God damn I keep marveling at @calusabrewing how they take relatively simple styles and jam pack so much flavor into tightly fermented structure. The problem with most session ipas is they feel watery or unsubstantial or hot you with excessive boil hops and no counterbalance in malty sweetness, this eschews both problems but being lighthanded in the bittering but providing almost a grisette type of body to make it drink higher than its finishing Plato would indicate. The spot welds are seamless and it’s excessively crooooshable lemon chobani, O bang and a soft aserose finish. It’s a beverage that lubricates activities instead of commanding their attention, like a nuanced John C Riley performance where you see what he is capable of without needing to beat you over the head with his depth. Solid work right here from a state perhaps not known for a light hand on the throttle, this pumps a soft rev on my hazy motoguzzi

Alright, staying in Torrance and knocking out another relatively unknown LA brewery today on LGVLABTOKF: Scholb Brewing. At first blush I saw how close it was to Absolution and my cervical spine tightened up with PTSD for that industrial park near the refinery and lumber companies. Thankfully there is nothing really objectionable about Scholb, but there isn’t anything really praiseworthy either.

You walk in and there’s dudes playing cornhole despite clear signs prohibiting this conduct near the paella truck.

Editor’s note: The music at this place is FUCKING AMAZING. I am not doing a bit, they were playing old AFI, authority zero, catch 22, it legitimately made the entire experience better for me specifically and perhaps exclusively but it’s a really pleasant place to relax.

If Tommy Bahama had a propagation chamber, it would create a starter culture for these consumers, middle aged white dudes in polo shirts presumably talking about whether Tiger is still relevant in the Bridgestone Invitational. Scholb beer is equally inoffensive. I checked in on YELP and got a sixth free taster, which was welcome but perhaps not necessary. I got the jist after 5 tasters and some jerky. Their beers are the fermented equivalent of a Macaroni Grill meal: if you haven’t been to many places and didnt leave town after high school you will probably think this is as good as it gets. There’s nothing wrong with that.

The cherry sour wasn’t exceptionally tart or complex, it had a mild lactic profile. The peach saison wasn’t exceptionally peach and the entire time you can practically FEEL which white labs starters were used. When you think of CA Ale strain 001 in its various incantations, this is their porter, lightly watery and lacking roasty depth. It’s whatever. They are all ultra clean and well made but wholly uninspired. There is no reason to seek this out, no reason to avoid it, like listening to Tame Impala, you forget you are even consuming anything.

The best beer was Moon Tide and I could see people drilling those endlessly but again, it’s hard to push this through the grist mill because the most notable thing about this tasting room was an airbrushed painting of a poodle. If you were filming a major network series about people opening a brewery, it would look like this, stock, some set dresser would look at what they look like and approximate it.

Ranking this one is like pushing a blank card into a deck:

So where do they rank in the LGVLABTOKF hierarchy?

1. Verdugo West Brewing

2. Dry River Brewing

3. Strand Brewing

4. Boomtown Brewery

5. Scholb Brewing

6. Brewyard Beer Company

7. Indie Brewing Company

The mission continues, I am told I have a mere 77 more Los Angeles breweries to go.

Great.

We discuss the proprietary ownership of yeast, explore the pinnacle of Pastry Stouts with Angry Chair, bellybutton propagation and explore Pro Wrestling Guerrilla!

http://bit.ly/MaltCoutureBatch6

Give it a listen, rate and subscribe, Gooby pls..

In today’s installment of LGVLABTOKF we venture to Torrance to Strand Brewing, the oldest brewery in Torrance, if you don’t care about Red Car Brewing. I don’t know shit about Red Car but they are one of the 85 breweries in LA so I guess I will end up there eventually.

Strand is the O’est of G’ees in the LA beer scene which as of 2009 when Strand opened, was complete dogshit. When I used to trade beer in 2011 I would always try to send “local” extras and invariably it meant like Strand, or Hangar 24, or like Eagle Rock Brewing. So it has a “historical” pedigree from the first Obama administration.

Allow me to disabuse you of the notion that this is some beachy STRAND sandy no bad vibes type of place: this is industrial park to the fullest. It’s a massive 30,000 airplane hangar of a space in central Torrance adjacent to the Chevron refinery. Their beers are just, okay. I mean that in a sort of Brendan Frazier script wherein things have remained suspended for years without change or adaptation: Encino Beer, Ales from the Past, etc. It’s malty crystal driven IPAs and hoppy beers galore with C-hops. That’s it. Nothing barrel aged or remotely interesting. If you were a realtor punching up the copy and appeal of this brewery you would call it a “historical” offering of “charming” beers. To be clear: this is fine. It’s fine to be in Bevmo. It’s acceptable to be in the solid middle ranks. Not every brewery can be blowing people’s tits off with rare casked barleywines and coolshipped beers.

