101 Cider House: India Pale Cider

We had a hankering for some healthy food recently - yes, that does happen now and zin - so we went to one of the longest-running vegan food restaurants in Los Angeles, Real Food Daily. It features a menu full of items you’d find in many restaurants, but they are made meatless, eggless and usually anything but tasteless. There are lots of soy-based products to take the place of meat in dishes like lasagna, tacos, tuna salad and barbecue. Yes, meatless barbecue. Welcome to Los Angeles.

I broke the water tradition I usually employ at RFD and went with an alcoholic beverage to pair with my La-La lasagna. It was a hard cider from L.A. suburb Westlake Village. 101 Cider House uses "apples and quince grown up and down the 101" freeway that runs along the California coast like a fault line.

The version I had - they make a handful of different varieties, all sour - was called India Pale Cider and is dry-hopped. It hits 6.9% abv on the alcohol scale.

It’s a cloudy yellow - the probiotics, I'm told - with a quickly dissipating head. The nose is fruity and crisp, with a strong sense of apples. It is reminiscent of Prosecco or Albarino, except with a more floral element. It's super dry, very refreshing and loaded with citrus, apples and hops. There is also a lovely, dry finish.


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IPA At The Museum

Here's a really good IPA from the desert, where they know a thing or two about refreshing beverages.

The Coachella Valley Brewing Company makes the Monumentous IPA, a West Coast-style India Pale Ale, double rye and 7% abv.

I had it from the bottle at Ray’s and Stark at LACMA, the perfect aperitif for the Guillermo del Toro exhibit. The Thousand Palms product would serve well on the hottest low desert days. It has a nice head, frothy and a piney, hoppy nose that shows elements of caramel, although they are very faint. The hops come from the Pacific northwest and New Zealand.

It went well with my tomato and fruit salad, but also fit in with the fries and aioli from the other side of the table.

By the way, the name of the beer references the Joshua Tree National Monument nearby.


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An IPA For The People, Especially When The People Eat Seafood

We have several favorite restaurants, the wife and I, and one of them is Connie and Ted’s, the awesome seafood place on Santa Monica Boulevard.  They do lobsters, clams and oysters for those who are religious in their pursuit of such items.

She likes the lobster rolls, usually.  I had the smoked mahi mahi on this visit and will not rest until I have it again.  Pictured are the Stuffies, incredible little breaded balls of smoky Portuguese sausage and garlic.  You can get a great calamari or octopus salad there, too.

I had the Eagle Rock Populist IPA with my meal.  It’s made for seafood, with aromas of citrus - lemon rind - and hops, of course.  It is not crazy hoppy, although in my book crazy hoppy is quite alright with me.  This West Coast India Pale Ale from Southern California has a 7% abv number.


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Smog City Hoptonic India Pale Ale

When you have an India Pale Ale, do you wonder where it got its name?  There is never anything pale about an IPA’s appearance.  Sit one next to a Budweiser, and it is obvious which of the two has the yellowy tint which prompted Firesign Theater to produce the fake ad for Bear Whiz Beer.  “It’s in the water!”

What is in the water with India Pale Ale is hops.  Plenty of hops.  Hops are flowers which are used in brewing to add a bitter offset to the sweetness of malt.  They also help in preserving beer.  I have always heard that the first India Pale Ale was made because spoilage was a problem on the long ocean voyage from England to India.  It appears that’s not actually correct, if I am to believe Wikipedia.  That source says the highly hopped beer became a favorite in India because of the taste and was given the name due to that popularity.

Wikipedia also offers a listing of the kinds of hops used in American craft IPAs today: “...distinctively American hops, such as Cascade, Centennial, Citra, Columbus, Chinook, Simcoe, Amarillo, Tomahawk, Warrior, and Nugget.”  Hop nerds must be the beer world’s equivalent to the wine world’s grape nerds, especially those grape nerds who actually know - and talk openly about - what clone they are drinking.  It might be fun to ask a bartender, "Is this Cascade or Chinook I'm tasting?"  Of course, the bartender might then decide that it's fun to not wait on you anymore.

Smog City Brewing Company was named, no doubt, after the most iconic element of life in Los Angeles - bad air.  They are located in Torrance, in the South Bay area of Southern California, even though I have never noticed too much smog down that way.  We keep our excess smog in the San Gabriel Valley.  It sits well against the mountains there.

Smog City’s head brewmaster Jonathan Porter - great beer name, right? - presides over the brews, collects awards and works with chefs in L.A. to pair his beers with great food.

Smog City’s Hoptonic IPA goes for $7 a glass at Westside Tavern on Pico.  It was hot that day, and a good IPA is one of my favorite warm-weather refreshers, so I drank it pretty quickly.  I did take time to note the aromas and flavors of citrus and a floral hops element that I love in this style of beer.

Smog City elaborates on Hoptonic a little more, citing “the exceptional flavor and aroma of west coast hops with notes of orange, citrus peel, tropical fruit, guava and floral honey. The lightly toasted caramel malt balances the resinous hop flavors and firm, yet balanced bitterness that make this beer a full bodied hop lovers' paradise.”  I'll try to drink it slower next time.


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Stone IPA At Farmers Market Bar

It was a hot afternoon in Los Angeles, one of the first good warm spells of the spring.  When my errands took me to Third and Fairfax, I ducked in to the Farmers Market to visit an old hang I hadn't seen in a while.


The Farmers Market Bar - it may have an actual name, but nobody knows it if it does - was populated with folks who were thinking the same thing I was thinking.  "Let's beat the heat with a cold beer."

The crowd is always an eyeful at the big center bar in the open air market.  I watched the show on the barstools while I cooled myself with a frosty IPA.  There was the Korean couple having a friendly, yet intense, conversation.  I looked between them to see the television, where the Hawks were laying it on the Celtics, in the second quarter at least.

