L.A. Beer Week 2017!

We've now been living in the greater LA area for over a year, which means we spent part of last month participating in our second LA Beer Week!  Huzzah!

Like last year, we used Beer Week 2017 to make our way to several breweries we hadn't heard of before as well as took it as a chance to visit some of our local favorites.  We started out on the first Saturday of Beer Week, 6/17, with an afternoon visit to Angry Horse Brewing in Montebello, a city around 25 minutes northeast of us (Chris passes right through this area on his way to and from work each weekday).  We were intrigued by Angry Horse, as we hadn't visited there before, and their logo is pretty outstanding:

The work of one very angry horse.

In addition to good beer, Angry Horse was having a pop-up food event with a local Chef, Steven Ruiz, and we were excited to try the normal brews (plus Hooligan, an English IPA being tapped that evening) along with Chef Ruiz's delicious tacos and tortas.

These are the chicken tacos,

and they were good.

However, the pork belly tacos were even better.

They are not pictured, as we inhaled them.

It doesn't take us long to sip some brews and eat tacos, so we had time to hit up another brewery on the way home, and we picked Monkish in nearby Torrance.  Monkish has officially become popular (in fairness, their beers are really good), so it was standing room only; we each picked a beer and found a nearby barrel to rest our glasses.  

Our beers:

On the left, that's the Apocolocynposis,

a sour collaboration between Monkish and Jolly Pumpkin.

On the right, that's the Feminist,

a Belgian Tripel made with hibiscus.

Both were great!

After Monkish, we headed home to hang out with the dog for the rest of the evening.  The next day, Sunday, 6/18, would be a big one for us, so we wanted to be well rested.  

The next morning dawned, and we headed up to Hollywood to park the car and grab an early lunch at 25 Degrees, a burger bar tucked inside the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel; our food was great, and the burgers were particularly outstanding (it was also fun to wander through the lobby of the hotel and see the historic building - Marilyn Monroe lived here for a time).  We parked the car in the parking garage Mom and I found earlier in the month and plugged it in to charge while we were wandering around.  We hopped on the red line Metro and took it to the end of the line, where we changed to the orange Metro line bus, which took us into Van Nuys, the locale of our eventual destination, MacLeod Ale Brewing Company.  

MacLeod was having a beer festival that day, but not a standard one - instead, it was a cask festival, meaning all of the beers were served on cask, which generally mellows the beer and also keeps the temperature a little warmer, almost like what you'd have served in a very traditional English pub.  This type of beer is MacLeod's focus, and they seem to do it pretty well.  Although we tried cask beers from several local breweries, MacLeod's were our favorites overall, and we wished they weren't located quite so far away from us.

Slainte!

Another neat thing about the festival is the way MacLeod ran the ticketing; while you could buy unlimited tasting passes, they also offered 5 and 10 ticket options.  After doing beer festivals over the past 5-6 years with unlimited tastings, we've started to find that we don't always enjoy what comes afterward, particularly the full 24-48 hours of recovery our bodies need to become fully functional again.  Having to limit ourselves to only 5-10 tastings each (we did the 10 option this time) forced us to be more selective in our choices (we still were able to try almost everything between the two of us), and it allowed us to get a little bit tipsy without losing the entire next day to fatigue.  

A good festival, plus proceeds

went to this great organization.

A win for everyone!

Once our tickets ran out, we bid adieu to MacLeod and hopped back on the Metro to start our travel toward home.  While we could have taken the Metro all the way from Long Beach (the nearest station to our house is 2 miles away), we knew this would have taken almost all day, given the rate at which the Metro runs.  We compromised with the drive to Hollywood and parking there; we knew we would likely have trouble finding a spot for the car near MacLeod, plus if we were at all tipsy, we wanted some travel time back to the car before we needed to get back behind the wheel.  One of the benefits of the red line Metro is that it has a stop at Universal Studios Hollywood, which provides you access to the theme park as well as the set of shops and restaurants that comprise City Walk.  While we've visited the City Walk in Orlando multiple times, we'd never seen the Hollywood one, and we disembarked the Metro there for a wander.  

