Common Space + Unity = Community
Not unlike almost everyone over the past year and a half, the Los Angeles brewing community has been hard hit by the Coronavirus pandemic, as well as the painfully slow return to whatever the new normal will turn out to be. LA Beer Week (LABW) was cancelled for 2020, as was the collaborative Unity beer that accompanies it.
Photo Courtesy of Common Space Brewery
LABW was MIA again this past summer, but a few months ago the Los Angeles Brewers Guild (LABG) offered the glimmer of a return to normalcy: the promise of a 2021 Unity brew! Hawthorne’s Common Space was the host brewery and, for the first time ever, the Unity beer is a lager — a hoppy Pilsner to be precise, reflecting the latest preference of progressive brewers, rather than following the fads of the trend toadies. And it’s available now! Plus, a one-day mini-festival to celebrate the beer’s release is scheduled 1 pm to 5 pm at Common Space on Saturday, October 30 (see details at article’s end).
The Unity brew day in early August was a festive occasion for those who were able to attend — masked, of course — packing Common Space’s massive brewery. It marked the first time many in the LA beer community had seen friends and colleagues since winter of 2020.
weighing out Talus hops
Photo Credit: Nick Gingold
“The LA craft brewing industry may have grown significantly in the last decade, but many of our businesses are still relatively small,” Frances Cannon (née Lopez), Executive Director of the Los Angeles Brewers Guild, said in a statement. “This means that most brewery members are wearing many hats and have little time to actually leave their breweries. Add in the challenges of being understaffed during a pandemic, and you really see how isolated our industry has been these last two years.”
Cannon added, “This year’s Unity brew was our first in-person Guild meeting since November 2019 and it was beautiful to see our community come together for the first time to engage, learn and interact with one another. It was a much-needed respite during this constantly moving time.”
To learn more about the decision to make this year’s Unity a hoppy Pilsner, Beer Paper chatted with Common Space’s Director of Operations Kushal Hall, along with Head Brewer Andy Link, as well as CEO Brent Knapp sitting in, on a warm, early September afternoon over a round of lagers (of course) in the brewery’s outdoor beer garden.
Creating Unity
Living up to its name, Common Space wanted the Los Angeles Brewers Guild to have a voice in choosing the style of this year’s Unity. “We put out a question to guild members, asking, ‘Hey, do you guys want to do an IPA? Or a hoppy Pilsner?’ I think the result was like 37 to three or something, predominantly for the hoppy Pilsner idea. There were a few voices in the guild who said, ‘You gotta do an IPA; if you don’t, it won’t sell,’” revealed Hall, adding with a smile, “So we’ll see soon if they were right.”
Photo Credit: Nick Gingold
In theory, at least in recent years, Unity has been considered a collaboration brew among LABG members. “But you can’t really have 90 breweries suggesting an idea for a recipe,” said Hall. “I’ve observed over the last couple of years that the host brewery pretty much does the recipe and maybe reaches out to get advice from a few people. But the brew day is more of an event and a celebration of our unity as a local industry, a day to chat about things and get ideas from each other. Although there were a couple people who jumped in with some hop suggestions and stuff. We took all that into consideration.”
Despite favoring a hoppy Pilsner as their Unity brew, Hall and Link did not have a pre-conceived recipe for that popular sub-style in mind.
Photo Credit: Nick Gingold
“We had been playing around with different versions of like an IPL or an American Pilsner — whatever you want to call it — for a while, but never really hit on anything that was like a beer we want to develop into a brand,” explained Hall. “But it’s definitely a style we like. I think Andy and I were both probably a little inspired by a love of [Highland Park Brewing’s] Timbo Pils — a really good local example of that kind of hoppy, American Pilsner kind of style. We wanted something that wasn’t a beer we were making year ‘round.”
Indeed, Common Space had been hopping up lagers, and specifically Pilsner styles for some time, most notably earlier this year with its wonderful one-off, We Belong Together.
“That was like a stepping stone to our Unity recipe,” explained Link. “It was a Pilsner hopped with Zappa, a Neomexicanus hop, and [New Zealand’s] Nelson Sauvin.” The beer’s moniker refers to how well those hops work, aroma- and flavor-wise, in combination. “But we didn’t really have any idea at first which hops were gonna go into the Unity. Although one of our sponsors, Yakima Valley Hops, had a great selection to choose from.”
Photo Credit: Nick Gingold
Common Space lined up sponsors to help raise money for the guild, with many of the sponsorships coming in the form of donated materials. Yakima Valley worked with the brewers, and they were able to line up the hop choices pretty quickly. “We used Talus and Cashmere hops in the kettle, and then dry-hopped with Lupomax-Cashmere,” Link offered.
“Talus, a new-ish hop (formerly experimental hop HBC 692), was first used to great effect in the brewery’s Talus Beach, a single-hop hazy Pale Ale, released this past summer. “That was our first time brewing with the hop,” added Hall. “I get a lot of guava in the nose, but it’s more tangerine-y
of the incredible BLT he had the previous day
Photo Credit: Nick Gingold
“And then we dry-hopped with a small amount of Lupomax Cashmere,” he continued. “Like Cryo, Lupomax is a diffe
According to Hall and Link, this is Yakima Valley’s first time sponsoring a Unity brew and the hop supplier was pretty stoked about the opportunity. “They’re excited that we were using both Talus and the Lupomax, which are some products they wanted to focus on,” said Hall.
