Brues, Q's, and food at the Tasting Room

At The Bruery, we love good food almost as much as we love good beer. Of course the beauty of that is we can have our food and drink beer too. This weekend at the Tasting Room, we'll have plenty of both.

Friday night, Piaggio on Wheels will be in town with their Argentine cuisine. Piaggio's been by before, bringing with him delicious interpretations of South American specialties, and we've always enjoyed it. If you haven't tried it yet, this is definitely a good time to do it. Look for the truck outside the Tasting Room on Friday night for dinner.

Saturday our friends at Kogi BBQ will be bringing the truck down to dispense the wonderful Korean barbeque that we all know and love. I know I can't get enough of that Blackjack Quesadilla (my favorite!), so as always we'll be looking forward to their amazing food.

Sunday, we're going to try a little something new. We think good beer is a great compliment to a fun game, so we'll be hosting Brues & Q's this weekend. We've got trivia from lots of different categories, including beer!

For example, do you know which US president was once a pitch man for PBR? Or which US state has never had a brewery?? You'll have to play to find out! Don't worry though, if you're not super beer savvy there's other categories as well. So bring your your wits - and your witty friends, because we'll be playing with teams - and see what kind of goodness we give out as prizes. We'll get this going at 2 pm.

This weekend, we're pouring:

Orchard White (available for growlers)

Rugbrød (available for growlers)

Saison Rue

Saison De Lente (Reserve Society growlers)

Melange No. Sechs (Reserve Society growlers)

White Oak & Oude Tart - bottle only

See you there!

Become a Fan!

We restarted our facebook page (again) and this time we've done it the right way. Clearly we're better at beer than technology because it took us until now to figure out how to make a page where you can click that cool "become a fan!" button. We'll be using the page to let you know about releases, events, specials at the Tasting Room and give you some insight into our daily lives. So, without further ado.... become a fan of The Bruery on facebook!

www.facebook.com/TheBruery

photos

Once in a while we whip out the camera and take some photos, but then we tend to forget that we took photos and they sit on a memory card in a lonely camera in a drawer for a while. Well, here are just a few of the cooler photos from the past month or two. Enjoy.

Doug and Kevin getting our hop vine down so we can use it to dry hop a cask of Humulus XPA for the Tasting Room.

Just a few of our Reserve Society members lining up to try Papier aged in bourbon, brandy and rye barrels.

Tyler examines a glass of what would eventually be blended and dubbed Oude Tart

A line up of several barrels of Flemish red ale, we would blend these to taste. The outcome became Oude Tart.

Jay somehow organized a monstrosity of hoses in order to clean the brewhouse after a hard day's work.

This weekend at the Tasting Room...

We hope everyone had an enjoyable Valentine's Day weekend and if you joined us at the Tasting Room, thanks for coming!

For those of you who tried the Sechs & Chocolate pairing and were interested in procuring some of those delicious chocolates, you can find them at www.xuanpatisserie.com and order some for yourself now that Valentine's is over.

If you missed out on Melange No. Sechs last weekend, don't worry - we will still be serving it this weekend. It's our Valentine's Day blend made with beets, cocoa nibs, rose petals, and of course, love (as our bartender Jarred pointed out in his display for the beer). It's just as tasty after Valentine's Day, so come give it a try.

Louk's Greek Gourmet to Go will be returning this weekend as well. They were a big hit the last time they visited us and they'll be serving their tasty Greek specialties from the truck this Saturday for dinner – 6 to 10 pm. Try their delicious gyros, feta fries and Louks (mini Greek donuts drizzled with honey, nutella, and other tasty toppings) with your Bruery beer.

The 2010 Winter Olympics are well under way, and you don't have to miss the games to have your beer. In fact we think they compliment each other well. You can catch the Friday & Saturday night on our big screen at the Tasting Room – Go USA!

Finally, we are getting to the end of the available bottles of Oude Tart and White Oak for sale. If you've been holding out for the right time, that time is now! Both of these beers are rare special releases for us and would make great gifts for your beer geek friends, a nice addition to your own beer cellar, or you can just enjoy them immediately!

This weekend we'll be pouring:

Orchard White (available for growlers)

Saison Rue

Rugbrød (available for growlers)

Saison De Lente (Reserve Society growler fill)

Melange No. Sechs (Reserve Society growler fill)

White Oak & Oude Tart bottles available for sale

Hope to see you there!

Bruery inspired Art!

Well this is a first for us. A super awesome artist who sampled our Melange no Sechs during San Francisco beer week was inspired to use the beer as the latest installment in her weekly art blog where she makes witty paintings and other art pieces that dissect different foods (mainly meats, but today, BEER!)

Be sure to take look at her site, she does great work.

http://meatsections.blogspot.com

Sechs, Chocolate, and Saison De Lente

We've got not one but TWO new beers on tap this weekend at the Tasting Room. Saison De Lente, our spring seasonal, is officially back – on draft and in bottles. Some of you may have had a chance to taste the cask of this beer last weekend, but for those of you who haven't tried this beer before, it's a crisp and hoppy Saison that's a bit lighter than Saison Rue and fitting for spring celebrations.

The next beer is the latest in our Melange series that's been brewed especially for Valentine's Day; this is number six - or No. Sechs as we've dubbed it. Melange no. Sechs is primarily made up of an experimental beer brewed with beets for a festive red color before cocoa nibs and rose petals are added. It's then blended with White Oak Sap (our bourbon barrel aged wheat wine) & bourbon barrel aged Rugbrød The resulting beer is 9% ABV and has an earthy flavor with a pleasant chocolate & vanilla nose and a subtle floral hint all wrapped in an incredibly smooth package. It's one Sechs-y beer!

