Brewing Hoppywood: An LA Beer Week Collaboration with Karl Strauss

Chances are, when you think of all the LA breweries pumping out awesome beer, Karl Strauss might not be one that comes to mind. Sure, they’re based out of San Diego and their LA location is smack dab in a place most of us locals usually never set foot – the tourist trap of Universal CityWalk. But if you’ve been overlooking Karl Strauss’ LA offering, you’ve been missing out on some seriously awesome beer. For LA Beer Week, we teamed up with the Karl crew in LA and brewed up a new reason for Los Angeles to start paying attention.

While Karl’s production brewery in San Diego is their main show, don’t think they left their remote LA location in the hands of some inexperienced amateur brewer. No, their LA brewery is manned by none other than Karl Strauss brewmaster, Paul Segura, a 20+ year brewery veteran responsible for countless award-winning beers.

Paul makes the trek up to LA about once a month to personally brew CityWalk’s monthly “Tank Tap” beer, a rotating specialty beer brewed exclusively at and for the CityWalk location. Last month’s Tank Tap was a deliciously hoppy Pale Lager called Citranaut, brewed exclusively with – you guessed it – the amazing Citra hops.

This month’s Tank Tap is an extra special one. Mack and I teamed up with the Karl Strauss crew to brew a beer in honor of LA Beer Week. We wanted to deliver something that we felt really fit the LA personality. A beer with a light body, high drinkability, and a platform to showcase a strong West Coast hop profile. With that direction, Paul put together a killer recipe for an India Pale Lager brewed with Chinook, Citra, and Mosaic hops, dry-hopped with even more Mosaic.

On May 12, Mack and I met up at Karl’s LA brewery with Paul, Brian and Ryan from the Karl Strauss marketing team, and Chris, Kelly, and Robert from the Karl Strauss LA sales team and put Paul’s recipe to work. On that day, our hoppy homage to the LA beer community, Hoppywood & Bine, was born. The final product packs a ton of hoppy bitterness on a light body and will be officially tapped on June 19th at our LABW Preview & release event at City Tavern in Culver City. Hoppywood will also be available at our Special LABW IPA Night on June 23rd at Crazy Harry’s Bar in the Valley as well as all the beer bars listed below throughout LA Beer Week. Here’s to you, LA hop heads!

You can find the Karl Strauss / Hopped LA collaboration Hoppywood & Bine India Pale Lager on tap starting June 19th at the following locations:

Kings Row Gastropub in Pasadena
Far Bar in Little Tokyo
Buzz Wine Beer Shop in DTLA
Spring St. Smokehouse in Chinatown
The Republic in Covina
Link in Beverly Hills
Rose City Pizza in Alhambra
Dog Haus Biergarten in Pasadena
Matt Denny’s Ale House in Arcadia
Old Towne Pub in Pasadena
Slaters 50/50 in Pasadena
Public School (multiple locations)
Tender Greens in Hollywood
Whole Foods (multiple locations)
City Tavern in Culver City
Naja’s Place in Redondo Beach
Select Beer Store in Redondo Beach
Lucky’s Tavern in Hollywood
Tony’s Darts Away in Burbank
Taps Valley Gastropub in Northridge
Crazy Harry’s Bar in Winnetka