L.A. Beer Week!

As all of you certainly know by now, Chris and I are beer aficionados.  Light beer, dark beer, sour beer, fruity beer, toasty beer, roasty beer, it doesn't really matter - we enjoy almost all of it.  For the past few years, we've had a marvelous time enjoying Arizona Beer Week which occurs each February, so we were excited to find out that L.A. also had a Beer Week, running in mid-June.  We tracked down a few fun activities and decided to venture out to explore our new area!

Ta daaaaa!

Although we technically didn't know it at the time, we started celebrating Beer Week with a jaunt to old town Pasadena on opening day, Saturday, 6/18 (for clarity's sake, we knew we were in Pasadena - we just didn't know it was Beer Week until afterward.  Given my historical issues with lack of direction, several of my family members may indeed need this reassurance).  A few weeks prior, we'd visited a bar named Verdugo in downtown LA, and while we didn't love it, the owners of it also had several other properties; one of these was a German-style beer hall in Pasadena called Der Wolfskopf.  Figuring weiss-es and spaetzle sounded good, we hopped on the gold line of the light rail and it deposited us just a third of a mile or so from the front door of our destination.

Waiting for the light rail.
Actually, this picture is a few weeks earlier -
but it is me riding the light rail,

so it applies.

Der Wolfskopf was fun - of course, we got there early (noon), and since LA is very much a sleeping in kind of town, it was pretty empty throughout our stay there.  However, the bartenders and servers took great care of us, and the beer was good (for you fellow beer nerds, we tried the Paulaner Gruppe Marzen, the Professor Fritz Briem Berliner Weisse, and the Radeberger Pils).  Food was also excellent, although we both enjoyed the pretzel with beer cheese a bit more than their signature wolf tater tots; the tots were smothered in all sorts of things (cheese, bacon, onions, jalapenos...) that sounded excellent but got to be a bit much by the bottom of the basket (ah, to be in our 20s again and able to eat crap all day long without severe intestinal ramifications).

Since the day was still young and our light rail passes were still valid, we next wandered to Slater's 50/50, a place that specializes in burgers made with 50% beef and 50% bacon.  Before I headed out of Phoenix, I had lunch with my buddies Greg, Nicole, and Kristen, and Greg mentioned Slater's as a cool place to try out.  When we realized how close we already were to it, we had to check it out.  Not only was the burger quite good (we split one of their namesake ones), their tap list was INSANE.  The place has something like 100 taps or something nutso, and the list of choices was excellent.

Here's Chris with our selections, the Three Weavers Hounslow Porter for me and the Smog City Bourbon Barrel O.E. for him - both were awesome.

You can also see some of the taps in the shot behind him -
seriously, that whole wall is taps.

Me with my Three Weavers

After Slater's, we wandered for a while and took a gander at Pasadena's City Hall complex; it's really gorgeous.  

Lovely, right?

Not my picture.

It was getting toasty outside, and since wanted something sweet, we wandered to a small Belgian waffle place near the light rail station.  They made us up a from scratch waffle topped with homemade cookies and cream ice cream, and it was delicious!  Happy and full, we headed back home via the light rail, where napping ensued (I napped on the light rail AND at home - WINNING!).

The next day, Sunday, 6/19, we headed out for a bike ride along the San Gabriel River Trail, which runs over and around the Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area.  Since it was hot and we were tired by the end, we headed over to Congregation Ale House's Azusa chapter for some brews and food.  We'd visited Congregation a few times before, and we'd been impressed each time with their selections for both food and drink; this time was no exception.  

Again, not my shot.

Look at all those taps!

I think this is actually the Long Beach chapter,
but that bodes well for us in the future, too...

They brew their own beer as well as having all sorts of Belgian/trappist delights on tap, so while we ate our pizza and salad (balance, people), we enjoyed Mikkeller's Belgian Tripel, the St. Bernardus Wit, the Ninkasi R and D Tripel, and Congregation's own Dark of the Covenant (their beer names are also outstanding - the last time we were here, I had the Passion of the Kolsch).

Tuesday, 6/21 found us in Long Beach, having the inspection for the house on Silva Street (more on that later).  Since it didn't end until 6:30 or so, we grabbed dinner at the Weiland Brewery Restaurant in the Bixby-Knolls area, both to eat before it got too late and to let the traffic back to the north side of town die down a bit.  We'd eaten here before once already, on the day we attended the open house for the Silva Street property, and while we hadn't really enjoyed the beers brewed on site, their food was great as were the selection of OPB (Other People's Beers) they had on tap.  This evening, we enjoyed the Modern Times Black House (me) and the Lagunitas Aunt Sally (Chris).

