Updates/Mendocino

Well helloooo there friends, hasn't it been awhile? The last you might have heard about Taste of Brews was the event in Dana Point on August 15th. It being our second round of the game, it ran much smoother than before and, guess what, we had food trucks and vendors this time. The samples even lasted through the whole day, hallelujah! But the star of the show was of course the beer. And Dana Point people sure like their beer; it was a fun time.

For those wondering what's next for Taste of Brews, he have a few events conjuring. No official dates have been implanted but you will surely see a Long Beach location in the summer again!  Other locations we are looking at are coming from White Park in Riverside and/or a park in Costa Mesa. We will keep you posted on any further information.

Moving along: I was looking through the Los Angeles Times and to my surprise I noticed a Beer of the Month (How have I not noticed this?) Featured was our friends at Mendocino Brewing (Remember them at the Long Beach location?) with their Black Eye Ale. We picked one up at our local Bevmo because we were all a bit parched... ok we really just wanted some beer, but we were happy we picked this one. This black and tan beer poured a deep dark brown body with a light brown head that quickly shrank to a ring of lace. It smelled of coffee, dark fruit, and burnt caramel. It tasted much like smelled, roasted coffee beans, roasted caramel, bitter hops, and a tad bit of sweetness to round it out. Also it wasn’t too heavy, making it totally sippable throughout the afternoon. Can you imagine this beer being $3 for a 22-oz.? I thought it was too good to be true, but somehow it is in fact the real deal. Thank you Mendocino, thank you.

Dana Point, Oct 15th

Hello guys. It wasn't long ago that we had our premiere event and we had a blast. Outline: Almost everything went surprisingly great with only a few hiccups. There were some incidents that we were not expecting like the shortage of ice at set-up for the brewers, which was solved with a hefty second order. The other thing we did not prepare ourselves for was the mass amount of people that bought tickets at the door. With about 1000 new attendees the day of, the food samples ran out rather quickly. Even though this wasn't meant to be a beer AND food festival, we still would have liked for our attendees to have been able to try at least some of the samples. To help ease this predicament for our Dana Point event, we are going to have food trucks present for those who want a meal on our site grounds rather than having to double-up on samples. That seemed to be the most of our problems, and we had great feedback from those who enjoyed the brews, the music, and the scenery. Evan's came with their dancing inflatable beer guys, Yelp set up some outdoor games, Shock Top parked their mohawked-VW Beetle, Fireman's Brew dressed up their on-lookers, the bands were awesome (Aloha Radio, Gregg Young, and The Dealers), and everyone enjoyed great beers from the many breweries. Success!

Our Dana Point event is coming up soon on October 15th. It's going to have an Oktoberfest theme with festive attire and Oom-pah bands. Like our last event, we focus on the community of the area for that event. We will have samples from local restaurants, cafes, and gastropubs. Some of our breweries will looks familiar to the Long Beach attendee and some will be new to our line-up. Our goal at the end of the day is to introduce new flavors and to savor familiar favorites, as well as to share the experiences with loved ones and neighbors. Not much can go wrong on a beautiful sunny day in Southern California, beer in hand. Hope to see you on October 15th!