The Best Beers We Had At The 2019 LA Beer Week Kickoff
June 17, 2019
As we stood in the shade during the LA Beer Week Kickoff Festival at LA Center Studios this Saturday, sipping on some Cellador Ales, a young man walked by and watched our faces contort into intense puckers. He asked if we were drinking sour beer— as if our faces could’ve sold any other lie at that moment. He said he was just starting to get into sour beer and didn’t know if there were any good ones at the Kickoff. We immediately offered him sips of our beer, which caught him by surprise. Perhaps he thought we’d greedily insist on preserving every sip for ourselves (an understandable reaction with Cellador in your glass), or perhaps he feared we were cavalier about the potential spread of germs. Still, when presented with an opportunity to welcome a newcomer to the Church of Sour, we refuse to allow him to go unconverted. Plus, with so much terrific sours at the festival, it was necessary he leave the interaction with a list of where to go next.
That, to us, is what LA Beer Week should be about— or any city’s beer week, really. It’s about celebrating local craft beer, to be sure, but it’s also about reveling in the sense of community local craft beer scenes can foster. LA Beer Week’s Kickoff Festival boasts more LA County brewers than any other festival— 73 in total!— and is organized by the LA Brewers Guild itself. We’ve griped in the past about other events including formerly craft breweries who’ve subsequently been bought out by large corporations or conglomerates, when those booths could be filled by local brewers, giving attendees the valuable opportunity to learn about and ultimately support local businesses that make damn fine beer. Here, under the Guild’s watch, you’ll find none of those faux-craft outlets sneaking into the mix. This is a parade of nothing but independent craft beer— and God bless the Brewers Guild for that.
The event is exceptionally well-organized, with plenty of food and snacks on hand via trucks or vendors and ample water stations, an absolute must at any outdoor festival on a Southern California summer day. With over 275 beers on tap, including guest booths for over a dozen other select California craft breweries, there are more delicious beers being poured than even the most ambitious Angeleno could down in a single afternoon. We did our best to sample as much as we could handle while remaining upright— the downside of a festival having such a bevy of terrific local breweries on hand is that even the most iron-livered will miss out on a good number of bangers. Below, we’ve chosen our fifteen favorite beers of the day, along with two others we’ve commended at other festivals. If your favorite isn’t listed here, odds are strong we simply didn’t get to that table. Still, please let us know in the comments below which beers were your favorites of the festival, and we’ll keep our eyes peeled for them on tap during other LA Beer Week events!
Arrow Lodge Brewing: Buds Best
This IPA, courtesy of the Covina-based Arrow Lodge, is a tidal wave of dank. As Emily said the second she took a whiff, “It smells like weed.” Snoop Dogg would approve, not just of the smell, but also of how hard Buds Best brings that West Coast funk. It tastes like we’re rolling around on an autumnal forest floor. Dank you very much, Arrow Lodge. Dank you very much.
Beachwood Brewing: O.G.L.A.I.P.A.
Speaking of Snoop Dogg, Long Beach is home to both Mr. Dogg and Beachwood Brewing, and Beachwood’s IPAs are realer than Real Deal Holyfield. We could easily praise their terrific Blendery sours they had on hand for the kickoff, but since this list will be chock full of sours, we’ll instead give love to the O.G.L.A.I.P.A. collaboration with Smog City, a crisp west coast IPA with a malty, slightly spiced flavor.
As the LA heat keeps increasing the further into summer we get, the more we crave a cold, refreshing pilsner. Brouwerij West, well-regarded for their pillowy, hazy IPAs, made this pilsner with fellow hazy IPA wizards Highland Park Brewery and Mumford Brewing, but they give this pils no extra juice or softness. Instead, it’s a clean, bitter, grassy beer with a smack-you-in-the-mouth crisp finish. Absolute perfection for a sunny California Saturday.
The genius harnessers of sour power at Cellador Ales taught us about Buddha’s hands today, the freaky citrus fruits that don’t resemble the hands of Buddha as much as they do the hands of Salad Fingers. They combine with the mandarin and kumquat flavors in this sour to give it an extra punch of lemony, floral acidity. Every sour Cellador produces is a certified banger— the Deadcrush was also a serious favorite of ours— but any time we can drink beer *and* learn about new fruits at the same time, we call that a win.
This festival is packed to the brim with a wide variety of strong styles and flavors, from its crisp hoppy pilsners to its behemoth barrel-aged sours and barleywines. However, it feels only appropriate that a collaboration designed to celebrate west coast craft brewers be a celebration of old-school, west coast flavors. Claremont Craft Ales, along with over 50 other breweries from LA County, gives us the official beer of LA Beer Week for 2019, a double IPA that delivers an old-school piney punch.
Trying to choose which Dry River Brewing beer is the best is like trying to decide which dog to take home from the shelter— they’re all so great and deserving of love and WHY CAN’T WE JUST CHOOSE ALL OF THEM LIFE IS NOT FAIR. Anyway, while the Abacaxi, their foeder-aged pineapple sour, is also exceptional, we so rarely encounter a sour stout like Morena that so delicately balances that hefty tart flavor we love in a sour with the dark, fruity, roasty flavors we love in a sour. This cherry chocolate Warhead deserves any and all superlatives it earns.
