Brew your own in time for Oktoberfest

Maybe you've always wanted to try it -- making your own beer at home. Now the California School of Culinary Arts is offering a cooking class, "Organic Beer Making 101" (for those 21 and older).

Learn the craft of extract brewing, including the fundamentals of how yeast works and how to clean and sanitize brewing equipment, select the best organic ingredients, cook and cool wort (beer) and bottle home brew. Students will brew 48 bottles of beer -- an organic India Pale Ale or organic brown ale, both of which require a 1- to 2-week resting period after the bottling session in the second class.

Sept. 6 & 20, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., CSCA East Campus, 521 East Green St., Pasadena. Class costs $295 and includes the cost of brewing equipment.  Register by calling or visiting the CSCA Campus Cookstore, (626) 683-1354.

-- Betty Hallock

Photo of beer by Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times.

Video: This ain't no moonshine

Craft brewers making rum and whiskey? Food section videographer John Vandewege heads to Ballast Point, San Diego's first licensed distillery, where a couple of guys who know how to make beer are trying to figure out how to make the hard stuff-- and please their palates in the process.  Read freelancer Jenn Garbee's story, too.

Barney's beer ballot

The age-old West Hollywood chili parlor, youth hangout and all-around beer fountain Barney's Beanery (now with branches in Santa Monica and Pasadena) plans to get a jump on Super Tuesday by holding its own straw ballot on Monday, Feb. 4. No actual straws will be harmed in this process. You just choose a $3 pour from the tap labeled with the candidate of your choice -- Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Romney, McCain or Giuliani -- and that counts as a vote. (By the way, does this mean Barney's knows something about Mike Huckabee's chances that we don't?) The three suds polling places will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Bartenders acting as election officials will record a running tally on whiteboards. The Barney's press release says, "Vote tampering will be encouraged," which one hopes shows they're not taking this too seriously. (It's not as if Barney's has much of a track record -- in 2004, the Santa Monica branch had a two-day beer vote that ended with John Kerry beating George Bush 2 to 1.) Maybe they're just trying to encourage people to "vote early and often," as the saying goes. Stuff the ballot box and yourself at the same time, as it were.

-- Charles Perry

Correction: The voting hours are 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. on Monday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Super Tuesday.

Home brew at Blue Velvet

Brew pubs have been around since the '80s, and the idea of pairing food with beer instead of wine has been nudging its way into the mainstream. The stylish downtown/Westlake restaurant Blue Velvet is just taking these concepts to their logical conclusion: brewing its own beers designed for its seasonal menus. Last night it trotted out the three beers of its first batch for a six-course tasting menu.

Three beers, six courses? Yes, they had to stretch out their own brews with a couple of other beers, all either wheat beers or Belgian ales, since this was a wheat/Belgian-oriented menu. And this is a wheat/Belgian-oriented beer age, come to think of it.

After an aperitif English bitter ale (quite bitter, in the West Coast style, almost an IPA), they produced seared scallops in a sauce subtly flavored with the herbal tea chamomile (a surprisingly nice flavor combination) paired with their saison, a Belgian farmhouse-style ale. The saison had a tangy note of wild yeast that stood up to the bits of grapefruit on the plate. And it was flavored with chamomile too; cool idea.

The third beer was a Christmas ale dosed with cherries and juniper as well as the conventional nutmeg and cloves. It made a very convincing foil for a course of rich seared foie gras (accompanied by toasted barley, almonds and dried fruit-lime marmalade; Blue Velvet does like to put little unexpected tastes on the plate).

Altogether, very good for a maiden effort (and a small one; they'd made only 5 gallons of each beer). Who knows what they'll brew next?

-- Charles Perry

Photo by Charles Perry

New beer guide for Southern California

Just what we've been needing: a detailed, up-to-date guide to the craft beer scene in Southern California. Or, as "The Beer Guppy's Guide to Southern California" describes itself, a "regional travel guide for the beer enthusiast."

Burbank-based author Jay Sheveck earns his nom de cerveza, the Beer Guppy -- he really seems to swim in beer. He's been chronicling the craft beer explosion since the early '90s, and he spent five years researching this guide. It lists 300 breweries, brewpubs and serious beer bars and liquor stores between Fresno and the Mexican border, plus southern Nevada, together with the product range, address, phone number, website, hours and a brief characterization of each. Icons show whether a brewery gives tours (with or without samples), whether a pub or tasting room has a beer garden, TVs, live music and pizza, and which places sell bottles and which sell kegs or growlers.

Sheveck celebrates home brew too, listing suppliers and clubs. There are even three pages of beer events, from the Cambria Chili Cook-Off, Car Show and Beer Tasting to the Tijuana International Beer Festival.

The 98-page magazine-format guide, which sells for $9.95, is as up-to-date as can be: Though it was published in June, it includes a couple of places that opened in May -- pretty fast turnaround for a reference work. It's on sale at www.beerguppy.com, Culver City Home Brewing Supply, the Draft Beer Store in Northridge, Hi-Time Wine Cellars in Costa Mesa, the Home Wine, Beer and Cheesemaking Shop in Woodland Hills, the Stuffed Sandwich in San Gabriel and, for some reason, the Holiday Inn in Burbank. It's also available on Amazon.

-- Charles Perry