The new Los Angeles beers you should be drinking for fall
As summer turns to fall, L.A.’s craft brewers have ramped up production, packaged more beer, and introduced a slew of new brews to the market. Here is a taste of some of the newest bottles and cans to hit the cooler at your favorite craft beer retailer.
More IPAs from Beachwood Brewing
The fan favorite Long Beach brewpub has been bottling its flagship IPAs (Melrose, Thrillseeker, Amalgamator) for a couple of years now, but supplies were always extremely limited. Now that the Beachwood crew is making beer in their expanded Huntington Beach production facility, finding bottles of Beachwood beer at a store should be more common. Twenty-two-ounce bottles of the aforementioned beers, plus Citraholic IPA, are available throughout L.A. County and the O.C., and more kegs of those fan favorites are also hitting the market. Expect six packs of Amalgamator IPA and Foam Top American Cream Ale to be available at stores by the end of the year as well.
Besides the hoppy offerings, more bottles of “lambic-inspired” sour and wild ales from the Beachwood Blendery brand are also headed to market. Two fruit-infused beers -- Careful with That Passion Fruit, Eugene and Careful with That Apricot, Eugene -- blend bright fruit flavors with just the right amount of funk, and after spending about a year in oak barrels, the lambic-style Great Unknown (Mosaic Edition) gets dry hopped with the tropical and earthy Mosaic hop variety. Also look out for Chaos Is a Friend of Mine — another lambic-style brew. Two locations at www.beachwoodbbq.com.
More cans from Eagle Rock Brewery
Eagle Rock Brewery started canning beer last year with their Umlaut hoppy kolsch, and earlier this year they added their flagship IPA, Populist, to their canned offerings. You can now add Revolution Pale Ale to the list of canned brews, and the bright, dry and hoppy pale ale is a perfect fit for the pint can format.
The first day of autumn also signaled this year’s release of Eagle Rock’s sour blond ale Equinox. The oak-aged beer is light, tart and spritzy, and the 2016 version is maybe the best release of Equinox yet. Four packs for Revolution and Populist, and 375ml bottles of Equinox are available at the brewery’s tasting room and at craft beer retailers — check the ERB website’s to find a retailer. 3056 Roswell St., Los Angeles, (323) 257-7866, www.eaglerockbrewery.com.
Monkish Brewing canned IPAs
The L.A. beer geek set has been agog for months about the new hopped-up IPAs with a twist from Monkish Brewing in Torrance. A couple times a month, dedicated fans line up at the brewery — sometimes before dawn — to buy a few four packs of hazy and fruity IPAs, and the brewery sells out of 100 or more cases of these one-off beers in just a few hours. Previously, Monkish used a mobile canning service to package its IPAs, but now the brewery has installed its very own canning line, allowing for more control over the release schedule and the final product. Monkish is brewing IPA as fast as it can, and expects to can even more IPA, but you’ll still need to line up at the brewery to score the beers, and you need to follow Monkish on Facebook or Instagram to get the tip on when the next IPA will drop. 20311 S. Western Ave., Torrance, www.monkishbrewing.com.
Indie Brewing canned IPAs and Saisons
The Boyle Heights newcomers are now opening their tasting room for weekend special events, and the brewery is offering more brews in 16-ounce cans, including Del Rey IPA and 7th Street Saison. You can track down the new beers using the Indie Beer Finder. 2318 Sunrise St., Los Angeles, indiebrewco.com.
Solarc’s Shower Beer
Solarc, made by the art-nerds of L.A.’s beer scene, is all about making gruit — an ancient style of beer that predates the use of hops. Instead, gruit ales use herbs, roots and other botanical ingredients. The Eagle Rock-based Solarc has no brewhouse of its own, and no tasting room, but it has been building a fan base with some inventive and unique brews, including the flagship Dunes (a Belgian-style golden ale dosed with sage wormwood and mugwort), Earl ( brewed with Earl Grey tea, lemon verbena and foraged rosemary) and collaborations with other L.A. businesses (Koala Füd with Mumford Brewing, BäcoBeer with — and for — Bäco Mercat).
Shower Beer is the Solarc attempt at a brew that’s interesting, unique and light and refreshing. The blond ale is brewed with oats for a creamy texture, with an eye-opening mix of North Sumatran coffee and black tea. Look for four-packs of 12-ounce cans of Shower Beer at beer retailers across L.A. You can use the Solarc beer finder to start your search.
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