Collaborative Cross-Continental Dark Saison to Debut at Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest

Paso Robles, CA: Multiple versions of the same collaborative dark saison wild ale—called La Piccola—will be unveiled at the 2015 Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest on May 30, capping off a year of cross-continental brewing hijinks between brewmasters Agostino Arioli of Birrificio Italiano and Matt Brynildson of Firestone Walker Brewing Company.

“With most collaborations, you start the beer together at one brewery, and it gets finished there, resulting in one beer,” Brynildson said. “Agostino and I decided to do something different. We sat down and designed the recipe together, then went back to our respective breweries to brew them on our own. We’ve been emailing back and forth for a year now, trying to replicate what the other was doing.”

It all started at last year’s beer fest, when Arioli and Brynildson hatched their plan to brew a dark saison that would be made with debittered black malt, then soured via secondary fermentation and aged in barrels—and also spiced up with an unlikely twist.

“Like many Italians, Agostino is a true gourmet, and he takes a chef’s approach to brewing,” Brynildson said. “He’s really into exotic spices and he wanted to play around with these Sichuan peppercorns, which are really weird and unique. We had to contact a spice hunter in Italy to get our hands on them.”

After Brynildson brewed his base version of La Piccola, he sent it down to barrelmeisters Jeffers Richardson and Jim Crooks at Firestone Walker’s Barrelworks wild ale facility, where they initiated secondary fermentation and maturation for 12 months in French oak barrels.

In the end, they decided to create one version with the peppercorns (La Piccola Pepe Di Sichuan) and one without (La Piccola Virtuosa). Meanwhile, Arioli is finishing up his own La Piccola made with the peppercorns. All three beers will be first presented at the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest on May 30 in Paso Robles. Bottles of the California-brewed beers are limited to 250 cases each, and two-packs will be available for purchase at the Paso Robles brewery and Barrelworks in Buellton starting at 3 p.m. on May 30.

The base beer was brewed with the same Belgian yeast used to make Firestone Walker’s Opal saison, giving it classic fruit and spice notes. The debittered black malt provided dark color without assertive bitterness. The souring and barrel aging layered in just the right amount of earthy funk. And the peppercorn version presents its own distinctive qualities.

“The Sichuan peppercorns are pretty intense,” Brynildson said. “If you pop one in your mouth, your face goes numb. In the beer, it adds black pepper and lemon zest notes, and it also gives this subtle tingle on the tongue.”

He added, “I can’t wait to try Agostino’s version. It will be fascinating to compare and contrast the final results between the same beer made separately in California and Italy.”

2nd Annual Sabroso Craft Beer and Taco Festival Recap

Have you ever been to an amazing event, and looked forward to attending it the next year? That's how I feel about every event that is put on by the folks at OC Brew Ha Ha.  Last year was the first year of Sabroso and I had such a great time!  You can read about my recap from last year here.

This year's event, held this past Saturday, had the same elements as last year, tacos from local restaurants and food trucks, a great variety of beer, and wrestling.  Of course, this year, though, there were more taco choices, more breweries pouring beer, and more wrestling matches.  Just like last year, there was a competition among the restaurants and food trucks who made tacos.  This year's winner of the taco competition was Dos Chinos.

Sabroso was held in the same location as last year, which is adjacent to major freeways in Orange County, but feels as if you are hours away from any major metropolitan area.  I love this about both Sabroso and Brew Ha Ha.  It makes the event feel a bit more relaxed since it is held in a park setting filled with trees and next to a lake.  The venue has an upper level, which is where you enter the event and where the food booths/trucks were located.  Various vendors were also on hand, such as Craftbeerd, which sells some of my favorite beer related t-shirts and artwork.  

The mid and lower levels are where the majority of the breweries were located as well as a stage with live music and the wrestling ring.  The variety of breweries at the event allowed both novice and more seasoned beer drinkers to be able to find something that would interest them throughout the day.  

