Tag: The Session

Posted on

In the Tap Lines for December 2015

header_attractions
I hope that you survived Black Friday and Cyber Monday and any other days of the week in this holiday season and are ready to sample all the Christmas beers out there. Here is what is on tap for December on the blog.

~ e-visits to three breweries that brew beers with figs
~ special reviews of holiday beers plus a special Anchor Holiday Ale review
~ Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events
~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark
~ Holiday Beer Daily started last month and continues up to Christmas.
~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world
~ … and Session # 106 is all about the holiday ales

Here are two events to get your December started in the Los Angeles craft beer world:
1) December 5th  – Smog City + Vagabond Cheese pairing
2) December 17th –  Beachwood 9th Anniversary

Posted on

The Session # 105 – Double Feature

session_logo_all_text_300-246x300
“Host Mark Ciocco has announced the theme for The Session #105 and it will be Double Feature!

So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to drink two beers, compare and contrast. No need for slavish tasting notes, but if you want to, that’s fine too. The important part is to highlight how the two beers interact with one another during your session (pun intended!) For extra credit, pair your beers with two films to make your own Double Feature. Now, I’m a big tent kinda guy, so feel free to stretch this premise to its breaking point. The possibilities are endless!”

Here on the Left Coast, we have a slight taste for IPA’s. With store shelves filled to bursting with hop bombs, I could easily have just grabbed two or three to compare for this Session but have decided instead to go East and compare/contrast a quasi-Session IPA and a new IPA from Victory Brewing in Pennsylvania. As well as notes on the can designs.

Headwaters Ale pours a very clear orange. There is a slight citrus aroma. The beer has a tannic quality to the point of reminding me of Orange Pekoe tea. This style has many entrants that I find are too watery. A good Session IPA should be reminiscent of the brewery’s Pale and IPA just not bogged down by as much malt and hops. Headwaters has a big hop flavor which I appreciate. And the can design is both warm and inviting but also uses the hop design to layer in a river motif. It can be hard to create something new with the ubiquitous hop but this works. The layout with the beer description, ABV and OZ. measurements are well done, though I would replace the Ale box with IBU’s instead.

Vital IPA is a grand claim for an overstuffed beer category. But this beer brings it for me. This IPA poured much lighter than Headwaters with a bright yellow hue. At first the aroma was the Simcoe cat pee that I can tolerate in smaller amounts. But then underneath was passion fruit and mango and maybe even a touch of melon. Despite that fruit forward nature, the bitterness has a lingering harsh bite. Not in a bad way but it certainly lets you know that it is there. Design-wise, this seems a little too thesaurus-ish for me. The background is too busy for my taste with all the flavor and aroma descriptors. The main logo is fine but a little too old fashioned for what I think of when I see the word Vital.

IMG_5219-1

Both beers would not have been out of place on taps here in California. Headwaters would match up with Ponto or Easy Jack and not be considered weak. Vital has the fruit notes that you would see in Citra dominated IPA’s out here. So, instead of trying to compare one to the other, I ended up thinking of where I would rank them against the beers in each category and I came away from this drinking session thinking that they would be favorably received, if not fully mistaken for West Coast beers.

I didn’t follow instructions to the letter when it came to the movie half of the equation. I didn’t watch one movie, let alone two when tasting these beers. I am not a good multi-tasker and I would have paid less attention to either the beer or the movie if I had attempted to pay proper attention to both. But when I was drinking my canned Pennsylvania duo, I kept flashing to the pair of bio-pics about Steve Jobs. Biographical movies are as in vogue as ever. Just like IPA’s.

The Ashton Kutcher version would be paired with Headwaters because it is the lighter and more traditional take of the two while the now in theaters version with Michael Fassbender would be paired with Vital since it is focused on three product launches and how they affect the title character.

Now I just have to sneak a beer into a movie theater.

Posted on

The Session # 104 – Has Beer Blogging run its Course?

session_logo_all_text_300-246x300
Here is the writing prompt for the month, given kinda late in the game but here goes for me…Thanks to Alan at a Good Beer Blog for hosting last minute!

So you are going to write about this: if we just “take the philosophical approach, that the Session has run its course” aren’t we really admitting that beer blogging is a massive failure? I say no. I say this is a fabulous way to cover up problem drinking with anti-social internet addictions. Maybe you know of another reason we should keep writing and try to make some sense of the beer and brewing world. Well, goodie for you. Write about it. Explain yourself. Because if you can’t you are really admitting (i) you’ve wasted the best part of the last decade or (ii) you live in a fantasy world where think you are a beer writer and not a beer blogger and that’s soooooo much more important… as if your friends don’t share concerned messages about you behind your back:

Linda? It’s Barry. Yes, I saw him. He still pretends he writes about alcohol as a job… she’s the strong one… poor things… where will it end?”

