Did you know that the beers you love only consists of four major ingredients? Yes, only four! Do you know what they are?
This week, I attended a craft beer tasting event where Eagle Rock Brewery‘s Ting Su and Tony’s Darts Away/Mohawk Bend’s Paige Reilly gave a bunch of gals a Beer Class 101 “seminar” where we got to taste an array of beers while learning more about them.
The event was held at Tony’s Darts Away in Burbank, a dive bar at first glance, but when you look deeper,offers subtle nuances you’ll never find at your regular dive bar — I mean they have lavender soap and lotion in the bathroom for god’s sake — I LOVE IT!
To prepare our stomachs for the beers we were to receive, some nourishment were place on the table and what better way to start than with some crispy home made potato chips?
The bar serves some vegan offerings (owner Tony is vegan by the way) so on top of the regular poutine, there is also a vegan version.
We were also given a sampling of the sausages they have. My favorite was the chicken! It had a wonderful blend of spices and was a lot more flavorful than the pork — but we didn’t want to eat a bunch of spicy foods and mask our taste buds for the beer later on.
I didn’t care for the vegan sausage at all due to its strange texture, but that’s okay….. I’m not vegan so I wouldn’t order it anyway.
While we were lining our stomachs with food in preparation for the beers, little plastic tubs of malted barley and hops (two of the major ingredients in beer making) were passed around for us to smell and taste. — did you know that hops is from the cannibis family?
List of beers we sampled:
Craftsman 1903 Lager
Black Market Brown Ale
Russian River Blind Pig IPA
Cismontane/Tustin Brewing El Toro Trio Hafer Weizen
Iron Fist Dubbel Fisted Belgian-style Dubbel
Eagle Rock Solidarity Mild
The Bruery Trade Winds Tripel
Hangar 24 Orange Wheat
AVBC Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout
My favorites of the evening were Russian River Blind Pig IPA, Eagle Rock Solidarity Mild, Hangar 2 Orange Wheat and AVBC Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout. I was really impressed with how easy-to-drink the Solidarity Mild and the Orange Wheat were. Both were very mild but flavorful, former reminded me of a light version of Guinness while the latter had a faint orange at first sip but dissipates the more you drink it.
All the beers we tried are available at Tony’s Darts Away, and of course, at the brewery themselves. Eagle Rock Brewery holds a Brewing Women’s Forum every third Wednesday of each month. Join Ting and the rest of the crew in exploring different beer styles.
** By the way, if you haven’t figured it out yet, the four major ingredients in beer are malted barley, hops, water and yeast **
Eagle Rock Brewery
3056 Roswell Street
Los Angeles, CA 90065
Tel: 323-257-7866
Tony’s Darts Away
1710 W Magnolia Blvd
Burbank, CA 91506
Tel: 818-846-4501
Hangar 2 Orange wheat sounds delicious.
it is! so refreshing and not at all heavy!