{"id":112542,"date":"2022-11-09T08:16:08","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T15:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.craftbeer.com\/?p=112542"},"modified":"2023-04-14T10:00:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-14T16:00:11","slug":"ube-yams-and-dragon-tales-finding-diversity-in-a-new-generation-of-l-a-breweries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.craftbeer.com\/full-pour\/ube-yams-and-dragon-tales-finding-diversity-in-a-new-generation-of-l-a-breweries","title":{"rendered":"Ube Yams and Dragon Tales: Finding Diversity in a New Generation of L.A. Breweries"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brewers Association and CraftBeer.com are proud to support content that fosters a more diverse and inclusive craft beer community. This post was selected by the North American Guild of Beer Writers as part of its Diversity in Beer Writing Grant series. It receives additional support through a grant from the Brewers Association\u2019s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and Allagash Brewing Company.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Los Angeles County Brewers Guild counts 95 breweries around greater Los Angeles. Seventy-two of them opened in 2015 or after, most notably in neighborhoods and parts of L.A. historically and culturally associated with blue collar workers, immigrants, and people of color. This includes new businesses in the San Gabriel Valley (44.7% Latino<\/a>, 25.7% Asian) and in the Inland Empire counties of Riverside (51.6% Latino<\/a>, 8% Asian-Pacific Islander, 7.5% Black) and San Bernardino (55.8% Latino<\/a>, 9.4% Black, 9% Asian-Pacific Islander), where the growth of breweries reflects their potential as community-builders and creative centers.<\/p>\n

Boomtown Brewery in Downtown L.A., Brewyard Beer Company in Glendale, and Dragon\u2019s Tale Brewery in Montclair are three greater Los Angeles breweries that represent this post-2015 craft beer surge. Open for less than a decade and with strong local followings, each brewery has established itself as a part of their respective neighborhood and the diverse communities they represent and serve. Together, these breweries unlock new ways of understanding the diversity found in local histories, cultures, ingredients, and values that influence craft beer production in greater Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Boomtown Brewing: Creating Space for Beer, Art, and History in Downtown L.A.<\/h2>\n

Every Wednesday night, Boomtown Brewery<\/a> hosts Vegan Playground,<\/a> a street-style food and craft festival that draws Boomtown\u2019s largest weekly crowds. And during L.A.\u2019s professional baseball, soccer, and football seasons, Boomtown becomes a supporters\u2019 heaven, complete with fan camaraderie and games.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get the downtown city and federal workers stopping in for a post-work beer, Eastsiders hanging out, and that big vegan crowd on Wednesdays,\u201d says Samuel \u201cChewy\u201d Chawinga, Boomtown\u2019s co-owner and head brewer. \u201cOur Wednesday night is like a good Friday night. We regularly get 450 to 600 people throughout the evening.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the big parties happen when Boomtown drops a new can in its popular Artist Series<\/a>. Every other month, Chawinga and staff brew between 30 and 60 barrels of a unique hazy double IPA inspired by a featured artist whose work decorates the collectible cans. One beer, Brighter Days Hazy DIPA, was made in collaboration with Russian-Polish artist Bunnie Reiss<\/a> and featured fruity and herbaceous flavors to reflect the bold, colorful nature of her installation work and paintings. The release parties come alive with music, dancing, and beer flowing in the name of art by local and international street artists, DJs, tattooists, and muralists.<\/p>\n

Another \u201cGraffiti\u201d series beer, featuring DJ Neff<\/a>, remains Boomtown\u2019s bestselling Artist Series can,  and the most-attended party to date honored L.A. graffiti artist Rick Ordonez, AKA \u201cAtlas,\u201d<\/a> famous for his kitty-cat tags around the city.<\/p>\n

The Artist Series is one reminder of Boomtown\u2019s place at the geographical crossroads of urban development, local ancient histories, and the creation of sustainable artist- and community- driven spaces in downtown L.A.<\/p>\n

Boomtown opened in August 2015 in a century-old building in a part of downtown hemmed in by railway lines, freeways, and the Los Angeles River. Its front entrance lies several hundred feet from the spot where an ancient sycamore tree<\/a> grew for over four centuries, when it served as sacred meeting point for the Kizh-Gabriele\u00f1o tribe until early Spanish colonizers named it El Aliso<\/a>. The tree remained an important landmark through L.A.\u2019s Indigenous, Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. statehood eras\u2014until two German immigrants chopped it down in 1895 to expand their brewery.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Boomtown and its location,\u201d said lead brewer Amber Sawicki. \u201cThe Aliso Belgian Dark Strong<\/a> ale names this history of the famous El Aliso tree. We get to know a place through beer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boomtown\u2019s brewery manager, Benjamin Turkel, mentioned the vineyards that once covered the land. \u201cVignes started wine cultivation right over there,\u201d he said, pointing to the brewery\u2019s main cross-street named for the Frenchman who made wine here in 1831. \u201cWe pay homage to these places and stories.\u201d Whether through beers like Aliso Ale, their wine barrel aged saison, or Mic Czech, cleverly named to evoke the microphone as a versatile tool of artistic expression, Boomtown remains committed to its community- and place-based mission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sawicki and Turkel said their flagship Bad Hombre Mexican Lager<\/a> best reflects Boomtown\u2019s community identity. \u201cBad hombre\u201d re-appropriates a term former president Donald Trump used<\/a> to describe Mexican immigrants in 2016. The brewery joined many taqueros<\/a>, bartenders, and others who turned Trump\u2019s words against him in gleeful protest.<\/p>\n

