The OC/LA release thread.

They're getting wise to the ways of the bros.

 

Limit one? That's wack

 

El Segundo Power Plant is out and about today. It's pretty sticky. I prefer Beachwood's Hops of Fury, in terms of triple IPAs, but still great

 

While I love that whole concept, day 1 power plant is just too... hmmm, how to say it.. it needs a couple of days for all the shit to meld better in the bottle for my taste.

 

I know it's all just a matter of taste, but the irony (for me) of the whole "Day 1" thing that El Segundo is doing is that super-hoppy beers really taste much better about 4-10 days after packaging, for my money. They're still super-fresh and snappy, but I find that they take the first few days and up to about a week or so to really "settle into themselves".

I'm not sure how to describe it, exactly, and I don't know much about the chemistry of what exactly is going on in that very, very early going with hop-centric beers, but I know I've heard the same sentiment, independently, from at least 3 brewers who are MAKING some of these baddest-ass, best hop-forward beers here in Southern California. They prefer the beers after about a week. (Anyone else have a take on this? Scientific or otherwise? Is this phenomenon more commonly understood, and is my opinion more commonly held, than I know?)

Not trying to shit on El Segundo at all. I like their beers. I just think it's kind of funny. It's a little bit of a marketing gimmick, kind of like Stone Enjoy By IPA's and the fact that if I see one on the shelf within a couple of weeks of its "Enjoy By" date, I know that it's already at least a couple-few weeks old, and past my personal peak window for drinking, so I'll usually just scroll past and try to find something fresher (which we are very fortunate to be able to do pretty much every single day of the year, here in Southern California).

But it's not even all bad, per se, even for me... If El Segundo is focusing on "Day 1" deliveries, well, that sure as hell beats the crap out of serving up OLD, stale IPA's... Plus with the bottles, there's a great chance that I can get the beer on its first or maybe second day of release, and then take it straight home and wait for a few days before I drink it in (to my mind) its peak form. And of course, if they're paying this much attention to delivering the beer AS FRESH AS POSSIBLE, that also helps to minimize the chance that the beer will deteriorate somewhere along its short-ass life from other types of mishandling. So I'm all for it. I just tend not to get too excited about actually DRINKING the beers on that first day.

Good thing I'm planning a trip (my first) to the El Segundo tasting room next weekend!

 

Bottle shock. When you initially bottle there's a big dose of oxygen that is released into the bottle. Needs a few days (or in the case with wine a few weeks) to settle in and reintegrate.

 

I guess the limit 1 didn't help much. Costco Woodland hills is out of stock .

 

BA bomb at Sunser Beer Co 1pp. Cheers!

 

I'm really liking the bourbon barrel aged Standard Crude they have pouring there.

 

That was such a nice surprise when I visited a while back. So damn good.

 

Well my local store sold out of BA Bomb in 30 minutes..the second time they had it in stock. Times like these are when you gotta remind yourself that it is just a beer haha.

 

Bill's in Atwater has Sucaba at $15.99 per bottle (limit 1) as well as Project Pam at $17.99 a bottle (limit 1). Some other goodies tucked away as well, like Tweak, Track #10, Abyss, Dissident, and vanilla Eclipse.

 

This was from this nice write up on craft beer in long beach.
Long Beach has also attracted the attention of craft beer's biggest names: a public notice on the old Khoury's Restaurant space on the marina notes that San Diego-based craft giant Ballast Point Brewing has filed for a beer manufacturing license for the building.
http://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-beer-long-beach-20160206-story.htmlu

 

Saw that write up this morning in the Times as well. Seems like they have had the property for a year now. Wish they'd just get to work.

 

All good things takes time. BP pissed me off when they took the $,$$$,$$$,$$$! Can you blame them? Can you blame the SD Brewers Guild? Life goes on.
Oh yea, I did NOT like the Watermelon Dorado. Jolly Ranchers Dorado?

 

Take note OC. I am in your town and finally drank Hello LA side it was on draft here at phantom carriage. OMW to monkish and then smog city here in a bit. Very upset I didn't get to phantom carriage sooner. This is my kind of tasting room.

 

sucaba at bevmo pasadena (arroyo) 16.99 limit 2, they got in 3 cases

 

Highland Park at Phantom Carriage...good way to kill two birds with one stone

 

You mean LA?

 

Well I started at Bruery then to Phantom Carriage, then Monkish, then finished at Smog City. Technically I never saw a "Welcome to LA you stupid SD guy" so I assumed I was not exactly quite there. But yeah, I guess I was in LA county since we had to touch the 405 to get home and I then realized that the 405 is absolute garbage no matter what time of day you are on it. So yeah.....that was annoying but the good beers made up for it. Still had Infinite Wishes '16 on and Spittin and Cussin was a nice surprise too.

However I did want to stay at Phantom Carriage longer than I did since they put on The Birds in their theater and the tvs behind us just start From Dusk Till Dawn. Food was pretty tasty too. The only negative thing was that 2 buses unloaded about 30min after we got there. I saw so much beer wasted and so many cans of PBR consumed. It hurt a little on the inside, ah well.