The Hop Heads

From wet-hopped beers to the freshest possible bottles offered to drinkers to the unquenchable desire to keep refining and keep showing drinkers a new side of hoppy beers, El Segundo Brewing has become L.A.’S premier IPA brewery.

IN A SLEEPY BEACH TOWN

less than twenty miles from downtown Los Angeles, a five-year-old craft brewery is on a mission to change how people see—and taste—hoppy beer. El Segundo Brewing Company has quickly evolved from a favorite of local beer geeks to a destination in L.A.’S thriving South Bay craftbeer scene. And now, the hops-obsessed brewery is gaining national attention for a unique collaboration with an iconoclastic entertainer. At the end of 2015, El Segundo Brewing (ESBC) partnered with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin—legendary professional wrestler turned reality TV star and podcaster—to craft Austin’s ideal IPA. The result was Broken Skull IPA, and it’s more than just an off-the-shelf IPA adorned with a celebrity name. The beer, which ESBC Founder and Brewmaster Rob Croxall calls a “hybrid of old-school and new-school IPAS,” was designed from the ground up to appeal to Austin’s tastes, and it has become a massive crossover hit with a whole new demographic.

“He’s got a pretty good palate,” Croxall says. “He knows what he likes, and he’ll tell you if he doesn’t like something.” The ESBC team got to know Austin’s preferences, which tend toward the classic California craft flavors of C-hops, and Croxall wrote a recipe that combined the iconic character of Cascade and Chinook hops in the kettle with a Citra-heavy dry hop. Showcasing a bold mid-palate hops flavor and more subdued bitterness and aromatics than the typical ESBC IPA,