\u201cBad Hombre says the most about Boomtown,\u201d says Sawicki. Beers like Aliso, Bad Hombre, and Chavez Ravine IPA, a reference to Dodger Stadium and its controversial beginnings<\/a>, \u201cget people talking\u201d about place, time, and these not so past histories.<\/p>\n

For Chawinga and crew, these local histories and cultural awareness remain key ingredients for their inspired beers and the diverse communities that enjoy them.<\/p>\n

Ube Wan to the Rescue: Nothing Common about Glendale\u2019s Brewyard Beer Company<\/h2>\n

Brewyard Beer Company<\/a> sits under the Western Avenue bridge along the San Fernando Road \u201cCraft Beer Corridor<\/a>,\u201d a 17-mile stretch of breweries north of Griffith Park, just east of the Hollywood Hills and a stone\u2019s throw from Burbank\u2019s famous Warner Bros., NBC, and Walt Disney studios. A restored 1936 Ford flatbed truck greets visitors to the taproom, its chrome grille the inspiration for Brewyard\u2019s logo, a nod to head brewer and co-owner Sherwin Antonio\u2019s former life as a master mechanic.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the mad scientist around here,\u201d said co-owner and brewery manager Kirk Nishikawa of his childhood friend and partner in beer. When the pair opened Brewyard seven years ago, it was Glendale\u2019s first craft brewery.<\/p>\n

They specialize in California Common, or \u201csteam\u201d beers, a unique style with roots in the state\u2019s Gold Rush days before refrigeration, when Germans from the East Coast realized they couldn\u2019t properly cold-ferment lagers in the warm weather. \u201cSo they forced the lager yeast to ferment at higher temperatures more suited to ales,\u201d said Nishikawa.<\/p>\n

Their flagship, Jewel City California Common, is Brewyard\u2019s most popular and awarded beer. But it was the Ube Wan IPA, made with the sweet purple Filipino yam, that saved the fledgling brewery from the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns of 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up eating ube in meals and desserts, but I only thought to brew beer with it during the pandemic,\u201d said Antonio.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is hard to relay is the overall excitement after we released that first batch of Ube Wan,\u201d said Nishikawa. \u201cCans flew out the door at a pace that we never saw before. We were being tagged left and right on social media with images of our beer. I was able to catch up on a lot of bills that were stacking up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ube Wan sold twice as much as Kalinga Pilsner, their second best-selling beer made with calamansi, a Filipino lime-orange citrus fruit. The two beers together comprise about 15 to 18 percent of beer sales in Brewyard\u2019s taproom and about half their total distribution sales. \u201cKeep in mind we brewed and sold 25 different beers throughout that year,\u201d said Nishikawa, \u201cso Ube Wan and Kalinga were pulling more than twice their weight in sales.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the pandemic success of Ube Wan IPA, Antonio made other beers that reflected the flavors he and Nishikawa grew up with as L.A. kids from Filipino and Japanese-American families. Enter Ube Macapuno Delight, inspired by an ube-coconut dessert and seltzers made with lychee and calamansi, all available at Seafood City, a Filipino grocery chain, and other Asian markets around the county.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t prepared for the response to the ube beer,\u201d said Nishikawa. \u201cIt seemed like the entire Filipino community in L.A. found us and wiped us out of all our cans. We learned how strong our communities would support us if we \u2018went there\u2019 culturally.\u201d<\/p>\n

In turn, Brewyard found ways to give back. The U.S. Census<\/a> shows that Los Angeles County is home to 1.5 million Asians and over a half-million Filipinos, the largest Filipino population in the country. As one of the few Filipino co-owned and operated breweries<\/a> in L.A. County, they understand the importance of reciprocity.<\/p>\n

Antonio and Nishikawa have made beers to benefit organizations such as SIPA<\/a>, a Pilipino American nonprofit, the Little Tokyo Community Council<\/a>, and the Glendale YWCA. Their benefit brews are a testament to craft breweries\u2019 valued presence in their communities and the possibilities of meaningful exchange through beer.<\/p>\n

Five Years of Blue Beer and Dragon Tales at Montclair\u2019s First Brewery<\/h2>\n

To celebrate Dragon\u2019s Tale Brewery\u2019s<\/a> anniversary each year, head brewer Nikki Paternoster makes a beer she calls Errant Ale. She adds butterfly pea tea flowers<\/a> to a Belgian wit-style ale, turning it blue. For interactive fun, customers can add citrus juice from local Bearss limes to turn it purple\u2014a nod to the signature color of the dragon-themed brewery she co-owns and operates in Montclair with business partner Sousan D. Elias.<\/p>\n

