Coverage and Pics from The Bruery 1st Anniversary Party

This past weekend, one of the fastest up and coming great craft breweries celebrated their 1st Anniversary of commercial craft brewing.  The Bruery, located off the 57 free way in Placentia, CA opened their doors to their brewing facility for what turned out to be an excellent party.

Leading up to the party, The Bruery boss Patrick announced a stellar tap line up, and food from Beachwood BBQ. Up until it started, Patrick had no idea how many people would show up. Because of that fact, there was an asterisk on the party flyer, letting us know only 150 at a time would be allowed entrance at a time.

After my wife (expecting mother) and I entered the brewery, we were met with an already growing crowd of eager beer lovers.  I spotted some other folks I have met at other local events, so I gravitated towards them, just to break the ice, and see what I should start with.  A tradition in Southern California is to bring some geeky/rare bottles of beer to share, so I decided to give that a try. While I was sampling some really strong ales from the Bruery, some of the locals were trying the Flying Mouflan and Exit 4 Tripel that I brought for the crowd to try.  Because my poor wife can’t drink, she wanted us to go check out the food scene outside. The logistical problem with that, was we couldn’t bring our beer outside.  I cut a deal with her to have another sample before taking her outside to chow down.

I have been wanting to try Beachwood BBQ in Seal Beach, forever.  I have no excuse for not going there yet, but I was stoked they catered this party.  I was blown away by the spread that included, but not limited to pulled pork, pulled chicken, fried tomatoes and pickles, two kinds of slaw and pretzel bread.  When we parked our butts out back, we found the Chef hustling his nuts off to keep up with the demand on the food.

After going back into the brewery for more samples, I met even more cool people, and ran into a few buddies from the So Cal beer scene. I saw Stone Brewing’s Angelo and Blue Palms Brew House’s Boss Brian.  Because I was so into the Papier (Incredible Old Ale) and Melange #3 (Incredible Impy Stout), I forgot there was a ‘Sour Bar’ on the other side of the room.  I finished up my tickets with some really good sour beer in the form of Melange #1, Gypsy Tart ( A young Flemish Red) and some White Zin.

The crowd was happy, well fed, and eager to further educate their tongue with these phenomal beers. After another small bite to eat, we decided to call it a day, while I was able to still stand.  While the sample sizes were portioned responsibly, after 8 samples of strong ale, I felt really good.  For a brewery that is only 1 year into this, they had this thing so well organized, and in turned pleased the crowd as a whole. I can’t wait for next year.