I got three hoppy beers, which I could identify as Forty Eight, Simcoe Summer and White Sand, but they all basically tasted pretty similar so what’s even the point. They look the same, they are served in pint glasses as 5oz pours, for whatever reason. The other item I got was ORANGE DAZZLER or some shit, it was like a 3% radler that tasted like if you poured emergenC into ginger ale and wasn’t very enjoyable at all.

The tasting room is MASSIVE and I am sure the locals enjoy it but the DDB audience has little utility for such a place. They have shuffle board and picnic tables and seemingly WAYYYYY more space than is needed and a comparatively sparse draft list. The one thing I will say that is BAD ASS is that they straight up offer pitchers. At a brewery. That is not fucking around in the least, so they have that going for them. This place is whatever, the fuck do you want me to say. I am just tryna hit my wordcount so I can sell this piece to Thrillist for 22 cents a word. Done.

So where do they rank in the LGVLABTOKF hierarchy?

1. Verdugo West Brewing

2. Dry River Brewing

3. Strand Brewing

4. Boomtown Brewery

5. Brewyard Beer Company

6. Indie Brewing Company

The mission continues, I am told I have a mere 78 more Los Angeles breweries to go.

Great.

On paper this seems wholly antithetical to @3sonsbrewingco the deacons of the pastry theology. There’s no frills no adjuncts no odd confections or complex casking: it’s just straight up Life. Further, it doesn’t rely on an overwhelming abv or excess in any way, it’s the most pure and stripped down iteration of their canon that I could have asked for, the bb4d of the Floridian pox on casked ales. By presenting less, they achieve so much more. This beer is so intense and warrants slow contemplation as it breaks in waves over the sweet to bitter zones with sugar babies and burnt bananas fosters transitioning to eagle rare 17 in the swallow. If you took toffee wax shatter pieces and loaded it up into a candy shell gravity bong, then here we are. It’s almost too much at lower temps because it’s so much raisinettes and plum, brown sugar brioche, the swallow lends itself to pralines and a ribbon of Ben and Jerrys sea salt caramel. I almost want more heat and more dryness to offset a touch of the saccharine but the limited slip differential kicks in as it warms and it aligns closer to the likes of BB4d in that medium body with bold stave profile. A knock against it is the heft as it almost has too intense sheeting and coating and I feel like a drop of a few platos could have sanded the abv meets residual body issues. DDB U HAVE RESIDUAL BODY ISSUES. Sure, if you filled in my stretch marks I could audition for live action thundercats this isn’t about me. So this beer is complex but the poise isn’t light on the back of its heels it is all thrust and easier to parry because of the huge swipes it takes. So if straight jacket is a technical Mayweather balanced jabber, this is like a Riddick Bowe from times past that is charming in a way that this has never existed. Since these will likely be as rare as PhD candidates in a Medea movie, I’m sure everyone will rave about their 2oz pour. It’s depth but not longevity, and all the low hanging penile euphemisms. Ultimately, I gotta get mine in a big black truck, I wholly respect if you can get yours in a six four.

Cyclopaedia

Wayne Wambles is the malt maven who has furtively pushed the boundaries of what Life is capable of round after round of the oft-overlooked Catador club. For every trieme being propelled by the sighs of a husky manchild expecting a boring Huna variant, the real knowers covet the sticky treats. This is crushingly good and just a hair below the Leon and Opal realm. This also flexes on the other two already solid barleywines and tosses a half barrel over the wall to show

them how barleycrossfit is truly done.

The heft of this is massive, even for them Tampatoffee standards. It aligns with the likes of Adwtdb1 in sheeting and have massive depth and complexity, carmelized figs, Pom juice, currant and a blast of iced cider on the swallow. The bitterness of the American barleywine malt and hops aligns like Watson and Crick enzymes with the sweetness of those apple brandy staves. The result is like the substrate that apples congeal in within their cobbler matrix. Swallow is long and undulant like an Artie Shaw vibrato and my reeds are left soaking wet. Absolutely seek this out, it is the best of the three stellar barleywines reviewed and deserves to occupy your mouth and fill you entirely.

A Deal with De Molen

On paper this looks exceedingly similar to the likes of Cyclopaedia: massive barleywine, apple brandy casking, barrel program pedigree through the roof: but the Deal is in the details. This is the “worst” of the three barleywines, each of which are awesome. The shortcomings are evident with this beer when stacked against more well rounded barleywines as the nose is exceedingly wafty and cask driven. You must absolutely love Calvados to run with this spicy boi because it delivers so much wood and sweeeet cider and jazz apple tones. It’s straight up state fair granny smith dipped in Sysco caramel sauce. The sweet on sweet scissoring makes it cloying almost, because the protagonist is your own mouth making sense of this onslaught.

