The Coachella Valley-focused column I had planned for this month fell through—so I’m going to talk about a very cool taproom event I had the good fortune to attend: Smog City Brewing’s Eighth Anniversary Rarest of the Rare beer fest.
Smog City is a brewery I haven’t mentioned much in this column, and that is a bit of a shame, because I’ve always enjoyed their beers when given to me, or when I ordered their Sabre-Toothed Squirrel red ale at our local Eureka! But it’s in Torrance, and I have never been motivated to head out there, even with the nearby, widely acclaimed Monkish Brewing sweetening the pot; it’s just easier to stop in Orange County and enjoy the many great breweries there. (And yes, I did stop on the way to Torrance, to have a couple of small pours at one of my current favorite breweries, Everywhere Beer Co., and to pick up a crowler of their latest fresh hop IPA, and a blueberry and lemon hard seltzer, so I didn’t show up at my friend Bennett’s place empty-handed.)
After a late Friday/early Saturday session of catching up (and maybe some rye whiskey), we retired. While I may not be the biggest fan of the area, the weather was absolutely sunny and gorgeous at 72 degrees. The aforementioned Bennett, his fiancé Autumn, our friend James and I got a ride to Smog City’s brewery taproom, went inside, and eyed the long list of beers. I saw a saison with kumquats and vanilla on nitrogen—and I couldn’t order anything else as my first beer. There was citrus, bubblegum, a touch of white pepper, and an incredibly enjoyable orange creamsicle-like note. This a beer style that’s normally very crisp carbonation-wise, and nitro did it a lot of favors.
We brought our beers to a long wooden bench on the patio and eyed the Felice Italian Catering truck, with a pizza oven and various delicious pies to enjoy. We ordered a few and shared them while sampling each other’s drinks—but I somehow missed sampling Bennett’s portion of a gose called Kelp Wanted. A gose is an old sour wheat-beer style with coriander and salt; it had its origins in Leipzig and saw a revival a little more than a decade ago in American craft-beer circles, but it has kind of gone away since. The name might seem weird until you find out they used red dulse kelp in the beer. I asked Bennett what he thought, and his verdict was: “Briny, but not bad.” I wish I’d tried it just for science.
We were met by our friend Alex who showed us a vending machine he installed in the taproom for the purchasing of various card and tabletop games. I loved the idea and began to rack my brain for other breweries in Southern California that would benefit from one. Having Alex there gave us the added benefit of having fun games to play as we caught up and tried delicious beer and pizza.
I was already sufficiently impressed at that point, and I decided to get a flight of five beers. While everything was of high quality, the Pumpkin Spice Chip Shot coffee stout was a revelation. I thought that the pumpkin-spice beer trend reached its zenith 10 years ago and had since come down to earth (as it needed to do), but this beer was lovely—an American stout with coffee, a leafy mint flavor, roasted malt and, finally, pumpkin spice in the background to complement it all. Everything was working in concert to create a huge flavor explosion, all within a relatively low 6% alcohol-by-volume beverage. This is a perfect example of how the beer itself should be the star, with the adjuncts there to complement it.
Shortly after the event began, Smog City set up a small bar inside the brewhouse where they rotated in interesting kegs and bottles for serving. This is where I got a pour of the Apex Predator barrel-aged strong ale. It was aged for 15 months in smaller-than-usual Garrison Bros. Balmorhea barrels in order to increase, in their words, the “spirit soaked oak contact” with the beer. This had big notes of caramel, toffee, almond and, of course, bourbon, but it was not overwhelming and clocked in at a mere 9.5%. What was a tad overwhelming, however, was the Double Bourbon O.E. English-style barleywine. They took a previous barleywine named Bourbon O.E. and barreled it again, in a freshly dumped bourbon barrel, where it picked up a lot of bourbon character—and an extra 2% in ABV. There were some nice flavors in there, but the beer was quite hot at 16.5% alcohol.
At this point, we had been enjoying the beautiful day at the taproom for at least three hours. We had interesting conversations, sampled lots of beer and pizza, played some really fun card games, and enjoyed the perfect weather. It was time to retreat back to Bennett and Autumn’s house with James and our friend Nick (who very generously gave me a bottle of the Infinite Wishes barrel-aged stout he’d bought at Smog City), where we enjoyed homemade steak shish kebab and lamb chops alongside a brilliant sake. I don’t get to spend a lot of time with these friends, and when I do, I cherish it.
While Los Angeles isn’t my favorite place in the world, it has a beauty that cannot be denied—and it has some pretty fantastic beer, too.