First Saturday March 7 at Smog City

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Salutations Pacific Gravity!

Our March “First Friday” event will be be held this Saturday 4/7 12-3pm at Smog City Brewing in Torrance. This will be a fun day – Porter should have our Anniversary Collaboration Saison with Brett on tap, and is planning on also chilling down one of the magnums we bottled! This will be an opportunity to enjoy the beer directly at the brewery and of course chat with our great host and benefactor, Porter.  There are always a wide selection of Smog beers that will demand our attention as well!  ALSO, we will be offering 12oz bottles of the beer @ 6 for an $8 club donation – an unreasonably cheap price for this beer!  Note THERE ARE NO 6-PACK CARRIERS so bring your own, or buy by the case for $32 (which is definitely what I am doing, if not doing multiple times) – Porter doesn’t want to hang on to it for us forever, so this would be the time to pick up all you can carry!  The food truck is scheduled to be VCHOS Pupuseria, so a tasty lunch should be available.

But WAIT, there’s more!  I also spoke to Alex at Cellador across the parking lot from Smog, and they are having their Members Society day 12-9 on Saturday as well.  He agreed to let PG crash it and enjoy some of their beers and he will likely be serving our Anniversary Collab with RedShift, an excellent wild ale with cherries and black currants.  Tasting 2 anniversary beers at their respective breweries within a 200 yards of each other… A dang near perfect day!  Time to pick up some Redshift!!

Oh, but there is STILL more… I just messaged with Alex and he says that Father’s Office will be getting RedShift!  He thinks that it will be on this weekend in Culver City and next week in Santa Monica.  Now we can drink PG beer in a pub… and Ian’s gloating will know no bounds 😉  We can discuss an organized run (stay tuned), but in the mean time, stop by and enjoy!

And of course, duuuuues….. It’s that time again.  You have likely received and email from our illustrious Treasurer, Craig, and can quickly pay your dues with a tap of a link.  Please help us keep PG solvent for another year!

Looking forward to seeing you all Saturday at noon!

Parker Waechter – President, Pacific Gravity Homebrewers

March First Saturday  – Saturday 4/7/2026 at 12-3 PM
Smog City Brewery
1901 Del Amo Blvd
Torrance,  CA  90501
(310) 320-7664

Upcoming Events

  • Mar   7 :  First Saturday at Smog City Brewery 12:00
  • Mar  19:  Club Meeting at Tortugo Brewing Company 7:30

Feb 2026 Club Meeting Tonight 7:30 at Tortugo Brewery

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I just wanted to send a quick reminder that we have our meeting tonight at Tortugo at 7:30.

Our style of the month is “British beers”.

Info of note:

– March 7 we will be doing a “First Saturday” at Smog City Brewing Co.  We will have Smog’s Brett Saison we helped brew for our 30th anniversary available for an insanely cheap $8 club-donation per 6-pack.  At $32/case I think that is a pretty easy decision…
In addition to the great Smog beers, the food truck scheduled is VCHOS Pupuseria, so it should pair nicely with beer.

– CA Homebrewfest Temecula campsite details are is still not available, but we are assuming all is well with a group of powered campsites – it should be another great year!

– While at Tortugo, if we have any glass breakage, we need to make sure Joe is informed.  They need to double-check and make sure there is no remaining broken glass anywhere.

 

Parker Waechter – President, Pacific Gravity Homebrewers

February Monthly Meeting Thursday 2/19/2026 at 7:30 PM
Tortugo Brewing Co.
916 W. Hyde Park Blvd.
Inglewood,  CA  90302
(424) 227-9963

Upcoming Events

  • Feb 19 :  Club Meeting at Tortugo Brewing Company 7:30 (British beers)
  • Feb 24:  Last day to register for the National Homebrew Competition
  • Mar   7 :  First Saturday at Smog City Brewery 12:00

First Friday February 6 at El Segundo Brewing Company

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Our February “First Friday” event will be be held this Friday 2/6 at El Segundo Brewing Company.   Tomm Carroll has spoken to Owner/Brewmaster Rob and they will have a couple of tables reserved for us.  They should probably also have their TIPA and QIPA that were released last weekend, so there should be no shortage of hoppy libations!

