Tag Archives: growler giveaway

Ladies at Ladyface: One Year

Happy Anniversary to the Ladies at Ladyface: The Fermentables and Comestibles Education and Tippling Society!
Ladies at Ladyface: 1 – Trying out Ladyface beers.
Ladies at Ladyface: 2 – Brewery tour and aroma lessons.
Ladies at Ladyface: 3 – Favorites of the ladies.
Ladies at Ladyface: 4 – Summer brews!
Ladies at Ladyface: 5 – Harvest Ales.
Ladies at Ladyface: 6 – Oktoberfest.
Ladies at Ladyface: 7 – Holidays and white elephant beer exchange.
Ladies at Ladyface: 8 – Ladyface’s second anniversary.
Ladies at Ladyface: 9 – Chocolate and beer pairing.
Ladies at Ladyface: 10 – St. Patrick’s day brews.
Ladies at Ladyface: 11 – Dry hopping experimentations.
For Ladies at Ladyface: One Year, I brought along my cousin Allie to partake. I’m slowly trying to lure her away from wine and replace it with beer. Baby steps.
We split the goat cheese and basil fritters – I missed out on these last year when they came out, so I had to get an order! The tangy goat cheese with the spicy jalapeno jam and smooth avocado is a brilliant combo! Perhaps a little too much goat cheese for one bite, but delicious nonetheless!
Since we were turning one year old, Cyrena decided we would have an “aged” night. Barrel aged beer and cheese pairings, anyone?
The cheese plate contained a firm goat cheese, creamy basque, nutty Manchego and zesty blue cheese as well as sliced apples and a cherry reduction. We were served the Chaparral Saison, Blind Ambition, Co-Hoperative IPA and Blue Belly Barleywine that’s been aging for a while. After plenty of experimentation, I decided that the IPA helped cut through the silky, creamy basque, the Blind Ambition enhanced the nuttiness in the Manchego and also brought out the sweetness of the goat cheese. Not a fan of blue cheese, so that poor neglected cheese was basically ignored… Oops.
In addition to the beers above, J.J. brought this bottle of oak aged insanity from Brew Dog: Tokio. You are indeed reading that right: 18.2%ABV. The aroma on this baby is overwhelmingly tar and sherry-like. If you like roasty cough syrup, this is for you! It hurt to sip, but I wouldn’t quite say it was bad… It’s just not beer.
This aged beer was more to my liking – Supplication by Russian River. This is a sour beer that doesn’t have the hint of sweetness that you tend to find in beers aged with cherries. A powerful aroma swimming with cherries and a crisp tartness that stings the tongue in a delightful way.

It was a wonderful way to celebrate the way all of us ladies have grown in our knowledge of beer and overwhelming excitement about bringing craft beer into the world of women.
In other Ladyface-like news – Christian finally picked up his growler! There are still a few left waiting to be claimed! Those of you who won, come and get them, otherwise they’ll be donated to the next customers who look excessively thirsty.

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A Day Off

It’s been another crazy week! I have a feeling this will end up being the main theme of all my weeks at work. After brew day on Tuesday, I woke up to a surprise day off from work. What’s a girl to do with all that time on her hands? Visit more breweries – were you expecting something else?
First up was a trip to Bravery Brewing in Lancaster. This place hasn’t officially opened yet, but brewmaster Brian Avery let us get a sneak peak at his 3 bbl system and check out the space.
Just a quick teaser of the brewery – I’ll do a full write up once he’s up and brewing. This place is going to be amazing!
Afterwards, we headed over to Kinetic Brewing, also in Lancaster, and got a quick tour of their 10 bbl system.
Kinetic has been open for about three and a half months and already has a strong following. We got to try all of their beers on tap as well as taste their cheesecake with a crust made of graham crackers and spent grain. Drool.
From left to right – Potential Blonde, White Thai, Rusted Gear, Fusion Porter and McLernon’s Irish Stout. My favorite was the Rusted Gear – a little more roast than your typical amber with a hint of nuttiness and a malty ending. The White Thai is a Belgian witbier spiked with lemongrass and keffir lime – nicely balanced and not overwhelmed with spices, but I definitely couldn’t have more than a taster size of this. It’s always refreshing to find a new brewery that has consistently good beer across the board.
We grabbed a growler of the Rusted Gear and took off for Valencia.
The next day was back to work – filling kegs and setting up for a microbrewfest.
It was about 94 degrees out at the Westfield mall off of Topanga Canyon. Thank God the sponsors had provided us with tents!
We found a way to keep hydrated though. Quality control/hydration: very important.
LAB Brewing was also a featured brewery! We all agreed on how important keeping hydrated was, and spent the evening swapping taster for taster. Quite a few people came by and stated how they wanted to taste our beer versus our “competitor’s” beer. We are not competitors! Microbreweries should never truly be in competition, but always supporting each other in the fight to bring down the big guys who cram their beers full of crappy adjuncts and use flashy ad campaigns to try and entice consumers into drinking their fizzy yellow water. We should work together to help expand the palates of those who truly appreciate beer that is full of flavor, as well as introduce former fizzy yellow water drinkers to delicious craft brew! Rant over. Thank you for your time.
The fest was a success! We met tons of people who loved our beer, adored our food and wanted more. I personally left incredibly stuffed – of the 20+ restaurants that were there, I tried food from at least 15. Pain. Wonderful, delicious pain.

I headed to Enegren Brewing yesterday to get some more brewery fix. Three breweries in one week just wasn’t enough.
I got to meet Ryan and Laura! Ryan won my growler giveaway and drove up from the Riverside area to pick up his winnings. He also walked away with an Enegren growler full of Moorpark deliciousness.
Ryan and Johnson are the first to pick up their growlers! That means that Brent, Jacob, Christian K. are still lacking in the free growler department.

Okey, I’m back to work! Lots of thirsty patrons to serve!

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BIG Changes!!!

HECTICITY – noun: an accumulation of hectic situations. That has been my life lately. I told you guys that crazy things were happening and now I can officially let you know what those crazy things are.

I interviewed at Wolf Creek a few weeks ago. I interviewed at Stone Brewing last week.

Today, I accepted a job offer to be assistant brewer at Wolf Creek Restaurant and Brewering Company in Valencia!
Wolf Creek will be moving from a 10 bbl system up to 30 bbl, and I’ll be joining them in upping current production as well as moving to the new brewery! On top of that comes everything to do with “playing brewery” – cleaning, mashing, transferring, cell counts, pilot brews, more cleaning, tasting, cleaning, cleaning… Ecstatic doesn’t even begin to explain how happy I am right now. I start on Wednesday with my first brew early in the morning! Since it’s my first day, I’ll attempt to take pictures and document, but I make no promises.

This calls for celebration – the best way I know how.
Beer. Duh.

I’ll be recapping the rest of my San Diego trip tomorrey. For now, time to crack open something fancy!

Don’t forget to enter the growler giveaway! It ends Wednesday and there are still 5 (possibly only4)  growlers left to be spoken for!

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Filed under big news, life changes