On Valentine's Day, stop by the Tasting Room before your V-Day dinner plans for a little Sechs & Chocolate. We're working with local chocolatier Xuan Patiserrie of Fullerton and have developed a flight of craft beer and artisan chocolate so you can treat your sweetie. We think a Caramel Vanilla Fleur de Sel chocolate heart paired with Melange No. Sechs is a great way to spend V-Day. This is just one of the 3 beer and chocolate pairings that will be served on the flight. It should be a fun and unique way to spend your holiday. Here's a little shot of the chocolates - can't wait!

Finally, for you Korean BBQ fans, the Kogi BBQ Taco Truck will be at the Tasting Room on Saturday night from 6:30 – 9 pm. I think you're all pretty familiar with this concept by now – delicious Korean BBQ and Mexican fusion, all served from their handy mobile kitchen right on site at The Bruery.

This weekend we'll be pouring:

Orchard White (available for growler fills)

Saison Rue

Rugbrød (available for growler fills)

Humulus XPA (available for growler fills)

Saison De Lente (Reserve Society growler fills)

Melange No. Sechs (Reserve Society growler fills)

Mischief

Also available for sale:

Oude Tart bottles

White Oak bottles

See you there!

Cheers,

Stef & the other folks at The Bruery

new offices!

we're probably the only ones who care, but its a move that we've needed for quite a while since half of the staff had been working on laptops located on their laps for the past year or so. While The Bruery itself hasn't moved, our business offices moved down the parking lot to #737. We now have desks and are farther away from the beer, so hopefully we'll be getting some work done.

if we were as good at installing desks at making beer, it wouldn't take this many people.

Patrick painting the ceilings for our new fixtures.

Jonas takes a phone call while screwing brackets together under his desk.

Rachel enjoying our fresh desktop appliances, still in the boxes.

Jonas can now take calls from on top of his desk.

Valentine's Beer Clarification

just to put all the rumors and questions to rest:

Our Valentine's beer is called Melange No. Sechs (as in 6 in German, even though it's not a German-style beer, just seemed like a convenient name) and it will only be available on draft (NO BOTTLES) and only at very select Southern California bars and restaurants, primarily over the Valentine's weekend, as well as at The Tasting Room of course. Sorry, but it is a very small batch of beer.

First Firkin Friday, Super Bowl Sunday - and everything in between...

We have a lot going on this weekend so here’s the schedule of events!

First, we’re kicking off February with a cask of one of my favorite Bruery beers – Saison De Lente.  As our spring seasonal offering, this beer has a lighter body than Saison Rue and a pleasant hoppyness that is ideal as the weather warms up.  This crisp golden ale is brewed with Brettanomyces and is ideal for cellaring – but it’s just as delicious fresh!  We’ll have bottles available for sale as well.

Saturday night we have a new food truck stopping by to feed your beer munchies.  Louk’s Greek Gourmet to Go will be on hand serving some tasty Greek specialties like gyros, lamb chops, and tzatziki French fries so stop by and sample some of their delicious dishes.

For Super Bowl Sunday, we’ve decided to change things up a bit.  Instead of our normal business hours (12-6pm) we’re going to open early and close before kick-off (10 am -3 pm).  We know everyone needs beer for the big game so we’re offering 10% off growler fills for your game time drinking pleasure. 

Also, since we’ll be open early, we thought a little Super Bowl Brunch would be in order.  We’ll be serving some light brunch items for you to snack on while you fill your growlers and grab bottles for the game.  We’ll be pouring our Berliner Weisse Mimosas to kick off your game day so come down early and start your pre-game party at the Tasting Room!

This weekend we’ll be pouring:

 

Orchard White (available for growlers)

Humulus XPA (available for growlers)

Rugbrød (available for growlers)

Saison Rue

Mischief

Berliner Weisse (on Sunday)

Saison De Lente (on cask Friday until it’s gone!)

Hope to see you this weekend!

today at The Bruery

I feel like we've fallen off of the wagon a bit when it comes to what this blog used to focus on, the daily happenings at The Bruery, so we're going to try to bring back that aspect of the blog and hopefully let you in on a bit of what happens in the day to day at a craft brewery that has now been open for just short of 2 years.

It was actually an atypical day today. As we now have a bigger crew of both brewers and office staff, we've had to expand our real estate a tiny bit. We were able to lease an office a few doors down from the one we currently reside in (which is just the front portion of the brewery) so that our office staff can have desks instead of working on laptops that literally reside on their laps. So today, our staff was split into two offices for the first time. The brewing staff was busy bottling Saison De Lente for the Spring release as well as creating a new limited release concoction intended for a Valentine's weekend release in just a few SoCal locations. The office staff was busy painting the new office space to make it a bit more hospitable.

While we'll only be separated by about 70 yards, it's definitely going to be weird for part of The Bruery staff to be in one office and part in another, but I'm sure we'll adjust qu

ickly and all will work out for the best.

Here are a few photos from the today.

Jonas and Rachel helping paint the new office space.

Patrick oranging up the new reception area (not that we have a receptionist)

Tyler syphoning out that special Valentine's release.

Travis prepping the lines for love.

That's one ridiculous color for a beer. Looks like love.