Stopping in at The Bruery

Somehow I managed to be swinging by Placentia at 1:55 this afternoon, and luckily remembered/decided to see if The Bruery's tasting room had opened yet for the day. Thankfully they open at 2pm. I went in and saw that a "sneak preview" of a new beer called Autumn Maple was on tap. I ordered that and after taking a few sips which were dessert-like sweet asked Patrick what this beer was all about. He said it was their pumpkin style beer.... though brewed with yams, along with the traditional pumpkin ale spices.

It was really good, and "maple" was a really good description for it. Of course, it has those spices, but they don't overwhelm as much as all the other pumpkin ales on the market today, but the Belgian yeast contribution to it really added some interesting complexity with that subtle earthiness it provides. When I found out this beer was 10.5% ABV it all made sense. Definitely a great sipper for an Autumn night.


Next I ordered up their Berliner Weisse and Trade Winds Tripel (my two favorite beers amongst all the great beers they make). The Berliner Weisse is like 3% ABV or so, I drank a few pints of it at Beachwood BBQ a handful of weeks back and enjoyed every second of it. Right now it seems to be gaining a bit more tartness, whereas before it was only very mildly tart and wheaty. It's still fantastic. Trade Winds Tripel (pictured left) was my favorite beer from the minute I had it at their grand opening, and while usually tasting really sweet and fruity, today I detected what might be the Thai Basil contribution to it. Can't really explain it, except as being maybe some sort of herbal character...maybe that was it, maybe not... but it had a bit different feel to it. Luckily it's bottled, so if you live outside of So. Cal, find someone to trade for it.

Lastly, as I was about to leave, Patrick opened up a bottle of the Berliner Weisse that had been aged in a red wine barrel (thanks Patrick!). Although I don't drink wine much, it definitely had a red wine smell to it, though the taste didn't have as much. The taste was a little less tart and more rounded out, but still had plenty of wine-like notes without being overboard. Pretty interesting but I still preferred the original version... but who doesn't like brewers who experiment???