I was out on drinking beer on Thursday and missed the announcement for this month’s Session. Now I am playing catch-up with the pressure of a tight deadline. (Self imposed.)

And it is those two words that I believe have put the state of beer blogging on the wane. Without a supervisor looking over your shoulder, there is no one to hold the blogger accountable. It becomes so much easier to just type in the beer name on the Untappd app and call it night. Besides, the spouse is calling for you, the kids need disciplining, work beckons the next morning and what’s left of a California lawn needs to be mowed.

Luckily, no kids and no lawn for me so I can use that time to set my fingers to typing. I have no pretension that I am a “writer” though I am technically writing just without a net / without an editor. I also don’t think the title of blogger is a pejorative that some in the paid trade make it out to be. I think they are simply different beasts in the wild. One may be a lion but you need the jackals and hyena’s too in a Disney Circle of Life way. I will let you decide which is which.

I continue with my two posts a day because of one multi-part reason. I want to be heard and I have a passion for craft beer that I think I can curate. Being the selfish creature that I am, I love having my opinions heard be it about current events, movies or beer. Those listening can choose to use or discard that information but I want to be in the mix of the discussion when my posts are of the bulletin board variety. That leads into the passion. Without a passion for what is being made, I don’t know if I could sustain the day-to-day requirements. And lastly, I think that I can narrow the focus of craft beer to a manageable level so that a new fan can get a handle on this crazy world without going crazy themselves.

A beer blogger needs to get past that first “I want to be heard” phase because literally everyone on the interwebs, is reaching for that. And blogging probably won’t give you that jolt unless you are Donald Trump, The Food Babe or even louder and annoying. I think many people stumble on the passion portion too because they mistakenly believe that drinking is the only part of it. Not visiting breweries, not researching or reading books and not reading other beer blogs or magazines. The last part is finding your niche. The Sour Beer Dude. IPA Hunter. Brewer interviews. The places that the passion drives you to. For me, I enjoy curating. Taking all the information out there and condensing it into the short posts that I think are most important. I want people to see my site as a greatest hits album.

Sometimes I succeed and other times I don’t. But I keep at it because the alternative doesn’t seem as fulfilling to me.

Posted on

In the Tap Lines for October 2015

header_attractions
You are now free to roam about the cabin and talk about pumpkin beers. The embargo can be lifted because we are in the actual month of Halloween, also the NBA season kicks-off! So let’s look at what else to come….

~ e-visits to three breweries that you may not have heard of that won Gold at GABF
~ special reviews of beers new to bottles from Ladyface Ale Companie including their new Flanders Red, Flamberge
~ Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events
~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark
~ Beer-centric podcast review, Brew Bloods
~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world
~ … and Session # 104 will converge bloggers onto a single topic, this month on hiatus.

Here are two events to get your October started in the Los Angeles craft beer world:
1) October 1st – Elysian Pumpkin Beers @ the Federal Bar
2) October 3rd – Sunset Beer 4th Anniversary Party

P.S. – You may have noticed that the Golden Road logo is no longer part of the “My Locals” graphic. I made that decision due to the fact that Tony Yanow is not involved anymore. That departure saddens me because, for me, he was the beer lover/IPA fan in the ownership group. That is gone and been replaced by ABInBev. That crater sized hole, I am afraid, will not be filled by people with that same Tony attitude.

I did not make this decision lightly and I know that it won’t matter a whit in their popularity but I have to draw line for myself and Golden Road crossed it, and crossed it without apology in their awkward video and other interviews that instead of promoting craft beer became salvos against home brewing and playing for the winning team. It’s as if they were sneering at where they came from instead of celebrating it.

Their beer may not suffer in quality and yes, it will be available in more and more places but it has lost the “craft” and become just “beer”.

Now, where can I find a “Craft Beer is the Winning Team” t-shirt?

Posted on

The Session # 103 – The Hard Stuff

session_logo_all_text_300-246x300
Here is the topic du jour from the Meta CookBook:

“For this session, I’m asking my fellow beer bloggers two related questions:

1. What do you want people in beer culture to be talking about that we’re not?

2. What do you have to say on the topic(s)?

“Beer” is its own subculture at this point. There’s an expected “look” and expected desires. Beer festivals are everywhere. Beer blogs flourish; indeed at this point there’s reasonable sub categories for them. New breweries are popping up at record pace; the US alone has more than 3,000. Big breweries are getting bigger, some are being purchased, some are saying that’s bullshit.