Errant Ale exemplifies Paternoster\u2019s playful and creative approach to brewing unique and unexpected beers that pay homage to the region\u2019s agricultural history as a citrus-growing hub, while harkening to a time when women were the primary brewers of styles that pre-existed industrialization.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen were the first ones to make beer, and a lot of changes to beermaking through the years were made by women,\u201d said Elias. \u201cIt was a natural fit for us to open an all-woman owned and operated brewery,\u201d added Paternoster.<\/p>\n

They opened Dragon\u2019s Tale Brewery in 2016, Montclair\u2019s first microbrewery that paved the way for two more breweries to open since then in the relatively small (pop. 38,061)<\/a> Inland Empire city just over the L.A. County line. Montclair borders the cities of Claremont, Upland, Ontario, Pomona, and Chino\u2014areas most associated with private colleges, suburban sprawl, shopping malls, and a billion square feet of warehouses<\/a> staffed by armies of workers.<\/p>\n

Each of these cities also has at least one brewery, which means Montclair beer drinkers had to drive elsewhere. As longtime residents of Montclair, Paternoster and Elias often wondered why their hometown didn\u2019t have its own microbrewery, so they did something about it.<\/p>\n

Paternoster\u2019s connection to the city goes back to the late 1970s, when she was around eight years old and her family moved to Montclair from Monterey Park, just east of downtown L.A. \u201cBack then, it was a small town\u2014just stop signs and citrus groves out here,\u201d she said. Before developers turned it into shopping malls and subdivisions after World War II, Montclair was a 19th-century citrus settlement called Monte Vista<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Paternoster honors her hometown\u2019s citrus heritage with her unique beers. She uses locally grown fruits and other natural ingredients like ruby red grapefruit, Valencia oranges, and wildflower honey. She\u2019ll frequent area farmers markets for organic berries to use in her Mediev-ale Brut Gruit, a hop-less beer brewed with tea. And she\u2019ll often make use of regulars\u2019 abundant harvests from backyard fruit trees, a truly homegrown touch that connects Dragon\u2019s Tale customers to the brews they love.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone will come in with tons of lemons or kumquats and ask if we can use it,\u201d said Paternoster. \u201cIt gives customers a chance to be part of the beer making process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grapefruit Wit, Bloody Beerdless Wheat Ale, and Cal -52 Blonde are just a handful of beers on Dragon\u2019s Tale menu that reflect the local terroir, whether it\u2019s a neighbor\u2019s jar of preserves, a basket of blood oranges, or herbs plucked from a home garden. Paternoster, who attended Serrano Junior High School in Montclair, also plans to make a beer using serrano peppers, widely grown and eaten in this area once home to the Maara\u2019yam people who spoke the Serrano language<\/a>. Through her use of ingredients, Paternoster\u2019s beers become mini portals to another time and place.<\/p>\n

\u201cBreweries add something special to the community,\u201d said Paternoster. \u201cIt\u2019s really cool that we have people who come out and say they\u2019re comfortable here. It\u2019s a way for people to gather and be themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

L.A. Brews Diversity<\/h2>\n

Brewyard, Boomtown, and Dragon\u2019s Tale are just three examples of the growing diversity in the relatively new Los Angeles craft beer scene that in some ways has been there since its inception, when Ting Su and Jeremy Raub opened Eagle Rock Brewery in 2009. Because it\u2019s newer\u2014compared to the decades-old craft brewery cultures that go back to the 1980s and 1990s in northern California and San Diego\u2014greater L.A.\u2019s craft beer culture shows that diversity is already part of the brewing landscape, from the people who make the beer and drink it, to the ingredients, methods, and perspectives that inform each brewery\u2019s mission. They not only check all the race-gender \u201cdiversity\u201d boxes, but push L.A. craft beer drinkers to also think about diversity in terms of history, space, place, community, ingredients, styles, and other meaningful ways.<\/p>\n

L.A.\u2019s newest breweries, many of which opened during or after the pandemic lockdowns, continue to reflect the region\u2019s demographic diversity through ingredients, styles, and products. Locally popular fermented drinks like tepache, kombucha, and natural wines dot brewery menus around L.A. Breweries like these and others in Los Angeles help to reshape expectations of who can make, drink, and enjoy craft beer. Dragon\u2019s Tale, Brewyard, and Boomtown are part of the colorful beer landscape of Los Angeles, where beer speaks to locals and reminds us of our connections to time, space, and place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L.A.\u2019s newest breweries, many of which opened during or after the pandemic lockdowns, continue to reflect the region\u2019s demographic diversity through ingredients, styles, and products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7576,"featured_media":112545,"sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sticky_collection":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"108557,103905,99882,105681,92879,98731","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,676,4812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brewery-news","category-editors-picks","category-full-pour"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFinding Diversity in a New Generation of L.A. 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