Tag Archives: oc beer blog

[S2/E17] On Location at Noble Ale Works

Season 2, Episode 17 This week we’re on location at Noble Ale Works in Anaheim, California, the first of our three stops at three Orange County breweries.

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We’re back with another round of on-location episodes and this time, we’re focusing on the Orange County beer scene. The OC is very much up and coming, in terms of the excellent beers that are being produced, with breweries sprouting up all over the place from Brea to San Clemente.

Brad Kominek (left) and Evan Price (right)
Brad Kominek (left) and Evan Price (right)

Noble Ale Works is the first stop on our Session #16 road trip, and we’re hanging out with head brewer Evan Price, and lead brewer Brad Kominek. We start off with a porter served on cask that’s very near and dear to Evan’s heart, Porter Exporter. Evan and Brad recently returned from a trip to England where they visited many English pubs and breweries. The trip inspired them to get more into traditional English beer styles as well as cask ale. Noble has been serving cask beer for quite a while now, but this trip to England really inspired Evan and Brad to go even further with the cask ale and traditional English beer styles.

Mind The Cask
Mind The Cask

Porter Exporter is actually a beer whose recipe was derived from a book that Evan is currently obsessing over, Ronald Pattinson’s The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer: Rediscovered Recipes for Classic Brews Dating from 1800 to 1965. The use of brown malt is key to giving this beer its coffee overtones and dryness. Keeping with traditional, the beer was served on cask at 55ºF, and was a perfect beer to start our long day of recording.

The next beer is somewhat legendary in the beer geek world, Noble’s “golden milk stout with coffee”, Naughty Sauce. Sounds weird, right? How can a stout be golden?! Inspired by a blonde ale brewed by Jonathan Porter when he was still brewing at Tustin Brewing Company, Evan set out to make a beer of his own that incorporated all of the flavor, body, and aroma of a coffee stout while maintaining a golden color. Naughty Sauce is served on nitrogen, which gives it a super-smooth mouthfeel and fluffy white head that sticks to the inside of the glass. It’s a beautiful beer, and is described by Evan as a very approachable beer to new craft beer drinkers.

Evan Price pouring 'We Saved Latin'
Evan Price pouring “We Saved Latin”

We wrap up with a collaboration beer that Noble made with another Southern California brewery, and friend of Four Brewers, Monkish Brewing Company. Evan was really blown away by the awesome brettanomyces beers that Henry Nguyen was making at Monkish, and decided it was time to make one at Noble. Evan admits that this beer was successful mostly because Henry really knows how to work with brettanomyces, and was gracious enough to throw some knowledge Evan’s way. The beer was bottle conditioned with brettanomyces about a month ago, and the brett character is already starting to shine. The name of the beer is We Saved Latin, and is set to be released in a month or so.

Big thanks to Evan and Brad for having us. Noble Ale Works has been killing it lately, and they are definitely worth checking out if you’re in or near Anaheim. They’re also within walking distance of the Honda Center and Angel’s Stadium. How rad is that?!

BREW THE SHIT OUT OF IT.

Links to things from this week’s episode:
S2/E17 Show Outline

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[S2/E12] LIVE from Firkfest 2015!

Season 2, Episode 12 This week’s show is live from the one and only Firkfest, in Anaheim, California.

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The day is upon us. The time has come. Firkfest is here! Undoubtedly, you’ve heard our cute little ads before each show for Greg’s annual festival in celebration of cask ale, and for good reason–it’s a rad event. Cask ale is a style of beer that is easily overlooked and somewhat misunderstood. Is it a beer that is flat, warm, and flavorless? Is it a beer with a bunch of stuff thrown into it to make the base beer taste different? On this week’s show, we hope to provide some clarity on the topic. Yes, traditional cask ale is generally served at a certain temperature and conditioned with yeast inside the cask to attain a certain volume of carbonation, but at the same time there’s also an offshoot that incorporates firkins of beer, flavored with other ingredients to give beer inside of it a different flavor, aroma, and overall experience.

This week, we are live from Firkfest 2015. This was a different kind of live experience for us in that the show was actually broadcast live to the attendees of the event. This was also a bit of an experiment for us, and overall it went pretty well. That being said, you’ll definitely hear a difference in the audio compared to our other episodes. Tomm Carroll from Celebrator Beer News and Beer Paper LA joins us as a co-host for this episode, and is also the moderator of the panel. We are joined by Aaron Champion of Cask Ale LA, Evan Price of Noble Ale Works, Andy Black of MacLeod Ale Brewing Co., and Chris Walowski of Smog City Brewing, all of whom have experience with cask ale in one form or another.

The panelists provide a lot of insight on what cask ale is and how the definition and translation of the style has mutated over time. This is a truly traditional style of beer that represents the history of beer as we know it today. You’ve got to know where you came from to know where you’re going…

Photos from Firkfest can be found in the Photos section of the site. Big thanks to everyone who attended the event, those who went out of their way to say hello to us, and of course, Mr. Nagel for organizing another great festival.

BREW THE SHIT OUT OF IT.

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