Gary Magnone
June 10, 2018
Starting June 16th and going through June 24th, LA Beer Week is back with it’s 10th annual edition and we couldn’t be more excited! So excited, in fact, that we’re coming back again this year with another LA Beer Week collaboration beer. For this year’s collab, we teamed up with our friends at Indie Brewing Company in Boyle Heights to brew up a special beer to praise the LA beer community and its tremendous growth over the last year.
With just a handful of participating breweries in LA Beer Week’s early years, the 10th annual celebration will showcase over 70 LA area breweries. And with the LA beer community growing larger and more diverse than ever before, it’s even more important for everyone to take the time to come together, collaborate, and celebrate.
Indie Brewing Company + Hopped LA
It’s this spirit of collaboration that inspired us to team up with Indie in the first place. Not only are they brewing some seriously delicious beer across a variety of styles (especially their hoppy beer lineup, which we love), but they foster a sense of community in their taproom that is truly remarkable to see.
With the Boyle Heights neighborhood going through an evolution, Indie’s taproom has become a place where all different types of people with all different kinds of interests can come together and enjoy themselves over the one thing that remains constant – Indie’s beer.
This sense of community extends through each person that works at Indie. Not only are they friendly, there’s a sense of welcoming that comes through each interaction that, no matter who you are, makes you feel like this is a place where you belong.
And that feeling was such a welcome component to our collaboration brew day – where two guys who normally work with laptops and cameras were suddenly in the midst of the brewhouse, adding hops and raking spent grain.
Hopped LA-pricot
Our approach to these LA Beer Week collaboration brews has remained consistent – make something that caters to the current flavor trends of the LA beer market as well as something that is easy to drink during the hot mid-June summer season in LA.
James Mancuso, Indie co-owner and head brewer, was up for the challenge. What he came up with is a hoppy, hazy, fruited ale called Hopped LApricot, a dry pale ale sporting low bitterness bursting with flavors of light citrus and tropical stone fruit.
Of course you’re thinking, “This sounds delicious! Where can I find it!”. We’re glad you asked!
We’ll be releasing Hopped LApricot at a release party at Indie Brewing Company’s taproom in Boyle Heights on Thursday, June 14th starting at 6pm.
From there, kegs of the beer will be going out into distribution around town, landing at the LA Beer Week Kickoff Festival on Saturday, June 16th, our Local Hops event at Tony’s Darts Away on Wednesday, June 20th, as well as a number of other beer bars and beer events all around town. Here’s a list of the confirmed bars so far:
Sunset Beer Co – Echo Park
Beer Belly – Long Beach
Arts District Brewing – DTLA
Blue Palms Brewhouse – Hollywood
Stout Burger – Santa Monica, Studio City & Hollywood
Southland Beer – Koreatown
West 4th and Jane – Santa Monica
Whole Foods – DTLA
Z Pizza – Hawthorne
Pacific Wine Merchants – Upland
Simmzy’s – Venice
Happy LA Beer Week 2018 to you all, hope you enjoy Hopped LApricot, and hope to see you at an event or two out there!
