Cruising the La Palma Beer Trail

Over the long Labor Day holiday weekend, we spent an awful lot of time hauling rock into the backyard (Amy), catching up on studying Finance and Statistics (Chris), and doing other various and sundry projects outside and around the house (both).  By the time Labor Day itself rolled around, we were ready to put on clean clothes, hang out with some great company, and relax.  I'd been reading recently about a slew (that's the official word meaning: nine) of breweries now open on a six mile stretch of La Palma Boulevard in Anaheim/Placentia, so we decided to head over and try some of them; we asked Dad and Risa to accompany us, and we were happy they accepted!

The first stop on the self-proclaimed La Palma Beer Trail (as an aside, why would call a row of breweries anything but an "ale trail?"  It needs to rhyme, folks) is The Bruery, which we all really love, as well as their newer, IPA-focused brand, Offshoot.  We've been to The Bruery many times before, so we elected to skip it this time and focus on some of the newer additions to the neighborhood (newer to us, at least).  We met Dad and Risa at their house and hopped into Risa's car, heading first for Phantom Ales.  They were a smaller taproom, featuring not just beer but also mead and cider, and also serving as a brewery supply store.  Their choices on tap were numerous, so we grabbed a few sets of tasters in order to sample a good variety of their wares.

Chris, apparently unaware that

I was taking this picture.

Dad, still perusing the tap options,

while Risa enjoys a full glass of N/A root beer,

another homemade selection.

To go along with all of these drinks, we also fortified ourselves with orders of Phantom's mac and cheese and poutine, which were made in-house and were quite good.  Overall, their food was a bit better than their beer, although all of the selections we had were at least pretty solid (the best of our samplers for me here was the Blackberry Guava Mango Mead - sweet but also tart and really interesting).

Next, it was back into the car and just across the street to Asylum Brewing, which had an even smaller tap room than Phantom; we weren't sure how the crowds would be on Labor Day itself, but we picked a pretty good time to go - most of the taprooms had ample seating and we never felt crowded or jammed together with other brewery-goers.  The one employee at Asylum was absolutely lovely, and she made us feel welcome; the brewery had six different beers on tap, so we each grabbed a taster set featuring one of each.  For me, the standouts here were the Harlequin blonde ale and the Casanova Frankenstein, an imperial stout.

At Asylum.

Right after this, I found a shorter stool

to sit on, which was much better.

This was kinda weird.

After Asylum, it was into the car once more, this time heading for The Bruery's rare/sour/wild ale tasting room, The Bruery Terreux.  As you may have read in some of my other blogs, the yeasts and other makings in these types of beer tend to want to take over the more standard beer styles, and this can lead to spoilage and/or off flavors in a brewery's core line.  With the rise of these styles, many breweries making them on a decent scale now have separate facilities for each, ranging from two sites around the corner from each other for Beachwood in downtown Long Beach to facilities 80 miles away from each other for Firestone Walker.  The Bruery puts about 3 miles between its flagship site and the Terreux spot, and it seems to be more than enough.

Like at The Bruery, the tap list is insane, and it can really be hard to pin down which brews you want to try; thankfully, the samplers are small, so particularly in a party of 4 or more, you can sample a bunch without needing to Uber or walk home.

The front side of the tap list - 

it's just as long on the back.

Also, you'll see the Terreux selections up top,

and then items from The Bruery itself further down

(Offshoot is on the back, too).

We settled on a whole lot of different things, as between the four of us, our favorite styles span the gamut of beer varieties.  Like at the original Bruery location, the beer here was excellent, regardless of what type it was, and the new tasting room was squeaky clean and lovely.

A whole bunch of barrels in here,

and I spy a foeder at the very back!

Good stuff.

All smiles at Terreux!

By this point, dinner was high on our priority list, so we grabbed a good meal at a nouveau Mexican place Risa had visited before, Blue Agave.  75% of the table had tacos of one variety or another, and 100% of the group thoroughly enjoyed the food break.  

Finally, it was off to our final stop, Stereo Brewing.  Stereo was again not super crowded, and it was nice to sit and sip while attempting not to doze off due to the alcohol and tacos currently working their ways through our respective systems.  We tried all sorts of things there, from a berliner weisse to a scottish ale to some different IPAs, and while everything was okay, nothing seemed stellar to me.  Certainly, it was the end of the evening, and I was tired from the aforementioned manual labor of the past few days, but we'd already tasted at much better places earlier in the day.

We're finished!

We headed back to Dad and Risa's, hopped in the truck, and started our drive home.  Overall, our outing on the La Palma Beer Trail was a lot of fun, and of course, the company was excellent!  Of the nine breweries affiliated with the trail, we'd previously visited three (The Bruery, Offshoot, and also Bottle Logic, which is a great place), and we hit four on Labor Day, so we have just two left: Hoparazzi and All-American Ale Works.  We'll have to plan another trip to the Trail in the future!

Later!

Amy