We normally sit on the patio right behind that plant.

Actually, when we were here on the 21st,

we were sitting here, eating and drinking,

when this huge racket started up.
We tried to figure out what it was,
when this huge dog ran past our table on the sidewalk.
No owner, no collar, no one chasing him, not in danger or scared -
he was just out for his daily run.

We both just shrugged and said, "Long Beach!"

Two evenings later (we don't really go out this much most of the time - I swear) on Thursday, 6/23, we headed to Highland Park to the Hermosillo, also the site of the Highland Park Brewery.  To celebrate Beer Week, the Hermosillo was hosting Funk and Sour Night, and while those aren't my favorite styles, they are firmly Chris' bag.  I sipped mine (the Good Beer Company's George) while enjoying the excellent charcuterie board and prime hipster-watching opportunities in this area of town.  For his part, Chris had HPB's Raised Eyebrows and Help Yourself, as well as the Cherry Spazz.

Imagine it filled with 50-60 young men
in bow ties and Toms shoes,
and you've got the gist.

Seriously, though, good place.

On the drive back to the house, we stopped at the Craft Beer Cellar (Chris: "STOP THE CAR!  A BEER STORE!") and were super impressed with their selection and the knowledge of the folks working there; they were also super duper friendly, which is not always a sure thing in today's craft beer world, sadly.  Chris grabbed a six pack of Barley Forge's The Patsy, a coconut rye stout obviously named for King Arthur's erstwhile manservant from Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("he's got two 'alves of coconuts and he's bangin' 'em together!"); Barley Forge, you are my new best friend.  The Cellar carries craft brews from all over, including even a few from our recent stomping grounds, although these seemed to be limited to San Tan's Mr. Pineapple and Sonoran's White Chocolate Ale (Me: "yeah, I don't know why people like those" as I'm buying a 22 ounce bottle of King Harbor's Swirly, which is meant to taste like a soft serve vanilla/chocolate ice cream cone.  I don't admit to being perfect, folks).  

We didn't intend to go out to lunch the next day, but since it was too beautiful of a day to sit inside, we headed to the Griffith Observatory inside Griffith Park and to see the Hollywood sign.

Look, Mom, the sign!

Sign selfie!

The Observatory

In a city where everything is super expensive,

at least some awesome things are still free.

Caught away from home and hungry, we stopped for lunch at Golden Road Brewing, another favorite haunt of ours (we first stopped here on our way up to Paso Robles last May).  Since I had a long run the next day, I didn't have my own beer but instead took sips from Chris' Saison Key Lime and Wolf 3D IPA, both brewed in house; both were quite good.  What was even better - and rather unexpected - was the off the charts amazing turkey melt I had.  I went with GR's half and half combo, getting half a sandwich and half a salad; the other sandwich options didn't totally set my world on fire, so I was like, eh, I'll do the turkey melt.  Well, holy crap - that was just about the best sandwich I've ever tasted.  Color me convinced, Golden Road, that was outstanding.

A pic from Yelp -
the caption reads (verbatim),

"Turkey Melt is soooo bomb!"

Yes, fellow Yelper, it really is.

We headed home again destined for napping (me) and playing video games (Chris).  The next day, the final day of Beer Week, Sunday, 6/26, we hung around the house for most of the day and when the afternoon rolled around, we headed out to the coast, to Redondo Beach in particular.  BALEEN Kitchen, the onsite restaurant for one of the hotels there, was doing a beer pairing dinner that evening with brews from some of the South Harbor breweries: Smog City, Absolution, Strand, El Segundo, and King Harbor (of Swirly fame, mentioned above).

We deliberately got there early, so we had time to wander the boardwalk for a while and sit down to people watch and enjoy the madness.  King Harbor actually has a tasting room right on the boardwalk, so we tried a few of their brews while watching the scenery:

Although the day was overcast,
the temperature was awesome.
All the beer here was solid,

but the standout was the Storms a Brewin' Baltic Porter (not shown).

We enjoyed the dinner and brews at BALEEN, and our waiter was great as well.  We had all sorts of fun things from truffle fries and calamari to tacos and sliders, but the highlight of the meal for us was the bread pudding paired with the King Harbor (again!) Abel Brown.

Noms!

After dinner, we strolled back to the car and headed northeast toward Glendora, basking in the warm glow of our successful first L.A. Beer Week!

Later!

Amy