American Craft Beer Week started off with a huge bang! Ladies at Ladyface: The Fermentables and Comestibles Education and Tippling Society celebrated our two year anniversary!
I stuck to my latest tradition and started off with mac ‘n cheese with jalapeno and bacon. For a night like we had ahead, food was necessary. As was a warm-up beer…
It was a HOT one out, so I grabbed a nice light Palo Comado XPA.
The week had started off with a high of 100 degrees, so the patio misters were more than welcome as the sun slowly set and the earth finally began to cool.
Our youngest member who was unable to attend either the first meeting or the first anniversary (on account of not being created or born yet) joined us for dinner.
Little Avery lovin’ on her Auntie Michelle!
The theme of the day was “favorites”. We were supposed to bring in our favorite beer… One of my ultimate favorites is aging in my cellar (aka a cardboard box sitting in a cool closet), and I just wasn’tt prepared to be unselfish and share it, so instead I brought six of my other faves. Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier is one of my favorite wheat beers, along with Franziskaner – musty with intense notes of banana and earthy cloves.
Lost Coast Downtown Brown – nothing too fancy about this one. Just a quality brown that’s always a good go-to when you’re looking for a lower alcohol beer with lots of roasty nutty malts and gentle hops.
This was one of the first, if not the first, recipe I made for the blog with beer. Bison Brewing Organic Honey Basil is the heart of my Honey Basil Chicken recipe, which I’m looking forward to grilling again this summer!
Michelle brought in Pilsner Urquell – the original Czech Pilsner.
Nancy Gold of the Maltose Falcons brought in two homebrewed clones of Allagash Curieux – one aged with oak cubes from a rum barrel and one with oak cubes from a bourbon barrel. Droooool.
We were all very fond of both. I think I preferred the toasted rum cubes, myself.
Janelle (I believe this was her donation) brought in Anderson Valley Brother David’s Triple – a deliciously boozy Belgian.
Cyrena brought in a beer she’d gotten overseas at the Westvleteren Trappist brewery (there are only eight Trappist breweries in the world), and was kind enough to share it with us. This beer does taste a little closer to heaven.
We had a handful of other beers – New Belgium’s La Folie was my mother’s donation from afar since she now lives in Colorado and was unable to attend. J.J. brought in Duchesse de Bourgogne which tasted like it was made of sugar cubes after the intense sourness of La Folie.
Ting Su of the Eagle Rock Brewery showed up with some Los Angeles ladies to participate as well!
Ting brought in Deuce – Eagle Rock Brewery’s second anniversary ale which is a super-loaded version of their flagship beer, Solidarity. Toasty and full of chocolate, roast and hints of smoke – scarily drinkable and clocking in at 10%ABV. This could throw you for one if you weren’t aware of the alcohol content.
I capped off the evening with an old favorite – bread pudding!!! I left that night overstuffed and overhappy.
Happy Two Years, ladies! Here’s to two more!
Tag Archives: Eagle Rock Brewery
Ladies at Ladyface: Two Years!
Filed under beer, beer tasting
Glendale Tap
Last night was a night filled with lots of beery happenings. I was invited to be a member of Golden Road’s new pub, Chloe’s, and greedily accepted the opportunity to get a sneak peak. Brace yourselves – I didn’t take pictures. I actually just went there, hung out with awesome craft beer geeks and spent all my focus on enjoying myself and talking with incredible people. Don’t fret, though. I’ll be going back very soon and doing a full write-up.
I forced an EBC rep to join me, drove through the madness of LA traffic and ended up being over half an hour early. Not wanting to appear too eager, we realized that Eagle Rock Brewery was only 5 kilometers from Golden Road. YES.
Owners Ting and Jeremy were busy labeling bottles and stacking boxes full of precious soon-to-be-filled-with-liquid-gold glass, so we grabbed beers and stood gazing in rapture at the shiny tanks.
I peeled my eyes from the brewery to take a quick glance at the warm and cozy tasting room. Again – a full write up on this will be coming soon!
Ultimately my eyes were magnetized back to the brewery. I enjoyed a Tarte Noir as we killed time before the event.
Event happened. It was awesome. Imagine hundreds of craft beer geeks in a cozy little pub where free beer samples and appetizers are passed around. Barrel-aged porter and Berlinerweisse with simple syrup made an appearance, but not for very long. I spent the majority of the evening with blonde half of the Beer Chicks (Hallie Beaune), the “Guild Goddess” Acacia Coast of the Brewer’s Association, the lovely Cyrena Nouzille of Ladyface Alehouse as well as the team from Eagle Rock Brewery, Kip Barnes and John Rockwell from LA Aleworks, blogger Jeff Prosser of Beer Guy LA, Hal Mooney of LA Beer Hop beer tours and dozens of other wonderful folks. Staring over the balcony and recognizing or knowing almost every person there from a blog, brewery or previous beer events was mind-boggling. Epic evening.
After said awesome event I dragged Commander Matt over to Glendale Tap to sample their wares.
I was lucky enough to find this place before it’s official opening when I was doing a beer order. I’ve been dying to go back since. Glendale Tap is a craft beer bar with over fifty taps, founded by Steve Skorupa who also owns Timmy Nolan’s Tavern in Toluca Lake. He returned from the same party at Chloe’s right as we arrived.
The place is covered with vintage – vintage register, vintage beer signs and vintage beer cans.
They had quite a menu.
Quite a selection…. Yep, it keeps going…
There’s one more page after that, but I’ll save the surprise for when you get the chance to go.
I went for the Cismontane Session Saison and a healthy helping of peanuts. Matt got the Monk’s Cafe Flemish Sour Ale.
Free billiards! I will most definitely put those to use next time.
We grabbed a handful of peanuts to tide us over before we hit the Taco Bell drive-thru and headed home. Keeping it classy.
Oh yeah, then this happened. Firestone XVI Anniversary!!! If it’s even a quarter of how delicious the Firestone XV was, I’ll be a happy girl.
Not a bad way to end the week!