Thursday, August 21, 2014

LACBC year 5

A couple weekends ago it was the fifth annual LA Craft Beer Crawl and it was pretty great. I write the same things about it every year, but it's that good. D and I threw a mild wrench in the works by getting mono a couple months ago (I know! I thought it was just for 13 year olds too!) and because I couldn't definitively figure out how long you're contagious we opted to not share drinks with anyone. We still managed to taste quite a bit by asking for half pours all afternoon and it worked out pretty well.

preparing! - LACBC 5
{preparing!}

casey's - LACBC 5
{kinetic at casey's}

the varnish - LACBC 5
{the varnish}

seven grand - LACBC 5
{seven grand}

las perlas - LACBC 5
{las perlas}

My very favorite beer this year was Neddles from Allagash. It's a slightly sour wild ale brewed in rum barrels. The Bruery had a great showing with a coconut and pineapple riff on their Sour in the Rye (sounds horrifying, isn't AT ALL). Deschute's Fresh Squeezed IPA was hoppy and not too citrusy and BONUS it's readily available (we found it at a random liquor store last week). Los Angeles Ale Works, a newcomer, has a winner with their Lievre Saison, served both regular and on cask. The on cask version was amazing, if you can get your hands on it. I also really enjoyed the Enter the Future IPA from Highland Park Brewery, which operates out of the Hermosillo. We were really bummed that we didn't make it in time to taste their Lazy Susan, which was getting a lot of buzz.

There are so many great places popping up and I keep thinking that I should do a run down on the different LA breweries. Maybe a little series? Is that hoping for too much, given that I'm barely managing to post a couple times a month?

Recaps of all LACBC to date - 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

P.S. - So many thanks for all the sweet sympathy re: my annoying dry eyes. I'm going to do a quick post very soon on what I'm doing (although I've seriously had two days this week where I couldn't see anything that was more than 3 inches away from my face, so I'm not claiming to be an expert) and pull together some of the excellent advice in the comments as well. Hate that so many of us are dealing with this!

9 comments:

  1. It sounds wonderful! I should go on a Chicago beer crawl.

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  2. it is a little out of your way but I love the Belmont Brewey in Long Beach, their strawberry blonde is awesome.

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    1. Mmmmm ... sounds good! We're not too far, really! We could always try to stop on one of our many trips between LA and OC.

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  3. I just had mono too (and I'm 24)! I think it's going around. The worst part is that since getting it, I haven't been able to drink beer without wanting to pass out immediately + feeling totally hungover the next day - even if it's just a light beer. So odd!!

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    1. Totally makes sense, because mono is TOUGH on your liver! In retrospect, I think the onset was around the time of our Portland trip, because we wimped out and couldn't try as many breweries/beers as we'd planned to and when we got home we basically took a month long break from alcohol because it just sounded so appealing and my tolerance was suddenly low. We found out about the mono a few weeks ago and it was like, duh, of course that's what was happening! I seriously considered selling out tickets to the brew crawl because drinking is not advisable with mono, but we were feeling better and decided just to take it really slowly and pay close attention to how we were feeling. We didn't taste anything we'd already had before, so that limited our range. And it worked out okay and alcohol is starting to sound good again.

      Kind of amazing, actually, that our bodies are pretty good about telling us when to back off!

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  4. I got mono in college and it was pretty terrible. Take care of yourself!

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  5. Please do a rundown on breweries when you have the chance! I'm becoming quite the beer fan and would love your take on LA brews. :)

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  6. Being pregnant and a beer lover, this post is pure torture. :)

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  7. if you ever make it down to SD there are tons of great breweries popping up! belching beaver's peanut butter milk stout is one of my faves and im so sad i cant get it up here in sf.

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