guest taps, the variety in the bottles, the collaboration with other breweries like Cascade and LA locals make it a pretty tough spot to really talk shit on.
My main complain is the sheer redundancy of some of their sour blonde iterations OVER and OVER and OVER, like a lesbian who gets her tubes tied: WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS.
AH YES SOME SYRUPY ROBITUSSIN SUCRETS GOODNESS TO BREAK UP THE SOUR BLONDES
The brewery appears to have its voice dropping with some glimmers of pure athleticism and greatness, with the barrel aged stretch marks of awkward development as an undercurrent at this time. There are some great beers, and a bunch of mediocre barrel fillers. The aphotic movie room with a Vincent Price film on was a magnificent touch if only because I have never seen a brewery with enough balls to go beyond the tragically trite “BARRELS AS TABLES, grain sacks for seats, HEY LOOK A FOOD TRUCK” bit.
While this may be a nonissue to some, I ordered the hummus and baguette and it was really fucking good. The pairing was completely shitty with a flight of Casacade lactic bombs as a sidecar, but that is largely my own negligence.
So what is in store for these guys? I can see them weathering the craft beer storm because they are decidedly focused with intent, branding, and a lineup that seems to be perpetually evolving. When I first tried this brewery at the Beachwood sour fest, it seemed like a few meh Brett trois strains and a sour golden with potential DMS issues. It was initially some Junior Varsity Monkish-tier shit. In a single year they have already improved incredibly and the glints of their best far outweigh their worst at this juncture.
I opened a bottle of Kuhnhenn Raspberry Eisbock with the staff and they all were conversant, really friendly and self aware. While the beers themselves sometimes are not consistent enough to carry the day, the overall experience makes this place a must visit.
They absolutely will need to field a million tired ass Dany Prignon/Fantome Carriage jokes tho, that shit will NEVR get ode.
DDB went to @absolutionbrewing and the facepalms were not insubstantial – LA BEER WEEK EXPOSE
With the craft beer bubble reaching the saturation point, the real fun these days lies in finding Johnny Come Latelies to the scene, or breweries that maybe are doing things in a highly questionable manner, jumping from plastic carboy to a 10bbl system because his father in law BELIEVES IN HIM.
Los Angeles has long had an anomalous relationship of being a second class citizen to San Diego and San Francisco. Despite the massive population, Beachwood BBQ has largely been tasked with pulling the cart for the past half decade. However, in the past 3 years we have seen several pop-ups in the South Bay from the rising star, Smog City, to the ultra-shitty Dude’s Brewing Company.
A large part of this culture is the gladhanding and backslapping that occurs from the local beer publications that massage the palms of some of the weakest new breweries, for the sake of reciprocal support. OC Weekly and LA Weekly will regularly launder praise with amorphous “OLD WORLD STYLE WITH EXCITING NEW EXECUTION” and shit like that. The fact is, some breweries are simply not that fucking good. If every new brewery is exceptional, then nothing is exceptional.
I can unequivocally note that Absolution Brewing, while it may have an exceptional intent, donate to charity, and serve as a watering hole for Torrance residents: their beer is simply sub-par.
No taster glasses? I guess just serve me 3 ounces…in a pilsner glass?
They have 18 beers on tap but HOLY FUCK WAIT not one, but TWO barrel aged IPAs? Fully triggered.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the eight beers that I tried:
Penance Pale Ale: this was a dark, flabby, sappy, resinous pale malt that feels like it came from the Michael Jackson era of crystal malt and oversaturated vegetal cones from excessive dry hopping. Trifling, sticky malty kicks to the nutsack, not refreshing.
Guilt? What is this, i dont even
STRAWBERRY TRESPASSER: oh wait, i hope you dont enjoy strawberries because this has none. It tastes almost identical to regular Trespasser. That grainy boring saison, but with an oily plastic “strawberry” aspect?
Purgatory Hef: this was their least shitty beer because, how do you fuck a hef up? It was fine, nothing to write home about but everyone in the tasting room seemed to be having a good time, a mixed demographic and my wincing reminded me how I am a huge asshole and beer is no longer fun to me. In sum I have no business reviewing their beers because it simply isn’t designed for DDB.
Angel’s Demise: this was essentially a ramped up version of the mediocre Penance pale. None of the offerings are clean and there is a bitter, coniferous bite like if you proofed down an American Barleywine. I had the bourbon barrel aged version and it was not enjoyable, butterscotch greasiness and the clash of old hops and toffee was dissonant.
Pictured above: every. single. brewery’s business model.
But this is endemic of the surge of new breweries opening left and right. Very few are inspired beyond the scope of “I JUST GOT $250,000 TIME TO UPGRADE MY BLICHMAN AND START PUMPIN OUT SOME RED ALES!!!!”
It is L.A. Beer week, go see them for yourself. Maybe I am just a curmudgeonous prick, not fit to comment on beer at this point.
