Laurelwood contract brewer

I haven't bought any Full Sail in a while, but I'm guessing it's the difference in packaging equipment between Redhook and Full Sail over Laurelwood's marketing dept.

 

Laurelwood is probably still ordering their packaging from the same vendor, I meant the bottling and date stamping machinery at Full Sail vs. Redhook.

 

At TW and at J.B.'s (a local place that has an insane collection of beers for a convenience store, but where bottles sit out on shelves for years in some cases) I've become hyper vigilant about dates except when it's something just not otherwise available, a style where age is no big deal and/or I'm in a gambling mood. In fact, at TW I'm the guy reaching back for the bottle at the very back of the shelf away from the light and probably stocked most recently.

 

Bought a sixer of Workhorse a couple of months ago and it was pretty bad. Very little hop aroma and taste. When Redhook brewed it was pretty similar to the draft version at Laurelwood and a damn fine grocery store beer. And I do remember the bottles having a best by date rather than born on date. That sucks also. I wonder how happy Laurelwood is with Full Sail.

 

Why not send them some feedback and let us know what you hear?

 

I am surprised i would have thought Full Sail would do better job?

 

It was Widmer as of several months ago. Not sure if it just changed.

 

They were never contract brewed at Widmer. Just Redhook and now Full Sail. Redhook and Widmer are the same company (CBA) though.

 

I mean saying they were contract brewed at Redhook is just as correct as saying they were contract brewed at Widmer. If you wanna get super official... they were contract brewed via CBA at their Woodinville brewery in Woodinville, WA.

 

There's typically a machine that adds the born on date to bottles and packages that is attached to the bottling line so while I'd be surprised that Full Sale doesn't have a way to date their packaging that is most likely the reason Laurelwood doesn't have the date any more, not because they just decided they didn't want to date their bottles anymore.

 

I tried searching but didn't really find anything too interesting. First off, I live in los angeles, but was born in PDX, so don't kick me just yet. I recently saw bottles of laurelwood in LA, and was wondering where they came from and who was the mysterious distributor. You have mentioned full sail and redhook in the same breath. Did I miss that Bud bought Laurelwood, or am I looking too much into it?

 

Your local bottleshop will probably be better able to tell you the LA distributor for the beer than anyone here. Laurelwood is still independent; they have contracted out the production of Workhorse and Free Range Red 6pk bottles. It used to be CBA at the Woodinville(Redhook) brewery, but recently switched to Full Sail.

 

It's funny, those are the only two bottles they had. Do they bottle more than those?

 

Those are the six packs. Everything else is in bombers and not contracted out.

 

They also do some seasonals in sixers, like Vinter Varmer and Green Elephant.