Tag Archives: Beer

Monkish Brewing Company – Orange County CA

April 10, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Monkish was my second stop in the Torrance area. After visiting Smog City I felt a craving for something different. I quite enjoyed the Belgian style beers at Monkish that offered plenty of heavy carbonation as comes with the styles. Rather than giving you all four beers in the flight at the same time, Monkish gives you a glass and some tokens so that you give them a new token each time you are ready for the next beer. This way people can enjoy the beers in a proper glass and focus on them one at a time. In the flight I tasted the Sepia Belgian brown, Brown Habit brown farmhouse, Anomaly dark Belgian and Funky Habit brown saison with brett. I returned the next day and had a taste of the Hem & Haw wild ale also with brett.

From the first sip of the Sepia I was hooked. It had plenty of delicious Belgian spice mixed nicely with the roasted malts flavors and a little bit of bitter chocolate. After the Sepia I went for the Brown Habit which was poured from a bottle. It had a very smooth finish and a nice dark fruit flavor that mixed nicely with a little bit of caramel flavor. Adding in the mild sweetness I thought this was perfectly balanced. I ended up taking home a growler of the Sepia and two bottles of the Brown Habit when I stopped by the next day on my way home.

The Anomaly dark Belgian had a nice dark fruit flavor with a light coffee flavor. The heavy spice and carbonation were good but it did not live up to the other beers in the list. I ended with the Funky Habit, a brett version of a brown saison. It had a nice flavor of stone fruit and a light amount of tartness. This was also quite good.

I would have liked to have tried more beers while at Monkish but with one more brewery to go for the day I didn’t want to overdo it. I did have a taste of the Hem & Haw dark saison with brett yeast when I returned for some bottles on my way home. It had an interesting light smoke that combined with some roasted malts and dark fruits. However, the beer was quite light in body and didn’t have the full flavor that I got from the other beers I tried the previous day.

In all I was very impressed by the beers I was able to taste at Monkish especially the Sepia and Brown Habit. I hope to return the next time I am in the area to have a taste of some of their other many offerings. Monkish has a very nice tasting room with plenty of places to sit. This was the first time I encountered sacks of grain used as chairs. Monkish is close enough to Smog City that you can easily walk between the two. Check back next week for my coverage of the grand opening of Phantom Carriage featuring some delicious dark sours.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Craft Beer Bar

Abnormal Beer Company inside The Cork and Craft

April 8, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

The Cork and Craft opened sometime last year offering a wide tap selection, good wine selection, and a menu of upscale food. They already hosted quite a few events including one featuring Stone’s Xocoveca Mexican Chocolate Stout where you could meet the Tijuana brewers who worked with Stone. On April 7, 2015 they had the official opening of their house brewery known as Abnormal Beer Company. This meant the first set of house beers was available on tap.

I came up to see what they were brewing and tried the session IPA, mocha stout, IPA, and cask mocha stout with honey. The Session IPA was crisp and lightly bitter, in line with the other San Diego session beers. Some hop heads might find it too low on bitterness compared with a Stone Go To IPA. Comparatively the IPA was a powerful 7.6% while not much more bitter than the typical pale ale. The IPA was a little sticky and packed in some delicious tropical fruit, lemon and orange flavors and was mild enough that people who are scared away from IPAs might enjoy it.

The Mocha Stout was a very flavorful stout for just over 5% alcohol, blending nicely a strong coffee flavor with chocolate and signature roasted malt flavors. This certainly gives the Black House from Modern Times a run for its money. Compared to the regular, the cask stout was a bit too mild for me, mostly because of the addition of the honey. An already smooth beer from the cask became a little too mellow with the honey although you could still taste a little bit of the coffee.

Though I would have liked to have been able to order tasters of the house beers, I got a good taste with the 8 ounce pours of each. Both the IPA and Mocha Stout would be worth ordering a pint if you are interested in their house beers and fans of the styles. When I am in need of a place for a pint in the area I will certainly be coming back after seeing the wide variety of beers available on tap. For those in the area looking for a good location to have a pint after work Cork and Craft has something on tap for everyone, even your friends who only drink wine.

Pork belly dish I shared with my neighbors.

Before I left I got a chat with the brewer who mentioned that they will be planning some multi-course beer dinners going forward where big breweries from all over will get a chance to pair beers with their chef’s creations. This will also give them a chance to put one of their house brews in the lineup to get people to try them.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Tasting Room

Smog City Brewing Company – Orange County CA

April 3, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Smog City was the first stop in the Torrance area where I planned to visit a few breweries on a Saturday. One of the breweries I had heard the most about before visiting was Smog City. I stopped by the tasting room as the first stop for my day and found them to have plenty of good hoppy beers and a fantastic porter.

I started with a flight of the saison, coffee porter, sabetooth squirrel hoppy amber, and hoptonic IPA. The saison was a nice beer with a good citrus flavor and a very light tartness. Next came the coffee porter which I found to be quite intense as someone who hasn’t had a cup of coffee for three weeks. It had a very intense coffee flavor and wasn’t overly bitter.

The Saber Tooth Squirel was an interesting beer that I found overly bitter with not enough flavor. Though it had a powerful floral hop flavor it was mostly a malt bomb and heavily bitter. I did not finish this taster. The Hoptonic IPA was a solid IPA with a light tartness and a solid bitterness and flavors reminding me of under ripe mango and lemon. Finally I tasted the Death By Hops Double IPA. It had a strong citrus flavor with lots of lemon. It was almost as bitter as the squirel and had a nice balance.

Overall I thought the IPAs were solid but didn’t present the sort of hop profile that I enjoy. The porter was as good as everyone said and Smog City could easily rest on the quality of the porter. If you are looking for a good alternative to the typical west coast style of IPA you might enjoy the flavors in the Smog City IPAs.