Parker Waechter – President, Pacific Gravity Homebrewers

February First Friday – Friday 2/6/2026 at 7-10 PM
El Segundo Brewing Company
140 Main St
El Segundo,  CA  90245
(310) 529-3882

Competition Corner

2026 starts out with four competitions that all have entry deadlines in the March-April timeframe.  You still have a bit of time to brew, but you’ll need to start soon.

The entry window for the National Homebrewers Competition is now open through February 25th . You will need to select which judging location you wish to use. San Diego is the closest. Entries will be due in March. The final round will be judged at the National Homebrewers Conference in Asheville NC in June.  Details can be found at https://homebrewersassociation.org/news/get-ready-for-the-2026-national-homebrew-competition-nhc .

Registration for America’s Finest City is now open through March 31st. Details can be found at https://www.quaff.org/AFC-2026/ .  The entry drop-off window will be April 6 – 17th.  There may be a local drop-off point for this San Diego based competition.

The entry window for the California State fair should open any day now.  Register at https://castatefair.com/california-homebrew/ Entries will be due in early April.  Most likely Angel City brewery will accept entries.

And finally, the Maltose Falcon’s Mayfaire competition will begin registration soon.  Judging will be in April.  Detail can be found at https://competitions.maltosefalcons.com/ .

Carl Townsend – Competition Coordinator

Upcoming Events

  • February   6: First Friday – El Segundo Brewing Co
  • February 19: Club Meeting at Tortugo Brewing Company 7:30 (style British Beers)

January 2026 Club Meeting Tonight 7:30 at Tortugo Brewery

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Hey There Pacific Gravity!

I just wanted to send a quick reminder that we have our meeting tonight at Tortugo at 7:30.

Our style of the month is “winter beers”.

Terry will be discussing the California Home Brewers festival which is in May, but we need to reserve our campsites next week.  For those who have never been, your should really consider it – a weekend of great beer and a camping hang-out with your pacific gravity partners in crime!

Parker Waechter – President, Pacific Gravity Homebrewers

February Monthly Meeting Thursday 1/15/2026 at 7:30 PM
Tortugo Brewing Co.
916 W. Hyde Park Blvd.
Inglewood,  CA  90302
(424) 227-9963

Competition Corner
2026 starts out with four competitions that all have entry deadlines in the March-April timeframe.  You still have a bit of time to brew, but you’ll need to start soon.

The entry window for the California State fair should open any day now.  Register at https://castatefair.com/california-homebrew/ Entries will be due in early April.  Most likely Angel City brewery will accept entries.

The entry window for the National Homebrewers Competition will open soon.  You will need to select which judging location you wish to use.  San Diego is the closest.  Entries will be due in March.  The final round will be judged at the National Homebrewers Conference in Asheville NC in June.  Details can be found at https://homebrewersassociation.org/news/get-ready-for-the-2026-national-homebrew-competition-nhc .

Registration for America’s Finest City will begin February 1st.  Details can be found at https://www.quaff.org/AFC-2026/ .  The entry drop-off window will be April 7 – 15th.  There may be a local drop-off point for this San Diego based competition.

And finally, the Maltose Falcon’s Mayfaire competition will begin registration soon.  Judging will be in April.  Detail can be found at https://competitions.maltosefalcons.com/ .

Carl Townsend – Competition Coordinator

Upcoming Events
Jan 15 :  Club Meeting at Tortugo Brewing Company 7:30 (style winter beers)
Feb 1st:  Entry registration starts for multiple competitions

Cellador Pacific Gravity Anniversary Collab Now Available!

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I just wanted to send a quick announcement that the anniversary collaboration we did with Alex at Cellador is ready and now available for purchase!

The beer is “Redshift” a blend of wild ales on cherries and black currants.  It can be purchased directly on their website or at the brewery in 500 ml bottles for $16.00.  We only did one barrel, so this will likely disappear quickly – buy yours ASAP !!

Alex has also offered us a temporary discount code PACIFICGRAVITY20  to get 20% off – the code will only last about a week, so it is definitely worth your while to purchase early.

If you purchase online, they can either ship or hold the beer at the brewery for 90 days, so you can do it without rushing down there…

Parker Waechter – President, Pacific Gravity Homebrewers

Cellador Ales
1879 Del Amo Blvd
Torrance, CA  90501
(323) 206-6886

Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 12 pm – 6 pm
Sunday & Monday: Closed

Upcoming Events

  • Jan 15 :  Club Meeting at Tortugo Brewing Company 7:30 (style winter beers)

First Sunday Jan 4 at Firestone Propagator

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>Happy New Year Pacific Gravity!