Although it was a warm day, the ample shade provided by both the large shade trees, canopies at each brewery's station, and expansive seating area on the upper level helped to ensure festival attendees would not swelter too much.  In addition to extra wrestling matches this year, two local breweries also had a match up in tag team wrestling.  Bottle Logic Brewing and Noble Ale Works decided to take their local friendly competition into the wrestling ring.  The Bottle Logic Brewing and Noble Ale Works match was talked about throughout the day.  "Are they really in a fight?  Have you seen their instagram posts?  I heard that they don't like each other!  I wonder who's going to win?"  In the end, the match which had wrestlers wrestle on behalf of both breweries ended up in a draw.  After the end of the match, it was announced that Bottle Logic Brewing and Noble Ale Works will be working on a collaboration beer.  This was such a great way to announce a collaboration beer!
I had so much fun at Sabroso this year and can't wait for next year's festivities!

5th Annual San Clemente Micro-Brew Festival

This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to visit a brewery for the first time and also to attend an event for the first time!  For the past five years, Left Coast Brewing Company has hosted the San Clemente Micro-Brew Festival.  This event supports a fantastic cause, Welcome Home Military Events which are put on by the San Clemente Chamber of Commerce.  The event was held in the parking lot of Left Cost Brewing Company and had a great variety of beers to sample.  There were two tickets available for festival attendees, VIP allowed guests to enter the festival one hour early, which is a great idea.  Being able to enter the event an hour early made it easy to sample both new beers as well as old favorites.  Admission to the Micro-Brew Festival included 12 four ounce pours, which was more than enough.  The festival was five hours for VIP ticket holders and four hours for general admission ticket holders.  This was an ample amount of time to sample beers as well as to have time to chat with friends.  I like events where I don't feel rushed to try super popular beers which may result in a huge line.

Breweries that attended this year included:

Artifex Brewing

Bagby Beer Company

Ballast Point

Beach City Brewery

Beachwood BBQ & Brewing

Cismontane Brewing Company

Coronado Brewing Company

Green Flash Brewing Co

Left Coast Brewing Co

Legacy Brewing Co

Lucky Buddha

Ninkasi Brewing Company

Oggi's Pizza & Brewing Co

Pizza Port Brewing Company, San Clemente

Saint Archer Brewing Co

Along with delicious beers, three food trucks also brought yummy food for attendees to sample throughout the event.  Food trucks that attended included:

Bacon Mania

The Buffalo Truck

Classic Tacos

The San Clemente Micro-Brew Festival was very well organized, the check in process was very smooth and I loved how they included a list of the breweries along with their beers they would be pouring as you entered.  Although the weather was overcast, and actually started to rain a short while after general admission ticket holders were admitted, I'd rather have a cloudy day for a beer fest than a super hot day!

I had a fantastic time at the San Clemente Micro-Brew Festival.  I loved that there were breweries that I had sampled before as well as ones that I hadn't tried yet.  Everyone was very happy and eager to talk about their beers.  I also enjoyed that the crowd was super mellow. 

Baseball and Strangers

Adults are always telling kids to stay away from strangers.  Interacting with them can of course, be dangerous.  But, as adults, in the social media age, it is not only encouraged but widely accepted to interact with and even befriend strangers.  While I love attending baseball games with friends, it's not always feasible.  With 162 games in MLB, it's nearly impossible to attend even all of the home games of my favorite teams.  So what's a baseball fan to do?  Watch games with fellow fans through social media.  One of the easiest and fastest ways to interact with fellow fans is through one of my favorite social media channels, twitter.  Instead of sitting at home alone, yelling at my t.v. and scaring my dog, I'm able to talk about games with fans from all over the world.

A sea of strangers

Besides talking with fellow fans during games, it's a great way to express optimism about upcoming games as well as analyze games afterwards.  Another advantage to using social media is being able to interact with players.  I often wish that social media had been around when I was a kid just so I would've been able to tell Mr. Padre how much of an inspiration he was to me.
I think one of my favorite parts about social media and baseball is that not only have I found another way to enjoy games, but, I've even made friends outside of the world wide web.  Many of my friends that I've interacted with over the years are now close friends.  These are people I may have seen at games in the past, but would've never approached to ask their opinions on about how our favorite team could improve.  Using social media is such a great way to build camaraderie among fans. So, although it is usually frowned upon to talk to strangers, in the case of social media and baseball, I think it's a win win.