The following was written by Gene Wagoner, Lead Brewer at ISM Brewery, who just brewed L.A. TACO's First Beer!
Aside from striving for the highest quality and achieving consistent batch-to-batch improvement in all our beers, our most extensive core engagement is collaboration. While we have a variety of our own in-house beer brands and food items, we frequently collaborate with a broad spectrum of other brewers, chefs, artists, musicians, pop-ups, charities, and suppliers. We have found that collaboration fosters a valuable two-way learning environment for both ourselves and our collaborators.
We have learned numerous concepts and methods from the many people we have collaborated with to date, and we tend to believe that, likewise, our collaborators have learned a thing or two from us.
While learning tips on brewing process, operations, management, marketing, etc., is all fantastic, the other tangible benefit to collaboration is creating the perfect foundation for community events. Having frequent opportunities for our local community to come together and enjoy the fruits of our collaborative labor is enormous for us.
We have held collaborative events with Hamburgers Nice, Battambong BBQ, the Los Angeles Brewers Guild, numerous other breweries, and have many more in planning down the pipeline. So when two of our shift leads, Ivan and Lalo, brought up the concept of doing a collaboration beer and event with L.A. Taco, we couldn’t have been more stoked at the opportunity!
In our humble opinion, L.A. TACO is the last true independent platform that continues to hit hard with raw journalism in L.A. County. Being 100% independently owned and operated, their coverage remains limitless and uninhibited from outside influence.
Their consistent street-level coverage of the recent protests, raids, and erosion of due process has been relentless. Yet, they remain committed to finding the best recommendations for tacos in L.A.!
This collaboration is about balance. It provides ISM Brewing with a way to give back to their entire team, and we hope that on September 27th, when we host them here at ISM, we can give them a brief opportunity to relax and celebrate their hard work, while also fundraising for their efforts.
As if that wasn't enough, El Keamo, will be playing his eerie original neo-cumbia originals, like you've heard in the L.A. TACO summer mixtape he composed, all night.
Plus, Sonoratown and ISM will be serving a surprise collaboration brewpub-meets-taquería dish on the day of! Hint: CABEZA FRIES! CABEZA BURGER!
While we typically work within the confines of what ingredients and processes are attainable and manageable for our brewing system, we have a staggering number of options and fine-tuning opportunities to create the exact beer concept we target for each specific collaboration.
Brainstorming with Javier Cabral ahead of this brew, we found out that he is a massive fan of kush-like dankness, bright citrus flavors, and West Coast Pilsners. Thankfully, we are huge fans of those flavors and styles as well. Working within those guidelines, we devised this recipe with Gambrinus Pilsner as our base malt, as well as a touch of 2-row malt to maintain a super snappy, light, and crisp body. We are using 34/70 lager yeast, fermented slightly warmer to accent slightly more aggressive hop saturation and dry hop character. As for the hops, we decided to layer in Columbus, Simcoe, Mosaic Cryo, Nectaron, and Strata Hyperboost. The Columbus and Mosaic Cryo provide a dank, OG-like baseline, while the Nectaron, Simcoe, and Strata add intense, juicy citrus and berry-like undertones.
Here is the official description of L.A. TACO's first beer, below.
Deadliner
West Coast Pils, 5.7% alc/vol - Collaboration with L.A. TACO
Malts: North American Pilsner, Carafoam
Yeast: 34/70
Hops: Citra, Citra Cryo, Nectaron
Notes: Bright and saturated aromatics of grapefruit peel, melon Fanta, and pine resin collide with the senses atop a super-tight and pale malt base with medium bitterness.