I hope everyone has survived & thrived during the holidays and was able to spend some quality time with family and friends in addition to wonderful libations!

Our Holiday party was a huge amount of fun as always, and a big thanks to Ian for awesome food, Carl and Tom for getting the serving system happening, Terry and Craig for raffle fun, Neil for hosting (and of course providing an amazing quantity of beers and food), and everyone who helped with setup/cleanup and provided beer/potluck items for everyone to enjoy.  It takes a village and, once again, the group came together to make this  legendary party happen!

We successfully ended the year with 5 anniversary beers brewed at commercial breweries.  A big thanks to Rives for providing a keg of the very tasty Project Barley English Barley wine as a donation to the club!  He has said the beer is now available in bottles for purchase at Project Barley, Lomita, so make a trip and grab some while you can!!  Porter from Smog and Alex from Cellador provided some pre-release bottles of their Anniversary beers and they were much enjoyed – definitely looking forward to full availability!

Our Firestone Anniversary beer, St Amburanas, a Belgian Strong Dark on Amburana wood,  also made an appearance and was well liked.

Which brings us to our first First-Friday for the new year, which will actually be a First-Sunday at the Firestone Walker Propagator.  They have our St Amburanas on tap.  Sam says they also have a West Coast/NZ Pils with nelson and riwaka that they are excited about, so that should be interesting.  Please come on down this Sunday noon-3 and join us in starting off the new year right!!

Parker Waechter – President, Pacific Gravity Homebrewers

Jan First Sunday – Sunday 1/4/2025 at 12-3 PM
Firestone Propagator
3205 Washington Blvd
Marina Del Rey,  CA  90292
(310) 439-8264

 

Upcoming Events

  • Jan 4   :  First Friday (Sunday) at Firestone Propagator 12 pm
  • Jan 15 :  Club Meeting at Tortugo Brewing Company 7:30

Holiday Party 2025 Saturday Dec 6th

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Ho Ho Ho Pacific Gravity!

The time is here! Our 2025 Holiday Party is this Saturday 12/6 at 5pm at Neil’s Duplex.  We will also announce announce the Member of the Year and the Brewer of the Year awards.

The menu will likely be similar to past holiday parties featuring meat on the BBQ, deep fried turkeys, spiced ham and much more!
You can help! Although the club will be providing many of the main dishes, this is still a pot luck party – so bringing your favorite party dish will surely be appreciated!

If you have a favorite family holiday recipe and want to share it with the rest of us, this is your chance!  If you have any questions about what to bring you can ask Chef Ian (masterchef@pacificgravity.com).  Some general suggestions would include any kind of main dish but especially all side dishes, veggie dishes, salads, desserts and appetizers! People have traditionally brought Carbonnades ala Flamande – if anyone wants to go for it and has fear, there is a simple instant pot recipe that can give you a starting point.

This is an outdoor event… it will be cold!  Please plan accordingly!

Bring a chair if you can!

Holiday Party Clean up will be Sunday, December 7th at 10am – Please help out if you can.

Holiday Party: Saturday December 6, at 5:00 PM.
12966 Rubens Ave
Los Angeles, CA. (at Alla Road)

Beer
Got beer?  We need all types of beer, meads, cider and sodas for this event.  Pull out your favorite holiday beverage, dust off the bottle or keg and bring it down!  We’ll have front bar portion of our serving system set up to help dispense your holiday homebrews.  If you plan to bring beer, soda or other seasonally festive beverage, please contact Carl at: Competitions@pacificgravity.com & let him know what you will bring.  Everyone who signs up in advance will have a festive tap tag.

Anniversary Beer News
I believe we will have kegs of both the Project Barley English Barleywine (donated by Rives – THANK YOU!) and the Firestone Belgian Dark Strong on Amburana.  We should also have some pre-release bottles of the Smog City belgian single and the Cellador sour on cherries and black currents for sampling.

Parker Waechter – President, Pacific Gravity Homebrewers

Upcoming Events

  • Dec 6   :  Holiday Party at 5:00!
  • Dec 7   : Holiday Party cleanup at 10 am
  • Jan 4   :  First Friday (Sunday) at Firestone Propagator 12 pm

Holiday Party Setup Sunday, 11/30

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Ho Ho Ho Pacific Gravity!