Four "dudes" met up and hugged and high-fived each other, but oddly, they moved on from there.  I would have bet money they were going for a couple of pitchers.  Tank-top guy was festooned with colorful tattoos.  He stayed.  There's always at least one walking body art gallery at that bar.  


An older fellow in shorts and sandals was smiling while reading the LA Times - the business section. The market must have been up, or else his former employer was down.  His casual dress told me he wasn't returning to work anytime soon.  There was a Pepperdine University T-shirt and a golf-logo cap at the bar as well.

I emailed my friend, Fredi, with a picture of the bar we had occasioned when he and I both lived very near the Farmers Market, in Park La Brea.  I live in another section of town now, and he lives in another section of the state.  I miss him quite often, but always when I'm at the Farmers Market Bar.  


One year, St. Patrick's Day fell on a Saturday and I met Fredi there around noon.  I was afraid I'd be too early, but when I arrived it was obvious he had been there a while.  He had made friends with most of the people at the bar while waiting for me.  He's like that.  It was a glorious afternoon.


This afternoon, I chilled with a Stone IPA.  For me, a warm afternoon calls for an IPA, one with some great citrus aromas and flavor.  To top it off, the pint glass was frosty.

GOLDEN ROAD BREWING POINT THE WAY IPA

Due to my "real job" schedule, I get very few chances to join in on a happy hour.  Recently, a meeting ran shorter than anticipated (!) and I found myself near Marie Callender's.  I strolled in to see if they could make this newfound hour a happy one.  They did.

Hopping onto a seat at the bar, I watch a football game on television between two college teams I don't care anything about - Northern Something University vs Eastern Something State.

Beers are $5 - that's happy - and I spy the magic letters on one of the tap handles:  I.P.A.  It's called Point The Way IPA, from Golden Road Brewing of Los Angeles.  Turns out it's an IPA lover's version of a light beer. 

The brew registers an abv number of 5.2%, fairly low when you know that IPAs generally run well over 6%.  Master brewer Jon Carpenter says this is the beer for which the brewery was founded.  They're a new kid on the beer block, with doors open just a 

couple of months at the time I am writing this. 

Point The Way IPA has a beautiful and rich amber color with an off-white head, shows citrus and flowers on the nose and tastes quite hoppy with a strong lemon note.  It's nice and creamy and a slightly bitter nuttiness flows into an extremely lengthy finish.  It's very refreshing and makes me wish I were having it in the backyard while barbecuing - even though it's dark out and quite chilly.  

I'm sure it will still be around when summer comes back.

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WINE AND BEER AT LUCKY DEVILS

Meeting friends for a beer is a time honored tradition.  The beverage isn't really important, it's the company and the conversation that count.  However, if all you're talking about is how lousy the beer - or wine - is, it sort of defeats the purpose of the get-together.

There was no such discourse at Lucky Devils in Hollywood.  The beverages spoke for themselves.  A great beer list, a wine list in which brevity left little choice and some tasty snacks combined for a nice little Saturday soiree.

After the usual Hollywood Boulevard hassles - two-dollar an hour parking at the meter, men looking semi-dangerous doing some sidewalk preaching about something or other, LAPD staring intently into the place for an undisclosed reason - we managed to settle into our kitchen-style chairs and let the festivities begin.

Even though it was intended to be a beer gathering, one of the few wines offered caught my eye because it was from the Sonoma County town of Geyserville, a place I visited a while back.  I was impressed with the wines I found there, so I chose a red table wine from Mercury Geyserville called The Jug.  It was an easy-going $7.50 by the glass, but a bit pricey at $19.50 in the 500ml jug.  It appears to be a Bordeaux-style blend from Alexander Valley vineyards.

The Jug is very dark in the glass, inky in fact.  A fruity nose also displays an earthy darkness and some spice.  It really tastes great, with cassis and black cherry flavors accented by spice and smoke.  The finish is a little weak with a sour cherry aftertaste.

Others in the group opted for brewski.  The Hornin' Nettie Madge Black IPA from Anderson Valley Brewing Company is stout-dark with a licorice nose and a tan head that hangs around a while.  The taste reminds me of dates and almonds.  The Craftsman IPA is a more standard-issue India Pale Ale, with characteristics much like Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale.  A golden color and lots of hops will make plenty of summer afternoons more tolerable.

GREEN FLASH BREWING COMPANY IMPERIAL INDIA PALE ALE

When I lived in San Diego in the mid-'90s, one of my favorite late afternoon hangouts was a restaurant in Pacific Beach called Armando's The Green Flash.  What I liked best about the place was sitting at the bar near sunset with ceviche and an I.P.A.  Looking right out over the Pacific Ocean I tried over and over to see the elusive green flash - the flash of green light that occurs at the exact spot and the exact time the sun sets into the water.  I think I saw it, but maybe I just let myself believe I did.  Either way, the ceviche was outstanding and so was the I.P.A.

Green Flash Brewing Company is not affiliated with the restaurant.  I don't know if they take their name from the atmospheric phenomenon or from a superhero, and it doesn't matter to me.  They brew some truly great beer in Vista, CA, just a little bit up the coast from San Diego.

The Green Flash Imperial India Pale Ale is a rocking good beer.  Deep amber in color, it looks great in the glass.  The nose is extremely hoppy, bursting with floral notes and showing a twist of citrus.  The taste is also full of flowers with a broad lemon streak and a slight hint of almond.  This I.P.A. has a wonderfully creamy texture in the mouth - very full and opulent.  It's definitely a "desert island" beer, and there are few brews I enjoy as much on a warm afternoon while awaiting the green flash.