Let’s make this clear at the outset: this is nothing like A Deal with the Devil. This isn’t as hefty, it doesnt have that American barleywine presence to counterbalance the rolo and port aspects. I nailed the 12oz but I wasn’t clamoring for more, it took me a bit to let it open up Georgia O’Keefe flowers, pushing through those malty folds. It’s good but it is wholly ambitious, a habitual linestepper. Good luck on that Tavour raffle for these joints.

Iron Furnace

The Smelter Demon is the notorious Dark Souls II boss of Iron Keep. The biggest issue with trying to fight that firey goliath is wrangling the heat which is constantly damaging you. Iron Furnace shares similar DPS issues, albeit in a much sweeter manner. If you pop a Life gem and enter prepared, this might be the most fun you have all year. This has all of the satisfying structure of regular old Brick Kiln and it’s nutted deviant, but with a syrupy heft like Skor robitussin. Here’s the issue, all of the residual sweetness from the maple only further amps up every aggressive aspect of this beer. If you loved the subtlety of Brick Kiln nut, you will find this gauche and OP, like the Smelter Demon. If you like melee and currant, sticky silver dollar flapjacks with prune meets IHOP booth fingerblasting, then the Barley Demon is your boss. It seems to exaggerated and out of comport with what Jackie O’s is usually all about, dual handing that toffee stick and just pancaking your palate with sheets of molasses is too much for me.

All of the foregoing is comparing this very good beer to beers I enjoy more from THE EXACT SAME BREWERY. You really can’t get higher poise in a DDB review than being compared to yourself, that classic Shaun Hill paradigm where you constantly lose because u PvP urself 1v1. I highly recommend trying this because it is absolutely well crafted, but a palate calibration to determine where your tastes align with regards to sweeeetness index. This is what a regular Angry Chair barleywine would taste like, if that gives you an approximation of the deft execution we are dealing with here.

It’s good, smang it, smash it and bang it. In ur turqoise jeep.

http://bit.ly/MaltCoutureBatch5

I usually hover in the realm of self aware or effacing about things I’ve made but @maltcoutureddb batch 5 is so god damn good. Please listen to it. Malt Couture batch 5 is out now! Click the link in profile to hear me discuss the Goose island infection class action suit, and other things. .

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#craftbeer #beerporn #instabeer #bier #cerveza #birra #podcast #breweries #pivo #instadaily #beergeek #beer #beerdaily #memes #beermemes #vsco #ootd #instadaily #podcast

For those of you who have been following the decorous career of Derek Gallanosa at Abnormal, and now Moksa Brewing Company, you already know he is a the wagyu pastry massager, gripping and manipulating batter, fingernails grimys with nibs and beans. He also tried to sell us stouts with a fucking pair of sunglasses included, so no one is perfect. I was curious to see if this big move up to Rocklin, vanilla beans in his bindle, would change things. From the 858 to the 916, the dough mixer is still running. First and foremost, I drank Turbinator 2: Judgment Haze and it was really well done. I mean this in a “wow this brewery does more than just push candy bars through mash forks” sort of way. In the regional scheme of things, it is better than Alvarado Street, and as good as the already solid Moonraker, but inferior to Cellarmaker and Seven Stills when its one of their cans that hit. It doesnt reimagine the scope of the genre but the bitter is balanced with grapefruit pith beyond just boring ass creamy oats and stonefruits.

But what about the sticky buns? I know you guys only give a shit about the Wonka shit, so rest assured it is very similar in scope and quality to Abnormal. Prior to the northward I-5 migration, I viewed Abnormal as the best non-BA stout purveyor in the country. Moksa has built upon this but excised much of the flab for a more focused approach. This makes the non-BA stouts even better but gives me pause for how much yarn the BA versions have to knit out those ultra casked versions.

Time will tell. Lush is a bit disappointing given the description, but well made. Allow me to elaborate. This is a well-executed beer that is classic and shows restraint which in itself works against the stupid 12 plato finishing shit we have come to expect from the subversion of the nuts in your cacao genre. It’s moderately sweet but the additives contribute more of an olfactory waxiness, not a meaningful addition to the stout itself, which is shocking given how insane the figures are on this beer. I anticipate that a BA version of this will either be completely thin and wiped out or it will “Urkel to Stefan” and balance out the sweetness and drink like an incredible huge porter akin to Old May Joy from Great Raft. Either way, this is pretty solid but nothing alarming.