But we’re still fairly monolithic as a group. And there are a number of problems related to that tendency toward sameness. Not all problems related are personal, for example trademark disputes are becoming more commonplace as we all have the same “clever thought”.

We have such a good time with our libation of choice that sometimes we fear bringing up the issues we see.

Well, stop that. Air your concerns, bring up those issues. Show us what we’re not talking about and should be, and tell us why.
_________________________________________
Craft beer is sometimes linked, tenuously at times, to gentrification of a neighborhood. But I have yet to see (unless it is hidden like the proverbial needle in the haystack) any tackling of the topic from either an economic or sociological point of view.

But gentrification has struck me in two recent visits to Downtown LA’s Grand Central Market which has morphed into something quite different from what it was and will change more with Golden Road Brewing taking a spot amid the hip new food and beverage spots that have taken up residence in the icon spot near Angels (not so moving) Flight.

Now that may seem like a lament but it doesn’t have to be. The “G” word has taken a negative tone to some and even I am startled by the apparent speed of it all. I certainly don’t expect to see two millenials sporting colorful anime-eqsue knit hats and a rainbow mohawked dude on a drive down York Boulevard in Highland Park. I also don’t know how to respond when someone says they feel weird patronizing a business because of a perceived animosity from the old guard of the neighborhood.

The problem, in my view, follows the money. It is not the Golden Road’s or Eggslut’s or the trendy pressed juicery that is the issue. They are links in the gentrification food chain. The problem is the nearly inescapable fact that when [insert trendy eatery/pet boutique/brewery] appears a landlord starts bumping the rent or dreaming of mixed-use condos (‘cause we so need more of those in LA). There are seemingly no hurdles for those who want to upsell. Which shows a city that hasn’t learned from the history of how Dodger Stadium came to be in Elysian Park.

The lifecycle of gentrification starts with the ironic fact that the location is cheap. Storefronts can be rented for risky business ideas (cupcakes were big once, maybe mittens are next). A new brewery falls into that category. One creative begets another both in people and stores. But once the Gladwell-ian tipping point is hit those same ideas and people become priced out along with the neighborhood stores which were there the whole time. The old and new can’t co-exist, not because they don’t want to, in my opinion, it comes down to both being pushed out in the reach for higher returns on investment. Not because trendy place A doesn’t want to be next door to a family run Panaderia.

Eventually, the cool stores lose their cool and a winnowing takes place. The little coffee shop becomes a Starbucks. Then equilibrium takes hold and you end up with a street that is either vibrant with a mix of retail that rotates like a craft bar tap list or a street that reverts back to a more sedate path. The next creative class heads to the next cheap street and the process begins anew. It has happened in Eagle Rock, Silver Lake, Echo Park and other neighborhoods. And if the beer is good, each of the neighborhood’s ends up with their own community beermonger.

Grand Central Market is not a street or a neighborhood but a microcosm of both. I will happily check out the new Golden Road space and drink a beer or three there. Over the last year or more the market space now holds more attractions to me while to others it is not what it was or should be. Yes, something is lost. Sometimes to the detriment of the entire community but the new should not be hated.

No, what needs to be added to the gentrification equation is a way to help the business that has moved and that has to start with those who want to gain mo’ money. A form of gentrification pay-to-play. Force the developers by law or regulation that ties rent increases or building teardowns with re-location services. And not just a pamphlet and a handshake but actual realtor help. Actual Small Business assistance. Because it would be terrible for craft beer if it was considered part of the “problem” of gentrification. Or tied to one portion of the community and not for all who want to visit. Community is not just a word to many breweries and to be cut off from it would be tough.

 

 

 

 

Posted on

In the Tap Lines for September 2015

header_attractions
The drought continues as we in L.A. await the Godzilla El Nino.  But we are keeping cool with a bevy of events this month.

~ e-visits to three breweries just north of Beervana in Vancouver, Washington
~ special reviews of beers of Oktoberfest like Sierra Nevada and Left Hand.
~ Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events
~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark
~ Beer-centric podcast review, Good Beer Hunting
~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world
~ … and Session # 103 will converge bloggers onto a single topic, this month The Hard Stuff

Here are two events to get your August started in the Los Angeles craft beer world:
1) September 1st – Angel City premieres their Jameson barrel aged beer.
2) Late September – Der Wolfskopf will be hosting Oktoberfest at their German themed Pasadena location.

