The Desert Breweries - part 1

After checking in to the hotel in Palm Desert (and setting the room temperature on the thermostat), I began gathering thoughts for some things I might like to do out here.  I had a plan to spend a day at Joshua Tree National Park – those posts are coming up later this week – but I also was thinking ahead to Friday in LA when I would give a presentation to my MBA reunion.  I decided to go find a haircut, and then to find a local brewery afterwards. 

Except for the face-melting heat in the desert, the haircut was unremarkable.  My next stop was LaQuinta Brewery, which is the newer of the two breweries in the area, founded in 2013.  When I arrived, I noticed a barrel-aging program – but even the beers that had been laid up in casks were older than Hawksbill Brewing!

During these brewery visits in San Diego and now the desert, I had begun to notice how the locals interact with the business – the local trade is very important to our brewery as well, and we are starting to understand what that will mean to our culture and to our success.  Here at La Quinta, the website promises a “laid-back, desert style” and I wanted to know what that was like.

It wasn’t the Eagles (here I could throw in my line from The Big Lebowski, mind the f-bomb, of course); instead the music in the background had a pop-metal sort of vibe.  Behind the bar were the guys who had dialed that sound in, so I struck up a conversation, telling them about my story and listening to them tell me theirs – how they started, how they built the business and menu.  There was a decent crowd of 20 or so folks in, it being around the happy hour.  

For beers, as the photo shows, I kept to a monochromatic selection, mainly due to the desert heat.  I also tried to stay with a session idea, ABVs between 5-6%, although I made an exception with the IPA it tried there (these descriptions are from their web site):   

• Heatwave Amber:  Toasty malt character with a hint of caramel, this bee is slightly darker than your typical amber ale.  Generous amounts of Warrior hops provide the bitterness while Centennial and Chinook hops provide aroma.
• Bloody Hot Summer (Seasonal):  Nothing beats this beer on a scorching hot day in the Coachella Valley.  We’ve infused a pale wheat ale with just the right amount of blood oranges, producing a fantastic thirst quenching beer.  This brew is seasonal, so it dries up with the temperatures drop!
• Poolside Blonde:  A light maltiness provided by the Pilsner and Vienna malts.  Light straw in color, it has a moderately bitter finish.  A true palate cleansing ale.
• Even Par IPA:  This India Pale Ale is brewed with three of the most sought-after hops in brewing – Citra, Simcoe, and Mosaic.  The result is an explosion of floral, tropical, and fruity flavors.  While this “aiming fluid” may not help you shoot even par, it will certainly make you feel like you did!

The Even Par IPA advertised an IBU of 85 based on the high alpha/aromatic qualities of that hop bill.  At Hawksbill, we designed our IPA to be around 55 IBU, significantly lower than this to emphasize our malt-forward style, but we do use Citra as part of the hop recipe.  Despite the added bitterness, theirs was refreshing and on-point, but ours held up by comparison as well; both meet the objectives of the requirement to have an IPA on tap.

After finishing my flight, I drove back to the neighborhood near the hotel for dinner.  I began to understand something about the community – Palm Springs and Palm Desert are winter playgrounds, but here I was, in the middle of it, in July.  At least after dinner, around 7:30, the temperature had already cooled off – to 106!