The malt bill consists of Weyermann Pilsner malts (which Common Space uses in virtually all of its lagers), and the beer was fermented with Unity sponsor White Labs’ 830 German Lager Yeast (ditto) for about two weeks in primary in the low 50º range before lagering at 42º and crashing to 30º.
The hoppy Pilsner, which finished at 6.1% abv, was brewed in two 40bbl batches, two weeks apart, which were blended together before they were to be packaged — about half in cans — during the first week of October, and made available immediately thereafter.
Photo Credit: Nick Gingold
And speaking of the 16oz cans, the label’s illustration (see accompanying image) was done by Priscilla Witte, whose murals appear in Common Space’s taproom. “This was an image we wanted — a big group of various people that sort of represent the craft beer scene in LA, not really depicting any particular individuals but just this sense of the diversity that we see and feel in our customers, collaborators and other local breweries,” Hall elaborated. “It’s just kind of a big, fun jumble of people that kind of feels the way it did when we were taking the big group photo here on the Unity brew day in early August.
“That’s what Unity is all about, he added, in conclusion. “The name is the brand, you know, so we just wanted to give it our Common Space illustrated feel that our labels have.”
Photo Courtesy of Common Space Brewery
LA Beer Day: A Late Oktoberfest
Common Space’s Unity is available now at the brewery (on draught and in cans) and in at discriminating beer shops (in cans) as you are reading this. It will also be celebrated and served at the LA Brewers Unity Oktoberfest event outside on the grounds of Common Space in Hawthorne on Saturday, October 30, from 1 pm to 5 pm. Some 30 LABG breweries will be sharing unlimited tastings of over 60 unique brews, many of which are special seasonals, at this first LABG event since 2019.
It’s on All Hallow’s Eve weekend, so regardless of your feelings about wearing masks, they certainly would be appropriate faceware for the fest. Have a Hoppy Halloween!
For details and tickets, please visit www.labrewersguild.org/unity
Tomm Carroll is a Los Angeles-based beer writer / judge / educator / historian / collector / traveler / drinker (not always in that order). He can be reached at beerscribe@earthlink.net.
The History of LA Craft Brewers’ Unity
by Frances Cannon, Executive Director, LABG
Courtesy of Common Space Brewery
The Unity beer for Los Angeles was first established in 2011 by the two-year-old Eagle Rock Brewery as a unique collaboration brew to celebrate that year’s third annual LA Beer Week. The early iterations* of the brew were hosted by Eagle Rock, with the help of neighboring breweries and beer industry professionals.
After ERB’s co-owner and brewmaster Jeremy Raub founded the Los Angeles County Brewers Guild in 2013, Eagle Rock soon passed the torch of coordinating Unity to the guild. Since then, a different LABG brewery has been called upon to host the annual brew day, which serves as the guild’s largest internal community-building event.
Following are the Unity brews over the years:
2011 – Eagle Rock Brewery with Craftsman Brewing and LA beer industry colleagues
Tamarind Saison
2012 – Eagle Rock Brewery with LA beer industry colleagues
Berliner Weisse-style sour ale with Prickly Pear
2013 – Eagle Rock Brewery with Maltose Falcons Homebrewer Craig Wickham (winner of the Doug King Memorial Homebrew Competition; prize was to have recipe brewed commercially for the GABF ProAm Competition)
Red Mild with Hibiscus and Honey
2014 – Eagle Rock Brewery with LA Brewers Guild
All California Citrus Pale Ale with CA-grown malt, hops and local citrus.
Photo Courtesy of El Segundo Brewing Co
2015 – Smog City Brewing with LA Brewers Guild
Tart Saison
2016 – Three Weavers Brewing with LA Brewers Guild
Experimental IPA
2017 – El Segundo Brewing with LA Brewers Guild
India Pale Ale
2018 – Los Angeles Ale Works with LA Brewers Guild
Label Courtesy of Los Angeles Ale Works
Duo – West Coast IPA and Hazy IPA (first canned versions of Unity)
2019 – Claremont Craft Ales with LA Brewers Guild
Double IPA
2020 – No Unity brew, or LA Beer Week
2021 – Common Space Brewery with LA Brewers Guild
Hoppy Pilsner (No LA Beer Week, but a one-day LA Brewers Unity Oktoberfest outside Common Space Brewery on October 30)
Notes:
Label Courtesy of Los Angeles Ale Works
- Unity has been canned since 2018 but there are no firm rules that Unity hosts must use cans as their packaging.
- The annual Unity brew has grown every year, now bringing over 100 of its brewery representatives together for a day of community.
- LABG member breweries bid for the Unity brew every year. They present their intention to host and members vote for a winner. Those who don’t score the bid one year are always encouraged to try again another year.
* Author’s note: In 2010, for the second annual LA Beer Week, Eagle Rock Brewery and local beer industry colleagues brewed a special beer, which was served at Beer Week’s signature closing festival. It was a California Common (an ale/lager hybrid), cleverly titled LA’S TEAM BEER — so it sounded like “LA Steam Beer” when you said it. Eagle Rock was not brewing commercially in 2009 for the inaugural LA Beer Week, so there was no commemorative beer.