Posted on

The Session # 102 – The Landscape of Beer

session_logo_all_text_300-246x300
For the 102nd Session, the topic is “The Landscape of Beer“. “How do you see that landscape now? What about in 5, 10, or even 20 years? A current goal in the American Craft Beer Industry is 20% market share by the year 2020. How can we get there? Can we get there?

Whether your view is realistic or whimsical, what do you see in our future? Is it something you want or something that is happening? Let us know and maybe we can help paint the future together.

As long as no one links back to this answer to The Landscape of Beer question in five or ten years, then I will respond. Good? OK.

Oh, and no calling me some “half-full / too positive / Cheerleader” either. Is that acceptable terms? OK.
Now that the negotiating is done, what do I see for the future? Let’s break that down into What’s Hot and What’s Not (if Sports Illustrated is cool with me stealing that)

Medium Hot
I believe that the craft beer segment will continue to grow. The pace will slow as breweries contend with the “How” of growing from big fish in little pond to really small fish in a national pond. Raw ingredients and equipment shortages will also tamper growth but the drip, drip, drop market erosion of the BudMillerCoors market share due to their stubbornness in failing to create flavorful beer and not fruit–a-rita’s ad nauseum will provide the fuel for craft beer growth.

Very Hot
Consolidation will occur and in more creative ways as the players shy away from signing up with ABInBev but still want to grow. More nationally linked companies like Duvel with a presence across the country will develop. Partnerships and contract brewing might develop as well.

Not but also Hot
The more mature markets of Portland, Seattle, Denver, San Diego will see the most dramatic losses of brewery numbers because those businesses that survived the start-up phase may not have the combo of business savvy and great beer to make it to the next level. But the decreases in those areas will be more than offset by late blooming markets like L.A., the South and others whose growth will proceed at the faster rate.

Not
There will be a tremendous drop off in beer blogs. The wave of enthusiasm will wane as bloggers either lose interest or realize that blogging is basically unpaid marketing for either their own personal brand or a brewery. And I don’t see other writing outlets expanding either. Sadly, I think there are already more than enough “How to taste” beer, regional guidebooks, and general beer books out there as well.

Ice Cold
Whales and snobs are on the downswing as well. Bridal parties are taking place in taprooms. Beer tourism is growing and food and beer is poised to break out. The “commoners” who do those things drive whales crazy (and away) and buy flagship beers much more than costly beers. Couple that with fast rising prices on those special barrel-aged beers and you will see that more approachable beers will be bought. More approachable beer will need to be made. Less tank space for one-offs. Less interest from snobs. Less demand for whales and the cycle spins forward.

Crazy Prediction
A new American born or adapted beer style will halt the dominance of the almighty IPA. I won’t be so rash as to predict what it will be because I think someone out there who has yet to open their own place has started a recipe for an IPA antidote that may go viral.

Posted on

In the Tap Lines for August 2015

header_attractionsWe got a bit of rain here in L.A.  Enough to tamp down one fire but boy we could use a respite from the humidity and heat so that the wider spectrum of beer can be enjoyed instead of just lawnmower beers.  But enough gloomy weather talk, a new brewery opened in San Fernando at the tail end of July and it will be reviewed this month along with….

~ e-visits to three breweries in Idaho.  No potato beers here. Just Payette, Sawtooth and Portneuf beer.
~ special reviews of beers from just outside L.A. from places like Santa Barbara, Claremont and Temecula
~ Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events
~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark
~ Beer-centric podcast review, Strange Brews from WBEZ in Chicago, (also home to This American Life)
~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world
~ … and Session # 102 will converge bloggers onto a single topic, this month it is the future landscape of beer

Here are two events to get your August started in the Los Angeles craft beer world:
1) August 7th – Brew at the Zoo
2) August 19th – Phantom Carriage One Night Stand at Beer Belly

Posted on

The Session # 101 – Bottles, Caps and Other Detritus

session_logo_all_text_300-246x300

Our host for July is the Deep Beer blog / Jack Perdue.  To start the next 100 sessions off we have the topic “Bottles, Caps and Other Detritus.”

“Since first discovering The Session, I knew one day I wanted to host a monthly edition. There are many great creative people involved in the beer industry: the brewers designing and creating the stuff of our attention, marketers bringing the product to market, graphic artists making the products attractive and informative and writers who tell the story of beer. The list goes on. And thus, many great products, that may or may not get your attention. The focus is on the liquid inside the bottle, can or keg, and rightly so. What about all the other products necessary to bring that beer to you? What about the things that are necessary but are easily overlooked and discarded. This months theme is, “Bottles, Caps and Other Beer Detritus”.