Once there, we found a great snack:

We visited the original Voodoo in Portland

a few years back, and it was great.

The Universal location was super touristy

(to be expected, of course),

but the donuts were still delicious.

Fully refreshed with sugar and caffeine (Chris tried the iced coffee), it was back to the Metro, off in Hollywood proper, and back to the car for the drive home.

We spent most of the week working, exercising, and eating like we normally do, but on Thursday, 6/22, we ventured out once more, to nearby Carson and Phantom Carriage Brewery.  I'd technically been to Phantom Carriage before, just a week prior, to meet my friend Christina who was in town for work (what a treat it was to see her!), but Chris hadn't yet been, and I thought he might like it.  Phantom Carriage specializes in sour beers, and on this particular night, they were having a sour fest, including the debut of a beer they collaborated on with Cascade Brewing, a standout sour beer mecca, which we also tried on our Portland trip a few years back.

The place was packed, so once we finally made it to the counter, we placed our orders all at once - for four different tasters of the beers on offer and for sandwiches and an appetizer dip for the two of us to eat for dinner.  While we waited for food, we scoured the taproom, finally finding a place to sit inside the movie theater within the brewery.  See, Phantom Carriage's hook is that they love horror movies and the scary things that go along with them; they have a slasher movie playing one night each week, which is a local event, but the theater always has something on (I'm not sure what was playing while we were there, but it was MST3K-worthy).  As Christina can attest, Phantom Carriage is a bit on the dark side even in the main dining room, but in the theater, we had trouble seeing what our food and beers were, but it didn't really matter - everything was pretty darn good (we did have a moment at the start of our meal where we realized we were eating each other's sandwiches - you just couldn't tell by sight alone).

Telling spooky stories

by only the light of a cell phone.

After Phantom Carriage, we headed to nearby Torrance, not too far away from Monkish, to visit a newer spot, Cosmic Brewery.  Cosmic has great decor, focusing on space and NASA-themed items, and a cool self-serve tap system.  You get a card at the counter that links to your tab, and you pick which beer you'd like from the taps on the wall, pouring yourself however much you might like.  At the end, you settle up at the front counter.

Sampling several of the brews

Overall, Cosmic was a neat, laid-back place, but we have to admit that we might not visit again, as their beers seemed average at best.  It's unfortunate, but the craft beer market is so saturated right now that there's not enough time and money to drink beer that's just okay.  I mean, check out this map:

All of those little red dots are breweries, including the aforementioned Monkish and Smog City, another really great spot.  That's NINE breweries within around a 1 mile radius, so that's an embarrassment of riches, right there.

Anywhoo, since we were that close to Smog City, we decided to wander across the street; the prior weekend, they'd held a festival where they featured several of their rarest and most interesting beers, and we were hoping they'd have some cool stuff left.  We sampled a few great things, but what really caught our attention were the hops the brewery has growing in their parking lot, along with this great sign, noting what hops like and what they don't:

Their sense of humor is one 

of the reasons we like this place.

After that, it was back home; after all, it was a Thursday night, and some folks have to work the next day.  Lame, that.

We closed out our Beer Week the next evening, Friday, 6/23, with a visit to one our favorite local stomping grounds, Beachwood Brewing in downtown Long Beach.  A major beer festival headlined by Sierra Nevada (their Beer Camp festival series) was occurring the next day at the Queen Mary, and Beachwood was kicking off the weekend by featuring several of the collaborative brews.  We really enjoy the food and drinks at Beachwood on a normal day, but having these great options on tap made things even better.

Some delicious food and drink!

After finishing up at Beachwood proper, we wandered around the corner to their Blendery location, which handles their sour and wild ales; we've visited there before as well, but they had a few new things on tap, including several that were quite good (particularly their Geisha, which had a coffee profile - noms).  Following that, it was back home after another successful Beer Week!

Cheers!

Amy