Angel City Brewery is feeling fizzy about its first Heritage Festival
Once a barroom outlier compared with its standing in other West Coast cities, craft beer has become a Los Angeles fixture. Breweries have been sprouting like hops across town in recent years, and the latest in the field is the new incarnation of Angel City Brewery. Located in the historic John A. Roebling building in the downtown L.A. Arts District, the brewery came under new ownership early last year and is finally swinging its doors open to a thirsty public on a regular basis.
To celebrate, owner Alan Newman and brew master Dieter Foerstner are throwing on Saturday what they hope will become the first of many annual spring parties. Called the Angel City Brewery Heritage Festival, the daylong event features seven jazzy bands, a variety of food trucks, brewery tours and, of course, plenty of craft beer on tap in the new tasting room.
“Aside from being our grand opening, the Heritage Festival is a celebration of arts and music that embraces the true essence of our neighborhood,” says Foerstner, sitting on a stool at the bar on a recent Wednesday.
Three days out from the opening, construction crews are still putting the final touches on the tasting room, which, besides the main bar, features rows of wooden picnic tables beneath the white-bulbed glow of Italian wedding lights.
The brewery itself — row after row of shiny distilling tanks and equipment — is behind the bar, and the rich scent of hops and barley permeates the air in the drafty warehouse room.
The idea for the Heritage Festival was inspired by the New Orleans jazz festival, Newman says.
“Los Angeles has such a rich music scene, and always has,” he says, sitting on a picnic bench on the building’s roof, which isn’t open to the public. Foerstner is experimenting with growing hops up there, and great green stalks of the stuff blow in the warm afternoon breeze.
Growing fresh ingredients isn’t the only thing Foerstner is experimenting with. The former brew master at Gordon Biersch in Arizona, the man is like the Willie Wonka of beer, which is why Newman hired him. His beers are playful and unique, and no flavor is too far out to try at least once.
“He did a guacamole beer last summer,” says Newman, laughing. “He threw in all the ingredients for guacamole. It wasn’t the best beer I ever had, but it was still interesting.”
Right now Foerstner is excited about a beer called the French Sip. The concoction is inspired by L.A.’s very own “French Dip wars,” which have raged forever between Cole’s and Philippe’s over which establishment invented the juicy, drippy sandwich. It’s an ale brewed using black pepper, pink Himalayan sea salt, rosemary and seaweed.
“It’s a great savory beer,” Foerstner says. “Either you love it or you hate it. But the people who really enjoy it are extremely passionate about it.”
That’s not to say you can’t have a more traditional beer at Angel City. There’s a crisp pilsner, a nutty amber, a dark, roasted dunkelweizen, a rich vanilla porter, a hoppy IPA, and more.
The idea is to keep at least eight seasonal beers on tap at all times. The brewery has no plans to open its own kitchen and will instead rely on the bounty of L.A. food trucks and the many nearby neighborhood restaurants to feed hungry patrons. Bringing outside food to enjoy with your Angel City beer is very much encouraged.
“It’ll be nice having regular hours and being open on a regular basis,” Foerstner says, explaining that the brewery has kept extremely limited hours up to now. “I love my co-workers, but it will be nice to see new people in here.”
It usually takes two or three years for an event like the Heritage Festival to grow wings, says Newman, who has plenty of party experience via his previous position with Magic Hat Brewing Co. in Vermont.
“If it’s a successful event and it grows, then the concept has to be big enough to keep growing with it,” he says, which is why he’s excited about the caliber of the bands, which include the Reverend Alvin McKinney Gospel Group, the Blasting Company, Evan Stone & the Bourbon Street 4 and the Martin Guigui All-Star Jamboree.
The festival also will feature an accompanying art exhibit called “In Your Face: How Artists Transformed L.A.’s Urban Landscape,” which features work by local artists. But the beer will stand alone as its own art form, as Angel City Brewery stakes its claim in suds in L.A.’s lively craft beer scene.
“I’m really impressed with how well the craft beer community welcomed us,” Newman says. “We have a pretty darn good relationship with all the breweries around and we’re just doing our part to grow the market.”
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Angel City Brewery’s Heritage Festival
Where: 216 S. Alameda St., L.A.
When: Sat. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Price: Free to enter, beer $6
Info: https://www.angelcitybrewery.com
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