Smog City has bottles available for purchase at the tasting room of the Saber Tooth Squirel, and coffee porter. The tasting room offers tables with places to sit and enjoy your beers slowly.

UPDATE February 2016:

I’m always open to changing my mind about a brewery over time and with Smog City all it took was speaking with a number of beer geeks who indicated that Smog City makes awesome sours and barrel aged stouts. Neither of these was available the previous time I visited but I happened to catch an online bottle sale of the Snugglebug and Cuddlebug sours and so when I stopped by to pick them up I also got to taste their Infinite Wishes barrel aged imperial stout.

I was quite impressed by both of the sours. The Cuddlebug has peaches and apricots and had a really nice crisp dry finish with a mild amount of tart and some citrus notes. The Snugglebug has raspberry and boysenberry and had an overall smooth delicious fruit taste with a mild amount of tartness. I would compare these most closely to the Beatitude beers from Council Brewing but with the underlying beer coming through a little more. Infinite Wishes was quite tasty as well, with plenty of vanilla and bourbon coming through in the super smooth imperial stout. I’m glad to say that I will likely be picking up more Smog City sours in the future.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Uncategorized

Pacific Brewing Celebrates One Year of Serving Beer

March 28, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

A year ago I was at Pacific Brewing Company when they had their grand opening party. Now they are still around and pouring their core beers. For the anniversary party they put on an anniversary double IPA, a barrel aged version of their stout, and a double dry hopped version of the Bombora IPA. Unlike other anniversary parties around they didn’t have a price at the door so you could come by and have a few tasters or a pint without any of the other stuff if you want.

I had a taster flight that included the barrel aged stout, anniversary double IPA, double dry hopped Bombora IPA and the Sticky Icky. To me the barrel aged stout was a bit more heavy on the vanilla and didn’t have much of the bourbon flavors I was expecting. They seem to have decided to showcase the flavors of the base beer. I could have done with more bourbon flavors because the vanilla gave it a little syrupy sweet flavor that didn’t work for me.

Then came the anniversary double IPA, a nice lightly herbal beer with a solid bitter bite and mild amount of sticky sweetness. This was great and would go nicely as a pint. Then I had the double dry hopped Bombora, a sticky dank citrus beer with plenty of extra kick thanks to the extra hops. It stood up to the anniversary even though I had it after the anniversary double.

I ended with the Sticky Icky to see how it held up since the opening. It seemed a little less sweet than I remember it being but it was a bit more balanced, which gave it a very pleasant taste. The beer had a nice light roasty flavor and mild hop bite, making it a proper stronger amber without going overboard like many try to do.

It was good to see Pacific sticking to their core beers they started with. Since opening they added the televisions so they have some of the games on as well. I’m glad they managed to keep similar hop flavors going in their anniversary beer despite the difficulty of getting many of the hops they likely used to start with. I look forward to what Pacific will come up with over the next year.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Tasting Room

Council Brewing continues to release fantastic small batch bottles

March 27, 2015 Paul McGuire Leave a comment

Council Brewing started out strong when they opened last year, delivering a wide variety of beers to appeal to all sorts of craft beer drinkers. Since then they have done a few limited releases of beers in bottles starting with a sour saison then a barrel aged tripel then a bourbon barrel aged imperial stout then their tart saisons and finally yesterday they released Vienne, their first barrel aged french saison.

While I haven’t yet opened my barrel aged pirates breakfast imperial stout the barrel aged tripel they released last year was quite delicious. In the San Diego area the french farmhouse ale known as Biere de Garde is not widely produced. Lost Abbey bottles one that is available around town fairly regularly if you know where to look. Other versions are so limited that I did not know they existed. Stone brewed one sometime last year though I never heard about it.

Council’s release of their own Biere de Garde is part of the brewer’s participation in the trend of local breweries exploring styles that are only known to a smaller group of enthusiasts. I had not been aware of the Biere de Garde style until I read “The Brewmaster’s Table” earlier this year that describes the style under the section for French beers.

I stopped by the brewery yesterday to pick up my two bottles of Vienne. While I was there, I had a taster of this new brew and also tasted their Irish Stout that was put on a few weeks ago for St. Patrick’s Day. Sadly, the bottles of Vienne sold out so quickly that your only chance of tasting this beer will be to visit the brewery over the next day or two and hope that they still have it on tap, or to find someone willing to part with their bottle. The quick sale of this beer shows just how much demand there is in the local market for beers in this style.

Bottles of Vienne with the Irish Stout and Vienne in tasters.

Taste wise, I really enjoyed Vienne. The beer was lightly tart, showcasing some nice peach and stone fruit flavors. At other times it displayed a sweet caramel flavor that balanced the tartness nicely. The flavors were smoothed out by the oak quite well. I am looking forward to tasting this beer again when I open my bottles in a few months. The Irish Stout was also impressive, giving a good amount of roasty flavor for the low alcohol content. This is a nice alternative to the stronger Pirate’s Breakfast double oatmeal stout.

If you are a fan of Council’s tart saisons, now called Beatitude, keep an eye out for future small releases of the beers in bottles at the tasting room. Also keep an eye out on the brewery’s facebook page for announcements of future small batch bottle releases because the next one may end up selling out just as quickly as Vienne.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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San Diego Hop Addict

Tag Archives: Beer

Monkish Brewing Company – Orange County CA

Paul McGuire

Abnormal Beer Company inside The Cork and Craft

Paul McGuire

Smog City Brewing Company – Orange County CA

Paul McGuire

Pacific Brewing Celebrates One Year of Serving Beer

Paul McGuire

Council Brewing continues to release fantastic small batch bottles

Paul McGuire

Exploring San Diego's Craft Breweries