Category Archives: SoCal

“Southern California, where the American Dream came too true.” – Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I Need a Beer: Appreciating Autumn

calvin_hobbesI’ve been asking a lot of people about what their favorite time of year. The almost unanimous response is autumn/fall. And you know what – I’m going to go on record saying that this time of year is underrated. autumn is fricken’ awesome:

  • Weather cools down but things don’t get dreary and rainy.
  • If you live in a place that has seasons, the colors blow your mind.
  • If you live in a place that has seasons, say bye-bye to humidity and bugs!
  • If you live in CA, the heat becomes more bearable.
  • It has my personal favorite holiday: Thanksgiving (You eat and you give thanks. How is this not more popular?).
  • You get the best sleep. It’s cold enough that you don’t have to remove the covers but not so cold that you’re shivering when you get in.
  • And the most important reason: NBA season begins!

I repeat. Autumn is amazing and underrated.

Another great thing about autumn. You get to start drinking heavier beers. Today I’m looking for what might be my favorite type of beer: the barley wine. Continue reading →

For What Ales Ya 2014

10151819_10203191742987709_291503470294888604_nFor What Ales Ya is a yearly event that occurs in the Inland Empire. It is a beer festival/bottle share that brings together local beer enthusiasts to sample some of each other’s and local breweries’ favorite beers. It’s very much a grassroots effort. MBP attended this year’s event and I wanted to share some thoughts and highlights about the experience. Continue reading →

Alpha Overdrive: The Quad

Alpha Overdrive

Brewery: Valiant
IBU: 220
ABV: 14.3%

Valiant’s Alpha Overdrive is I think I would say Alpha Drive’s bigger, stockier, younger brother. Don’t let this description fool you this boy can handle himself, and when his big brother starts fights little brother will finish them.

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How to Be a Villain and Win the Day the Cosplay Way

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Even with a 4 day pass, you’re guaranteed to miss something at Comic-Con, the nerd culture event of the year. There are so many panels, celebrities, comic books, events, video games and fun to get to, you’ll never have the same Comic-Con experience twice. In years past, I had done the panels, waited in line for autographs, won contests and even scored the best free swag. The one thing that I felt I had not fully experienced was cosplaying at Comic-Con. Cosplay is short for costume play which is the act of people called cosplayers dressing up to play as or represent a particular character, fictitious or not, and sometimes you make child’s day.

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San Diego Comic Con – One Week Later

For a week in July, San Diego’s Gaslamp district and Convention Center are changed into a surreal place. Seeing people dressed up as pop culture figures is normal and seeing people dressed for work is a confusing sight. From Wednesday through Sunday evening the town is overrun by, well nerds. And it’s glorious, but alas at the end of a Sunday night that all comes to an end. After a week of being back in the normal world I’ve decided these were the highlights of my week:

Marvel’s Panel on Saturday 

If you haven’t seen the phase 1 and phase 2 recap Marvel posted, do yourself a favor and watch it right now!

Marvel comes out like rock stars and they put on a show. It’s lively, it’s fun, and they know how to pander to their audience. They give tidbits of information in just the right way, bring out the right people to say the right things, and they make sure everyone (panelist and audience) has a good time. Marvel has the capacity to get people on their feet cheering like lunatics moreso than any other panel, and it’s quite an experience.

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Shaolin Fist, Will Get You in the Kisser

Shaolin Fist

Monkish Brewing Co.

Shaolin Fist

ABV: 7.0%

On a recent Beer Crawl, I had the opportunity to taste Monkish Breweries line up. I was not disappointed for the most part, and the one that stood above all the rest was Shoalin Fist. It is brewed as a Belgian Style Saison with a kick. It is brewed with Sichuan peppercorns and gives it a spice that was very nice. What I expected to be another brewery’s attempt to do another “refreshing” pepper beer turned out to be the kick in the mouth I needed to get me revamped for spicy beer.

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Super Heartbreak in Hall H (Or How Warner Brothers Still Hasn’t Learned to Hype Their Heroes)

Photo Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Photo Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Image

As I walked to the Hall H line on Friday night, I was still hopefully optimistic to be able to get in to the one panel I’d been dying with anticipation to see, Warner Brothers. This was mainly due to the fact that Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice is less than 2 years away, and there were some heavy rumors that came out regarding the DC Cinematic universe in the prior weeks before the Con. These included a potential release slate for WB for the next 8 years with titles such as Shazam, Man of Steel 2, The Flash and Green Lantern movie, as well as actors quite heavily hinting at characters they are playing such as Jason Mamoa as Aquaman and The Rock as Shazam. With all these rumors floating around Warner Brothers and their DC lineup, announcements were surely to come in Hall H Saturday morning at the Con.

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Sucreversary

Sucre

As a member of the Bruery Reserve Society, I was fortunate enough to get invited to their annual beer festival. With their anniversary beer being called Sucre, it was aptly named “Sucreversary”.

Here are some of the event specifics:

  • Venue: The Phoenix Club in Anaheim, CA
  • Invitees: All Reserve Society and Hoarder’s Society Members plus their guests
  • Breweries: The Bruery plus 26 Guest Breweries (Check out the list here along with what was poured)
  • Food: Provided by Beachwood BBQ and Chunk N Chip Truck
  • Perks: Glassware and unlimited 1 oz tastings
  • Cost: $60/person

So at $60 a person, this is not a cheap event. Going into this beerfest, I had high expectations. Fortunately, the Sucreversary did not disappoint. Continue reading →

Wondercon Anaheim – Warner Brothers Panel

Bill Paxton at Wondercon

It’s that time of year and Wondercon came by the Anaheim Convention Center with two big studios having panels in the main Arena on Saturday 4/19/2014.

WB kicked things off with Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow. Bill Paxton took the stage and charmed the audience with entertaining behind the scenes stories and a fair amount of crowd pandering recalling some of his most loved roles from past movies. Between the ‘Game over man!’ and ‘Hail Hydra!’ throwouts, Paxton graciously thanked the audience for their support both for Edge of Tomorrow and throughout his career. An extended trailer showed off a little more of the story, and hinted at more of the overarching story in this Groundhog Day meets Independence Day/Saving Private Ryan Normandy Invasion. On the anniversary of D-Day we will have the option of watching humanity fight for survival against a horde of mimic aliens who have invaded Europe.

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