Beer "Week"
The inaccurately named LA Beer Week ends tomorrow with a four hour beer festival at Union Station. I've been to two events so far, but I'm actually going to invalidate the geographic part of this celebration of craft beer by talking about our visit to The Trappist in Oakland a couple of weeks ago.
Our pilgrimage had started at EndGame where we raided their tasty selection of second hand and indie games. EndGame has a justly deserved reputation in the story gaming community in part because of their regular minicons (one of which is happening as I write). Because it's just around the corner from EndGame, The Trappist also has a considerable reputation in the same circle. We were excited to try it and we were not disappointed.
First of all, the place smelled fantastic. I love the smell of beer, but the mingling smell of fresh and stale beers of various varieties, that is common to even good bars was entirely absent here. Rather, our time drinking and dinning was accompanied by the wafting smells of the kitchen's delicious food (menu).
To the right is Colin's delicious three cheese grilled cheese sandwich on country Levain. To be honest, it would have been even better without the whole grain mustard, but that's just my personal preference.
Before I talk about our beers, I have to mentioned the sodas. I'd never had Fentimans Soda before (its imported from the UK) , but if the Cola and the Ginger Ale are any guide, they're excellent. It was almost enough to make me wish I was the sober driver! Almost.
On to the main event! For our first round, we all had a pint of the "beer of the day", the Moonlight Lunatic Lager. It was a pretty basic lager. Good but unremarkable. An excellent, uncomplicated start.
I can't remember the exact order we tried things in as I seem not to have taken notes, but I had the Drie Fonteinen Zwet.be, which, despite the menu (below) is a porter, a sour porter in fact. Very tasty and an excellent comparison to the sweet and hoppy Black Ball Porter by To Øl in Denmark.
Summoned by the promise of toffee and raisins, I tried a small taster of the Mikkeller Frelser. I was not disappointed, but it was a lost out to the Black Ball Porter as the Drink I Wanted Right Then. I was previously unacquainted with the Mikkeller brewery (also from Denmark), but I hope to change that in the future as they have a number of interesting beers.
We split an order of the housemade fennel sausage with potato salad. The fennel sausage was great, dotted with pepper flakes and fennel seeds, and the potato salad had just the right amount of dill to compliment the potato without dominating it.
My spicy pulled pork sandwich was indeed spicy. The main source being the jalapeño in the coleslaw, a slice of which can be seen poking out amongst the red cabbage.
The Trappist's tap selection was small but excellent. Actually, it's not really small at all, but it's a testament to how many local bars have enormous selections that I would even consider that statement. Here are the menus for the back and front bars respectively:
Our pilgrimage had started at EndGame where we raided their tasty selection of second hand and indie games. EndGame has a justly deserved reputation in the story gaming community in part because of their regular minicons (one of which is happening as I write). Because it's just around the corner from EndGame, The Trappist also has a considerable reputation in the same circle. We were excited to try it and we were not disappointed.
First of all, the place smelled fantastic. I love the smell of beer, but the mingling smell of fresh and stale beers of various varieties, that is common to even good bars was entirely absent here. Rather, our time drinking and dinning was accompanied by the wafting smells of the kitchen's delicious food (menu).
To the right is Colin's delicious three cheese grilled cheese sandwich on country Levain. To be honest, it would have been even better without the whole grain mustard, but that's just my personal preference.
Before I talk about our beers, I have to mentioned the sodas. I'd never had Fentimans Soda before (its imported from the UK) , but if the Cola and the Ginger Ale are any guide, they're excellent. It was almost enough to make me wish I was the sober driver! Almost.
On to the main event! For our first round, we all had a pint of the "beer of the day", the Moonlight Lunatic Lager. It was a pretty basic lager. Good but unremarkable. An excellent, uncomplicated start.
I can't remember the exact order we tried things in as I seem not to have taken notes, but I had the Drie Fonteinen Zwet.be, which, despite the menu (below) is a porter, a sour porter in fact. Very tasty and an excellent comparison to the sweet and hoppy Black Ball Porter by To Øl in Denmark.
Summoned by the promise of toffee and raisins, I tried a small taster of the Mikkeller Frelser. I was not disappointed, but it was a lost out to the Black Ball Porter as the Drink I Wanted Right Then. I was previously unacquainted with the Mikkeller brewery (also from Denmark), but I hope to change that in the future as they have a number of interesting beers.
We split an order of the housemade fennel sausage with potato salad. The fennel sausage was great, dotted with pepper flakes and fennel seeds, and the potato salad had just the right amount of dill to compliment the potato without dominating it.
My spicy pulled pork sandwich was indeed spicy. The main source being the jalapeño in the coleslaw, a slice of which can be seen poking out amongst the red cabbage.
The Trappist's tap selection was small but excellent. Actually, it's not really small at all, but it's a testament to how many local bars have enormous selections that I would even consider that statement. Here are the menus for the back and front bars respectively: