Tuesday, December 15, 2009

We make beer here!



Last year for Christmas, I bought Connie a homebrew kit and in 365 days she's made a lot of beer. She's made an IPA, Irish Red Ale, Fat Tire Ripoff, Belgium Seasonal and on Sunday she tapped her first keg of beer - a Strawberry Blonde. That's right a five gallon keg. For her birthday we got a kegerator that sits in our living room. (A kegerator is a mini-fridge that has a tap which hooks to a C02 tank and a party keg. It is like having a mini bar in your house) Since the bottling process takes a lot of time, I asked if the next logical step would be to keg the beer.

With the arrival of the kegerator I thought it would be fun to get a customizable tap and name Connie's beer. We named her company the LA River Brewing Company (if anyone knows LA- they know that the river is just a giant storm drain and disgusting - thought it was a funny inside joke) Here is a picture of Connie pouring from the tap into an amazing pint glass Dad had made for us.



We started talking about what it would take to open a small microbrewery or brewpub in LA. Compared to most cities LA is really lacking, they only have 3 craft breweries. Right now we are in the research phase- sounds like there may be many reasons as to why that is so. We will start attending a women brewers club in January and try to learn from those who have more experience. It has been fun finding a hobby that Connie really enjoys and I get to participate in too. But the best part is sharing the end result with our friends and family.

3 comments:

Martin said...

Totally awesome. I love the design - it really rocks. You only have 3 micro brewers in all of LA? Are you kidding me? We probably have 5 microbreweries in my zipcode. You'll have to come to philly to some research. We have a large bear tasting community and several all-female beer and food meet-ups and bloggers. When I come across them I will send them your way for research sake. So how's it taste. I've been making homemade Irish cream for the past few years around the holidays. This year I will be spray stenciling the bottles (will put up picks when done). I; just calling it MBIC. I'm going to look up some recipes for infused vodkas and give that a shot too. Love it.

Laguna Beyatch said...

The beer so far has been amazing, but I think we finally screwed one up enough where it's not drinkable. We tried a strawberry blonde using fruit extract, and it is the grossest thing ever. And we can't seem to get our keg to carbonate. It's a learning curve, I'm sure we will get it next time...

We will have to check out the local breweries there! Jessica and I plan to travel a lot next year in search of good beer...

Emily B said...

So awesome! I want a custom glass now. I see it in your stars that a new brewery should open in LA. Get all the Derby girls and Sony-ites to support it - - -it could make a go!

Sorry to hear your five gallons of brew might not be worthy.