El Segundo Brewing Company: 2018 Old Jetty Barrel Aged Barleywine
Those looking for a glass full of life found a beauty at the El Segundo tent if they timed their visit correctly. The 2018 Old Jetty is a mouthful of caramel, toffee, vanilla, and sweet, sweet bourbon. It’s thick yet astonishingly sippable for such a boozy near-13% ABV drink. Normally, you wouldn’t picture a warm Los Angeles summer day the ideal time for this delicacy… yet when you encounter a beauty like this, any weather factors swiftly fade away along with your sobriety.
Highland Park Brewery: Hand of Josh
Look, it’d be tremendously easy for us to continue to join the masses praising their No Rest collaboration with Three Chiefs, as it’s a hefty flavorful imperial stout— but we are currently obsessed with Highland Park’s lighter fare. We raved over their pilsners at the Firestone Walker Invitational, and now it’s time to swoon over Hand of Josh, a lager rich with Cascade and Nelson hops yet easygoing in its finish. Phrases like “crushable” and “could drink this all day” come to mind.
Institution Ale Company: 2019 Summer Seasonal
We enjoy the occasional trek up to Ventura County to visit Camarillo’s Institution Ale Company. Their fall and winter seasonals last year were big, bold, coffee-laced brown ales and stouts, but this is their lightest seasonal fare we’ve tried to date, a citrusy session IPA designed to give you the depth of hop flavor their IPAs provide without the ABV to send you passed out into your beach towel.
Monkish easily wins the award for Longest Line, as ten minutes after the VIP ticketholders entered, the line was easily several dozen people deep, and their beer was completely gone before the fest was even half over. Still, the beer being poured merited the hype, as the Mas Juteux was an apricot atom bomb of tartness. We were told by those at the Monkish booth that people had been ordering the other beers first because the Mas Juteux was hard to pronounce— any people who shied away from this for fear of sounding foolish are, in fact, fools themselves.
Be careful drinking Mumford around your friends because, to paraphrase M.O.P.’s Ante Up, “them beers you rock make ‘em envy.” Few places in California can make a triple IPA seem as innocuously juicy as Mumford Brewing can. We recently bought cans of their Citra-hopped Upping the Ante, and now they’re back at it again with the Simcoe and Nelson-hopped Ante Upped. These triples are full-flavored, creamy, and tropical, but they maintain enough bitterness to remind you that you are, in fact, drinking beer.
Santa Monica Brew Works: Palisades Park
Santa Monica Brew Works has recently unleashed some terrific poolside sippers for all the Westsiders looking to have their thirsts quenched. The Rancho Boca is a snappy Mexican Amber Lager, but they brought to LA Beer Week their fantastic dry-hopped pilsner, the Palisades Park. At a festival where many of the most notorious breweries busted out pilsners and light drinking fare, SMBW’s crisp bitter treat stood shoulder to shoulder with the best of them.
The Lost Abbey: Framboise de Amorosa
One of the first places we ever visited on a road trip, San Marcos’s The Lost Abbey is a terrific place to worship at the Altar of Sour. Their Framboise de Amarosa packs a sour punch, make no mistake— but it also is bright, has fresh fruit juiciness, and maintains some of the funk from its oak barrel. It’s a textbook example of the Abbey’s abilty to provide the strong acidity of a potent sour without losing the complexity that the true Sour Powers wield.
Three Weavers Brewing: Galactic Magic
Our friends at Hopped LA hipped us (hopped us?) to this new release, hitting us with the tease that it’s “possibly the least clear IPA Three Weavers will ever make.” The Galactic Magic has a haze to it, but don’t mistake it for a New England IPA. It’s fermented with Norwegian kviek yeast, which gives the beer its cloudiness— and its exceptional juiciness. We’re hoping they don’t sell out of their cans before we can hit Inglewood up to get some next week.
Trustworthy Brewing Co.: BBA Bear Temper
The artists formerly known as Verdugo West Brewing Company have earned their titular trust with output like this scrumptious bourbon barrel aged barleywine, Bear Temper. The alcohol burn on this 12.5% ABV pour of life is, appropriately, tempered, giving us the sweet oaky brown sugary flavors with a surprising degree of smoothness in its finish. Even those unconvinced of the delights of barleywine would find the Bear Temper more than bearable.
And finally, our repeat commendations…
Burnin’ Daylight Brewing: Rolling Pils
We first wrote about the Rolling Pils at South Bay Beer and Wine Festival, where we enjoyed a flavor clean and bright and a finish crisper than well-done bacon at a greasy spoon diner. However, at LA Beer Week Kickoff, we finally got to pair this pils with jerky made by brewer Brendan Lake’s father, Bob. We’ve been meaning to take a trip to Lomita sooner rather than later to visit this recently-opened brewery, and Bob’s jerky gives us further incentive to hop in the car.
Firestone Walker Brewing: Los Leñadores
We raved about the Firestone Walker Invitational two weeks ago, including the masterful selection of barrel-aged options from the host brewery itself. While this festival had the dark, tannic, and superbly sour UnderCurrants being poured, our hearts kept beating for the Los Lenadores, this rich cinnamon warmer that gives you much of the sweetness of a pastry stout without ever being cloying like… well, certain pastry stouts. We desperately need a bottle of this for next winter.
What were your favorite beers at the LA Beer Week Kickoff? Which brewery did you discover and deem your new favorite? Are you fellow parishioners at the Church of Sour? Please let us know in the comments below– and keep an eye out on our Instagram pages for more LA Beer Week updates! If you see us, come say hello– and cheers!