Indulgence, however, is nothing short of a complete masterful accomplishment. The fact that this massive beast is this expressive out the gates without any barrel component makes me question whether the BA version is even necessary. When something is this good, why even modify it with wood spoilers and stavey ground effects? This is thick but serves a John Stuart Mill utilitarianism to communicate the greatest good by the evil of residual sugar. It has an ample chassis for coconut, Ghanian and Ecuadorian cacao nibs, and Tahitian vanilla beans to pump out their respective oiliness, sweetness, and fantastic Drumstick cone bouquet. The swallow is long and greasy in a fantastic eclair sort of way, decadent French confectioner nips getting all achy. I both can’t wait for the BA version of this and almost hesitate to think how much more apeshit this can get since this alone is already a cap doffing offering.

The barleywine was wayyyyy too fucking sweet. It was like a parody of English barleywine amplified with Rockford fosgate subs pounding out brown sugar. This begs for barrel aging reforming school to wrangle this Brueryesque base Beer. With some time in captivity I anticipate this cinnamon sugar toast will calm down and become something exceptional. On the up side they somehow integrated that dizzying 17% without sharp edges. Which is impressive.

Let’s see if Moksa can keep this up and get those BALs sticky. We shall see.

Also malt couture batch 5 is live in 30 mins. I examine the goose island class action lawsuit and it’s also a masterpiece of malty podpulling. Our best batch to date.

This is repost of sorts, but I needed to get these guys into the LGVLABTOKF canon, so deal with it:

The journey to @brewyardbeerco is an epic quest in itself. Located under a freeway overpass and at the end of a leaky industrial corridor of no fewer than six cranes and forklifts, it is a trek. The space itself is batshit crazy as there was a live band playing Rockabilly, old trucks turned into tables, a wall of toys strewn about, and what appeared to be a MUG CLUB. The beer itself seemed to have that odd German purity emphasis you would see from places in the early 2000s that usually warrants trepidation. The staff is amazing, super knowledgeable and approachable and couldn’t be nicer or more forthright. The fans seem to absolutely love every aspect of this whole affair even if the beer is nonstandard and undercarbed. There wasnt a single IPA on tap, which usually I would applaud, but this felt more oversight than ambitious. The dunkel was clean and without comment. The Weizenbock aged on Mahogany was also just fine. Jewel City was their common and it was really well done, only fitting that Golden Road just miles away also has a Jewel City IPA. Perfect. The entire experience compelled shoulder shrugs but no active complaints. It’s fine. I’m fine.

The name BREWYARD itself seems to get lost under a tide of innumerable similar breweries and beers. So it’s the furthest thing from false advertising. One thing that was clear across the board is that all of these beers are wayyyyy undercarbed, and some seemed to be served extremely cold.  There’s a certain eh, ambiance that you have to embrace coming to a brewery with a fucking live Rockabilly band, children, a wall of toys, and trucks converted into tables:

I mean if you’re on board for all that shit, then you will feel right at home in this weird, secluded gem that the locals seem to love. It bears noting that I spotted not a single person who appeared to be a beer nerd or really give a shit about the beer and everyone seemed to be having a good time, so it depends on what your market segment is.  They appear to be filling this “hey the beer is fine, who cares, Connor put the Jenga blocks down- HARPER HARPER!” sort of consumer.

So where do they rank in the LGVLABTOKF hierarchy?

1. Verdugo West Brewing

2. Dry River Brewing

3. Boomtown Brewery

4. Brewyard Beer Company

5. Indie Brewing Company

The mission continues, I am told I have a mere 79 more Los Angeles breweries to go.

Great.

Look at that god damn sustain. Just look at it. It’s like an American made telecaster just endlessly cascading and redoubling in structured late 90s foam party ebullience. That’s the tip of this fantastic pilsner, yet another entry in the march towards Czech resurgence in domestic markets. In a weird showmanship way, more and more experienced brewers are flipping back to Bavarian bangers to demonstrate their stripped down skill. This is incredibly reminiscent of @hillfarmstead Mary, and the underlying ferm fingerprint seems evident. It is incredibly crisp and refreshing, sourdough starter, ritz cracker, fescue and tufted perennials. The swallow is less traditional German pilsner but doesn’t go as far in herbaceousness [mount Hood?] as the likes of Pivo and it’s hard to dissect this beer as anything but a unified fleeting sensation. The taste to the swallow is nimble and exceptionally well done. My favorite pilsner of all time is @moonlightbrewing Reality Czech and, barring a less substantial mouthfeel, this comes dangerously close to grasping at that regal pilsner robe.