Beachwood Expands into Downtown Long Beach with Barrel-Aged Beer at Beachwood Blendery

The future of downtown Long Beach shines brighter by the day, as evidenced by today’s news that the Beachwood team is opening up a sour beer destination inside of a 100 year old building. The project, dubbed Beachwood Blendery, comes by way of Gabe Gordon and his crew, who already operate Beachwood BBQ in Seal Beach and Beachwood BBQ and Brewing in Long Beach — the latter being a massively popular and award-winning brewery in its own right.

The Blendery concept aims to ride the recent sour beer craze that’s been ever-so-popular in craft brewing circles of late. That means a temperature-controlled aging room that can hold up to 1,000 barrels at a time, with brewing processes that will mimic the more ancient traditions still held in places like Belgium. Beerwise, guests can expect often fruit-forward, tart styles like lambics and gueuze, made using a mix of modern techniques and old world know-how; there’s even talk of ‘mimicking the Belgian water profile’.

Don’t expect anything too quickly though, as sours tend to take much longer to brew their way to completion. And as for that American-made gueuze (a style that is tightly protected in Europe and thus can’t technically be labeled as such in the U.S.), customers won’t be able to taste the results for at least three years.

Initial brewing at Beachwood Blendery is just starting to get underway now, with first releases slated for mid-2015. Once ready, Gordon and his team will also unveil the on-site taproom in downtown Long Beach, hosting ten taps and occasional wines, mostly from the same wineries that originally owned the oak barrels being put to use by all of that lambic beer.