Lala Land: Los Angeles California

Down in sunny Southern California which is cloudy and cold just to really annoy me. I've got a lot of friends in this area.  When I sat down and thought about it, I travel so much that I have more friends in this city then in the one I call home.  Anyway, knowing me like they do they took me out to a local brewery and didn't get annoyed when I started tapping out notes about the beer I was drinking mid-conversation.

 Redondo Beach Brewing Company is located in a marketplace district outside the tourist heavy spots making it a nice place to go and hide for a minute.  It's more or less your standard brewpub;  good eats, a small but fairly distinguished selection of beer on tap, all in all a fun place.   They had six beers on tap while I was there and got a sample of each.

Rat Beach Red: I suspect there might be a story behind the name of this beer, but bugger if anyone seems to know.  It has a very light aroma.   The flavor packs a lot of citrus and clove with a slightly roasted background.  Fairly nice lighter session beer.

Pale Ale: This became one of my favorites.  It has a fairly intense citrus and floral aroma.  Northwest citrus hops dominate the flavor, but do so without packing a huge load of back-of-the-throat bitterness.  It's smooth, easily drinkable and just slightly sweet enhancing the floral citrus flavors of the hops.

Blueberry Wheat:  The sample of this selection came out with about five or six little blueberries in the glass, but I'm not completely convinced they actually brew with blueberries at all.  No aroma and a light slightly sweet malty flavor.  There is some fruity flavors that might be blueberry, but it doesn't stand out at all.  It's just a very light wheat beer. 

Rodondo Beach Blonde:  Another very light ale.   The flavor is also just slightly sweet and malty but there's just not a lot to pick out.  Mostly likely a beer designed for the die-hard domestic fans.

Double IPA:  Heavy floral citrus aroma.   The flavor starts slightly sweet with a hint of light fruit before becoming dominated by bitter floral, citrus hops. The finish is very dry and bitter.

Double Dark IPA: I really really liked the aroma on this beer, it had lots of caramel, coffee and mocha in there.  The sweetness didn't show up in the flavor as much and was mostly  bitter coffee and unsweetened chocolate against some floral hops that lingered just in the background  It was kind of a strange combination but very effective overall.

Wandering around this state a little longer, back with reports from San Jose next week.
Cheers!