Our 2025 Holiday Party is rapidly approaching, but first we need your help!

This Sunday 11/30/25 at noon we will be doing the setup (and drinking beer!) over at Neil’s, so come on down and lend a hand! Not only do we need help with setup we will also need supplies and equipment from those who can provide it.  This is our First Friday Event for the month of December.
In addition to setup help, things we likely need are:
Beer – Details/Sign up Info below
Firewood
Outdoor fire pit
Propane heater\outdoor heater
Chairs
Tables,
E-Z ups (canopies)
Power strips
CO2 Tanks

Holiday Party Setup  Sunday, 11/30 at 12:00pm.
12966 Rubens Ave, Los Angeles, CA. (at Alla Road)

Holiday Party 2025 will be Saturday, December 6th at 5pm
12966 Rubens Ave, Los Angeles, CA. (at Alla Road)

Holiday Party Clean up will be Sunday, December 7th at 10am – Please help out if you can.
12966 Rubens Ave, Los Angeles, CA. (at Alla Road)

Holiday Party Details

The Holiday party will be a Neil’s Duplex on December 6th at 5:00PM.  Also, we will announce the Member of the Year Award and the Brewer of the year award.

The menu will likely be similar to past holiday parties featuring meat on the BBQ, deep fried turkeys, spiced ham and much more!
You can help! Although the club will be providing many of the main dishes, this is still a pot luck party – so bringing your favorite party dish will surely be appreciated!
If you have a favorite family holiday recipe and want to share it with the rest of us, this is your chance!  If you have any questions about what to bring you can ask Chef Ian (masterchef@pacificgravity.com).  Some general suggestions would include any kind of main dish but especially all side dishes, veggie dishes, salads, desserts and appetizers! People have traditionally brought Carbonnades ala Flamande – if anyone wants to go for it and has fear, there is a simple instant pot recipe that can give you a starting point. 

Beer
Got beer?  We need all types of beer, meads, cider and sodas for this event.  Pull out your favorite holiday beverage, dust off the bottle or keg and bring it down!  We’ll have front bar portion of our serving system set up to help dispense your holiday homebrews.  If you plan to bring beer, soda or other seasonally festive beverage, please contact Carl at: Competitions@pacificgravity.com & let him know what you will bring.  Everyone who signs up in advance will have a festive tap tag.
This is an outdoor event… it will be cold!  Please plan accordingly!
Bring a chair if you can!

Holiday Party: Saturday 12/6, at 5:00 PM.
12966 Rubens Ave
Los Angeles, CA. (at Alla Road)

Anniversary Beer News
Last weekend we had a blast bottling our collaboration beers with both Smog City (Belgian Single) and Cellador (most excellent sour on cherries and black currents) – thanks to everyone who came to help out!  Both Porter and Alex were great hosts as always and shepherded us through the process. Both beers will be better with a bit more age on them, so not SURE they will be available at the holiday party or not, but we shall see – hopefully we will have a keg of the Smog.  The Firestone beer is doing well, and hopefully we can get a keg for the holiday party.  The Project Barley beer (English Barleywine) is tasting pretty great and Rives plans on bringing some to the the party!

Upcoming Events

  • Nov 30 : Holiday Party Setup at noon
  • Dec 6   :  Holiday Party at 5:00!
  • Dec 7   :  Holiday Party Cleanup at 10:00am

Club Meeting This Thurs Nov 20 at Tortugo Brewery

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Please come join us for our last meeting of the year at our home base at Tortugo this Thursday 11/20 at 7:30. Our styles of the month are ambers and browns.

Craig will be bringing some of our 30th Anniversary Tee Shirts ($20) and glasses ($5) – this will be the last opportunity for purchase in 2025!

Voting – Member of the Year and 2026 Board
We will also be voting for member of the year and the board for 2026. If you have additional nominations, you may email elections@pacificgravity.com by midnight Wed 11/19 and they will be added to the ballot (or people can also write in if need be). If you will be unable to attend, members may vote by email by sending to that same address on Thurs 11/20 until 9pm.

Current Nominations:
    Member of the year: Joe Kovatch, Dean Sussman, Carl Townsend, Parker Waechter
    Board Nominees:
President – Parker Waechter
Vice President – Terry Molloy
Treasurer – Craig Corley

Holiday Party
The annual PG holiday party is rapidly approaching and will be held on Saturday 12/6 at Neil’s Duplex (12966 Rubens Ave, Los Angeles, CA. (at Alla Road)).
Carl will have a signup sheet at the meeting for kegs you will be bringing so he can make his traditional festive tap tags(tm). Chef Ian will be doing his culinary magic as always, but we always need some more salads, sides, deserts etc, so please start thinking about how you can dazzle with kitchen skills to match your brewing skills!

