For this week's #BeerSaturday post I'm detailing my experience at the new Huntington Beach taproom location for the Dude's brewery (the brewery itself is in Torrance, CA). Located in a gorgeous indoor shopping center of sorts, the setting itself is very inviting for a drink!
The Dude's brewco has really expanded lately. I remember when they only had the small Torrance location and about 8 beers (and to be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of any of them). I think their quality has gone up though. Their brand name has as well. The first thing I noticed in this taproom is that they have live keg statuses right there on the wall. If you are a person drawn to a "just tapped" beer keg, well now you have that choice.
I decided on 2 sets of tastings, since they had so many new beers. For the first tasting, I chose a coconut stout on nitro, a golden ale on nitro (what?!), a Marzen, and a Belgian Wit. 4 styles I like very much.
I must say the Wrug White Russian (golden Ale on Nitro) was a bit funky for me to handle. Its fine as a tasting, but to get through a whole glass of that...whew! The Marzen was decidedly not good either, it tasted more like soda than beer. The Stout was quite fine though and the Belgian Wit was EXCELLENT!
For the second round, I went all sours.
The sours were all very good. The passion fruit saison sour was the clear winner of the day, and I took a crowler of it home. Honorable mention to the Berliner Weisse which was my second favorite.
All in all, what a fun theme. If you hadn't guessed by now, the Dude's is a thematic take of the Big Lebowski film. As you can see, they use the bowling theme liberally. Some of the beer names fit in ("The wrug really ties the brewery together, man"). So, just excuse me while I go look "for a cash machine...."