Typical ddb shit, hyping up LA beers to trade
Dry hop Surette riserva, God damn @crookedstave hot like Mya on the cover of that King
Weak tickers slept on this release like Lunesta. Criminally overlooked and I am content to allow misguided dipshits trade their entire cellars for more inferior bottles. The crisp tropical acidity and that herbaceous oily hop blast got CO fertility rates through the roof, couple of these and those Dro smoking, Birkenstock wearing Homies start ovulating over awas hard.
It was so good and I ain’t even mad tho.
Authentic american lambic from the PAjotenland, proprietary Williamsport microflora for the haters.
I still tick EM like I used2, I need to put that shit on YouTube.
PLUM WATCH 2015 CONTINUES: enough of @caseybrewing Grippin on my Plums also, OAK THEORY REVISITED
In the past four months the upstarts over at Casey have experienced seemingly overnight skyrocketing demand, and CO hoarders have been hitting the trade boards harder than Soda Popinkski. In what was previously the typical overly-generous, Subaru-driving bonhomie of the mountain people, Colorado traders are flexing hard on the recent releases. They are getting Cut in more ways than one. When KBBS went 1:1 with Blackberry Cut last week it was like when Bane pumps that green shit into his skull and you know things are about to get completely out of pocket.
So it goes.
So what is the deal with this plum fruit stand? We all know cherry was legit as fuqqqq but them plums are tough to massage, that tenuous dance between pith, acidity and insoluble fiber, did Troy Casey bruise ur fruit brah? Let’s get pitted and find out
Enjoying a productive afternoon at Beachwood cruising for chicks on Ancestry.com
Casey Brewing, high altitude north of the wall, CO
Fruited barrel aged saison 5.5% abv
The pour comes out radiant and ruddy, slight glow of turbid tangerine tones and a whipped meringue to the carb that sits in a frothy cap like an orange creamsicle starbucks frap. The sheeting looks like the agitated gallons of juice at the Sunkist factory.
Other entries in the PLUM WATCH canon include:
PLUM WATCH 2015: @hillfarmstead Flora Plum, Cleaning Up Harmful Free Radicals with Beer
and
A review of Out of the Emptiness that I cannot find right now because this site is a pile of disorganized garbage.
Again, some assholes still believe that a plum sour should be purple, but then again I cant expect dudes who wear husky sized elastic waisted jeans from Lands End to know what the inside of a fruit looks like. The nose is far less sharp than Flora plum and has more of a refined acidity leaning towards skins, juicer dregs, Roebeks atmosphere, the late harvest of plums overripe in the sun, closing with a sort of cheesy puppy musk. Them up the nose tangerine tongue kisses.
Chasing this down with an order of cured albacore, typical weekday lunch shit.
The taste has this tenuous relationship where it wants to go balls out with the fruit but with that comes potentially overbearing acidity. IT IS LIKE UNCLE BEN SAID POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY IN BREWING, PETER. In a decidedly unamerican execution, the beer favors creamy drinkability in lieu of intense ph forward kicks to the taint. It feels a lot like the Tilquin plum ancienne but admittedly I enjoy this more because the mouthfeel isn’t nearly as excoriating. Yes I realize beer nerds rip their tutfy brillow pubes out if you suggest that an American sour is in any way superior to a Belgian iteration so I’ll allow you to go grab some Ben gay and cool the burn.
Overall, this is well worth your time and while not as complex as HF Flora plum, it is a marked improvement over the Almanac plum entries which are simply too sour in execution, by comparison. If you enjoyed the plum emptiness from Tired Hands, this is lock step just as good and incredibly similar, acidic but crushable, worthy of your reflection but doesn’t command your focus like some community college drama asshole who won’t give it a rest.
If you can land this 400 bottle banger for something in the realm of Vanilla Rye, absolutely jump on it. I can’t stop grippin my plums. Things are likely gonna get worse before they get better with regards to landing Casey bottles, might as well lay on this Semtex now and shatter your cellar before the next hot 3bbl brewery opens in the middle of nowhere Idaho and starts doing 130 bottle releases. High tide floats all boats.
OK THE OTHER BOTTLE WAS OFF ALRIGHT SHIT
As a corollary, I wanted to revisit my controversial review of Oak Theory. Colorado tickers were seed pissed about my prior impressions that oak theory was too sour so I decided to review another bottle to see if I was being a cranky crab that evening when I initially drank Oak Theory alone.
Upon another sampling, my initial review of oak theory was wildly different than my second bottle. The second go round felt more like a gentle, more complex, more lactic version of East Bank. Listen, I can’t do every iteration and every batch of every bottle and sometimes my shit is misguided based upon a limited sample size of A SINGLE BOTTLE. Nevertheless, if you previously decided NOT to seek out Oak Theory because I said it tasted like Planned Parenthood afterbirth (I didn’t) go get it now, the subsequent bottles are far different.
TASTES SO GOOD TO BE SO WRONG
Homie I’m bringin CO back and I don’t rock button up shirts or drive Maybachs. @caseybrewing
Upskirt shots make the girth seem more throttled
dontdrinkbeer 