The weekend before the party (Nov 29/30) we will be doing setup for the party.  I know it is Thanksgiving weekend, so at the meeting we will vote on Saturday vs Sunday to get the most people to help out.Many hands makes for light work…yada yada.

Anniversary Beer News
We have completed the final 2 brews (Smog City and Firestone Walker)!  This Sunday we could use help bottling the Smog City Batch, and likely also the Cellador batch (both at Cellador across the parking lot from Smog).  More details will be provided as soon as they are available.  We successfully had club anniversary collaboration brews at 5 breweries (Tortugo, Cellador, Project Barley, Smog City and Firestone).  The Tortugo beers have been sold out for months and mostly happily consumed – thanks Joe!  I believe all the others will be available for tasting at the Holiday Party.  We should be very proud that we have this much support from the professional brewing community!

Hope to see you all at the meeting Thursday!

Parker Waechter – President, Pacific Gravity Homebrewers

November Monthly Meeting Thurs 11/20/2025 at 7:30 PM
Tortugo Brewing Co.
916 W. Hyde Park Blvd.
Inglewood,  CA  90302
(424) 227-9963

Upcoming Events

  • Nov 20  :  Club Meeting at Tortugo Brewing Company 7pm (Styles: brown and amber beer)
  • Nov 29 or 30 – Holiday Party Setup
  • Dec 6    :   Holiday Party!

Anniversary Brews at Smog City and Firestone

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This is a reminder that this Saturday 11/8 is our Anniversary brew at Smog City at 9:30 am.

We will be using Porter’s new 5 barrel pilot system, so even if you have been to brew events at Smog in the past, this will be something exciting and new!

The recipe will be an adaptation of Craig Corley’s Trappist Single.  Rather than traditional Belgian grains, we’re going to use micro-malted grains from Admiral Maltings up in the Bay Area. We’ll use German Hercules for bittering and a blend of Tettnanger and Saaz for flavor/aroma additions.  We’ll likely use a dry yeast like Mangrove Jacks Belgian Tripel M31.  We’ll use first wort hopping and a large dose at knock out.

Unlike our usual Smog visits, this is not a “Monster Brew”.  We are not selling wort, so no need to bring sterile buckets.  Instead, we will ferment the whole batch at Smog and then bottling in a couple of weeks (and we will need some help then too!).  You are not going to want to miss this event!

Next, just 2 days later, on this Monday November 10 at 9am(ish) (NOTE NEW DATE!) we will be at Firestone Propagator, where Sam will be helping us craft a Carl/Tomm/Parker/Sam Belgian Dark Holiday Beer with Aburana wood.  Brewing this beer at the Propagator should be epic!

So there you have it – some action-packed days o’ brewing with a Smog-Saturday and Firestone-Monday – Two glorious days of brewer-fantasy-camp!  I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to attend one if not both.  I, for one, have requested the day off work!  Also note that these 2 events will count as our “First Friday” for November.

We will need some volunteers to help bottle both of these once they are ready – we will send out an email when we know more.

These are the final two brews of our 30th Anniversary Series that have included: Tortugo, Cellador, Project Barley, Smog City, Firestone-Walker Propagator.

Parker Waechter – President, Pacific Gravity Homebrewers

Smog City PG Anniversary Beer Brewing – Saturday 11/8/2025 at 9:30am(ish)
Smog City Brewing Company
1901 Del Amo Blvd
Torrance, CA, 90501
(310) 320-7664

Firestone PG Anniversary Beer Brewing – Mon 11/10/2025 at 9am(ish)
Firestone Walker Brewing Company – the Propagator
3205 Washington Blvd
Marina Del Rey, CA, 90292
(310) 439-8264

Upcoming Events

  • Nov 8    :  Anniversary Brewing at Smog City 9:30am(ish)
  • Nov 10  :  Anniversary Brewing at Firestone 9am(ish) NOTE DATE CHANGE!
  • Nov 20  :  Club Meeting at Tortugo Brewing Company 7pm
  • Dec 6    :   Holiday Party