Detritus, according to one definition in the Merriam Webster Dictionary is “miscellaneous remnants : odds and ends”. While the number and quality of our beer choices has certainly improved over the recent decade, have you paid any attention to the rest of the package. Those things we normally glance over and throw away when we have poured and finished our beer. These are sometimes works of art in themselves. Bottle caps, labels, six-pack holders, even the curvature of the bottle. For this month’s The Session theme, I’m asking contributors to share their thoughts on these things, the tangential items to our obsession. Do you have any special fetish with bottle caps, know of someone that is doing creative things with packaging, have a beer bottle or coaster collection.”

For some time, I have collected the labels that I could get off (in one piece) of a bottle. But as the albums piled up and threatened to topple over onto my feet, I have kind of stopped with that fascination. There is also an old Halloween candy bucket filled with bottlecaps but though it threatened to overflow at one point, it still hasn’t.

The collection fever that led me to that brink has been dulled by the simple existence of the interwebs. Most label and bottlecap designs can be found in mere seconds with a Google search. I don’t need to remember which beers I had a few years back via a carefully collated album, it’s all on Untappd. I will still grab a coaster on occasion but for the far more utilitarian need for something to set a glass on.

But that desire is still there. Like a family that has moved but still in the same town. That proverbial new house for me is to “label approve” on my blog. At least once a month, there will be a snarky or celebratory post about why one label doesn’t work and/or why it does work.

That has led to a unwritten set of rules that I break out when a label catches my fancy one way or the other. That makes this Session the place where I can lay down the law of Label Design according to Sean. Three rules that you NEED to follow and three rules that are WANTED. None of which talk about the design per se, because that is so tremendously subjective.

NEED:
1. The name of the brewery, the beer and the style must be legible and easily found not some beer version of Where’s Waldo.
2. Each label should be part of a whole series and not so drastically different from the rest as to look from another brewery.
3. Where are you brewed? And when were you brewed? So the consumer can gauge freshness.

GOOD TO HAVE:

1. Best glass for the beer so that you can get the best experience possible
2. Food Pairing possiblities
3. A font bigger than microscopic

I have a lot of respect for label design because it has to convey technical information while standing out on a shelf while building the brand of the brewery while being a piece of art. Not the easiest job in the world to meld those competing interests and probably why you see labels change so often. Personally, I find the Eagle Rock Brewery brand one of the strongest (and that is not just because they are a local). They have been on point since day one and have added little pieces of flair as they have grown. They even managed to make it work in both cans and bottle format.

But to pick a more recent example to apply the “rules” to, let’s test out the California Craft Pack from Anchor Brewing which has three beers in it. The iconic Liberty Ale, California Lager and their newest beer Anchor IPA.

Except for Liberty, the name Anchor is prominent. On all three the beer name is prominent as is the beer style. When it comes to uniformity, again Liberty is the outlier from the other two but it is a special re-release so that is to be expected and is also branded more in line with their Double Liberty. Where brewed is there but the when is missing which is not good in my book. So a mixed bag on the NEED front.

On the WANT front, there is no glass or food pairing info, but the font strikes a good balance of size and design, so one out of three.

The overall design is stately though a touch cluttered on all three cans. The elephant on the IPA and the bear on the lager give an easy touchstone for beer buyers. The Liberty can is really well done and overcomes some of my rules by sheer force of the patriotic throwback design. Not to mention the positive feeling engendered by Anchor and their history in craft beer.

No matter my “rules” or yours, how a bottle or can looks can affect how it sells. So far, breweries seem to have taken the opportunity to be as bold in their art of labels as they do the art of beer.

Posted on

In the Tap Lines for July 2015

header_attractionsNow that we are all recovered from L.A. Beer Week it is time to suss out what July will be like in the L.A. craft beer world Plus…..

~ e-visits to three breweries in Portland including Baerlic, Buckman Botanical & Culmination
~ special reviews of beers from new to L.A. Left Hand
~ Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events
~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark
~ Beer-centric podcast review, 1 Beer, 1 Song
~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world
~ … and Session # 101 will converge bloggers onto a single topic, this month it is Bottles, Caps and other Detritus

Here are two events to get your June started in the Los Angeles craft beer world:
1) July 4th – 4th of July Backyard Boogie at Beer Belly
2) July 11th – Draft Day at Cismontane Brewing in Santa Ana