Cold beer and live baseball have a longstanding relationship that dates back easily over a century and a half ago, throw in a steamed hot-dog with relish and mustard and you have got a winning trifecta of pure Americana. This week hope springs eternal, once again, as ballparks across the nation welcome back baseball fans and their prospects of another summer spent middling through 162 games of joy and pain. The Los Angeles Dodgers invite baseball faithful back to venerable Chavez Ravine for the first regular season home game against rivals, the San Francisco Giants, this Friday, April 4th. Buying a beer at Dodger Stadium typically involves domestic choices from macro lagers like Bud Light or Coors Light, but the game appears to be changing as the rise of craft beer demand moves up the foul lines at Dodger Stadium, near left and right field to be exact. El Segundo Brewing Co. is now playing in the proverbial big leagues as their signature Blue House Citra Pale Ale will be on tap all year at Dodger Stadium’s recently built Think Blue bars that complement two new 25,000 square-foot plazas in right and left field.
Image courtesy of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Dodger ownership has invested more than $150 million on stadium upgrades for fans and players in the last two off-seasons. Even so, craft beer at Dodger stadium is definitely not in the staring rotation, but Levy Restaurants, the company that operates & manages concessions at Dodger Stadium, is slowly introducing beer with personality & flavor by giving tap space to local craft brewers like ESBC. Last year Levy featured craft beer from a few Los Angeles based brewers like Golden Road and Angel City. The opportunity to showcase your craft beer brand in front of millions of fans every game day with the support of one of baseball’s most iconic teams is beer marketing strategy at its finest.
The call up came in the form of an ordinary e-mail from Levy asking Thomas Kelley, ESBC’s in-house rainmaker and resident Cicerone (sis-uh-rohn), “Who is your distributor?” In fact, ESBC is one of only a few local brewers around the South Bay that does not sign-up with a distributor to get their beers to market and tend to prefer the concept of self-distribution as it helps them stay focused on beer quality and consistency. Immediately Kelly put together all the necessary documents, samples, and information for Levy and is confident that the characteristics of Citra Pale Ale, its hop tones with citra flavor but relaxed bitterness, low ABV (alcohol by volume), and drinkability will pair up nicely this year at Dodger Stadium.
Blue House Citra Pale Ale on tap at El Segundo Brewing Co.
ESBC estimates that they will need to produce between 50 to 100 kegs of Citra for Dodger Stadium, which comes to about one keg a week. Naturally this means more production on site at the brewery, so some time in the next couple months, ESBC anticipates ordering an extra 60 barrel tank to accommodate the welcomed up-tick in Citra production.
The new Think Blue bars are hexagon shaped, just like the unique Dodger Stadium scoreboards, and they will have TV monitors for keeping up with the game action. A 16 ounce pour of Citra will cost $13. El Segundo Brewery is located at 140 Main Street, look for the Blue House logo. Visit their website to find out more about what else is going on at ESBC.