It has become somewhat of a tradition for me to check in on the local breweries and see where they are in their development. In years past, I have found a mixture of disappointment and promise, with rare bright spots sprinkled throughout.
Certainly, things will be great this time around. Right?
Las Palmas Brewing is the place I tell people to go most often. I do this because I love their beer; I love how they go about the business of their brewery; and I feel guilty for not being able to make it there as often as I’d like. I spoke with Hector, who was a really nice guy and an actual fan of craft beer, while I sipped on their pilsner, which was crisp with notes of grass and maybe a little spice from hops. I also tried the Fifty Four, their gorgeous saison, with hints of banana and white pepper. Hector gave me hope for the future here, as we need more locals as excited by craft beer and what’s on offer around us. There is no secret formula to create a healthy craft-beer scene; it’s simply about passionate people coming together to make it happen. Go to Las Palmas now, and support the great things they do, please.
Now for the first conflict-of-interest disclosure: I am currently employed as a bartender at Babe’s Bar-B-Que and Brewery, where the beer is solid, for the most part, with the Palm Springs IPA being the best it’s ever been. The tap lineup has been saddled with a lot of similar beers in the past year—I dare you to blindly try the light lager, rice lager and blonde side by side, and pick out which is which—but there have been some real winners, like the “golden ale” (really an English-style strong ale) we brewed for Rancho Mirage’s 50th anniversary, and a New Zealand-hopped pale ale. As always, the food is excellent. Yeah, I know I work there, and you can take what I say with a grain of salt, but if you knew me, you’d know I don’t pull punches when it comes to beer—and Babe’s is not employing me to write this column, after all.
Onward to Desert Beer Company, where I always run into people I know, like Devon Sanchez, the owner and my former manager at Coachella Valley Brewing Company, and cellarman Justin Young, whom I also know from CVB. I tried a flight and had similar results to my last visit. The Devonator triple IPA was pretty solid and drank much easier than the 10.5% alcohol by volume; the Brewjitsu rice lager had a really nice, pillowy head and a soft mouthfeel. The Ron de Arroz rice ale had a slightly dessert-like quality thanks to the cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and vanilla, without being too sweet. Not everything was a big winner, but nothing was undrinkable in the least.
Thanks to the aforementioned Justin (who helps out in the brewhouse at CVB from time to time), I was able to try what I would have otherwise completely omitted from these pages: beer from Coachella Valley Brewing Company. I worked there and departed on not-good terms, but again, this has no bearing on what I think about the beer, and I’ve never had anything but good interactions with head brewer Eric Beaton, who seems like a genuinely humble, nice guy.
With that preamble out of the way, the two beers I tried were solid. The Three C’s IPA was a take on an older West Coast IPA, but with much less bitterness, and it was pretty good. The Boots With the Brrrr Cold Double IPA was smooth, but there was not a ton of aroma or flavor from the hops used. I detected some slight fruity notes (a little peach), but nothing to blow you away. Yes, I am biased, but I miss the days of Chris Anderson at the helm, brewing beers with personality and tons of flavors smacking you in the palate.
The Poolside Blonde was greatly improved over my previous encounters. It had a cracker-like malt flavor that was somewhat pilsner-esque, but slightly sweet, dry and crisp—a very good start.
Finally, I checked out actual big boys of the desert: La Quinta Brewing Co. I have no preamble this time, other than to say there’s been another change in brewers recently. I went to the brewery location in Palm Desert and tried a flight with a few core beers in it, to get a full lay of the land. The Poolside Blonde was greatly improved over my previous encounters. It had a cracker-like malt flavor that was somewhat pilsner-esque, but slightly sweet, dry and crisp—a very good start. 5 O’Bock Somewhere resembled a porter more than a malty German lager. Sundaze Summer IPA was a session IPA with some peach and mango flavors; it was crisp and very light, but it had a decent amount of flavor for a style that has all but been forgotten. The Even Par has been a staple for LQ for years, so I felt obligated to try it. One whiff, and I knew I wasn’t drinking more than one sip due to the prominent plastic-tasting phenols; I apologized and asked for another beer in its place. The Heatwave Amber Ale had a lot of bubblegum and banana wafting out of the glass where there definitely shouldn’t be. On a positive note, the brewery taproom is a really nice place to go and have some nice pub fare to eat while enjoying some of their beers, or brews from the guest taps that are curated reasonably well.
I’ll briefly mention Luchador Brewing here—briefly, because my last visit was like my others: The food is good, but the beers are mediocre and/or flawed, and I didn’t drink half of my flight. I suspect the seltzer slushies are still the best beverages there, and I’m sad that time has not yet helped their beer program develop.
All in all, there is still plenty of room for improvement overall, and I continue to hope that a passionate craft-beer fanbase develops here to push the beer scene along. But for now, we are where we are—and there’s no sense in denying it.
