Brew

Michael Phillips, co-founder of Handsome Coffee Roasters (and a World Barista Champion) will conduct three brew classes on Tuesdays in December, starting tonight, at Handsome Coffee's  downtown cafe. Each class will cover how to make a great cup of coffee with a different style of brewer, starting with the Chemex and V60 class today from 6 to 7 p.m. For $65, each student receives a Chemex brewer, filters and a 12-ounce bag of coffee. Phillips will demo how to brew an amazing cup using the Chemex and V60 pour-over brew methods.

Beer and baseball are a natural pairing, and this year fans can finally enjoy a brewed-in-L.A. beer with their Dodger Dog. While there has been an extremely limited selection of craft brews at Dodger Stadium for the Last few years (if you're picky about what line for Dodger Dogs you stand in), this is the first season that beer from a Los Angeles craft brewer has been available. You just need to know where to look.  The new ownership has invested well over $100 million dollars in the venerable stadium at Chavez Ravine, and in addition to the remodels and improvements, new food and beverage options are being offered by the Dodger Stadium concessioners -- Levy Restaurants . BEER: Taste a beer based on French dip sandwiches Dodger Stadium has long languished behind several other Levy-serviced big league parks that have embraced craft beer, but this season Levy has begun to showcase craft beer at the park by adding a pair of craft-beer-focused stands serving brews from three Los Angeles brewers.

Dorothy isn't the only one who got lost in Kansas. After World War II, more than 100,000 Japanese women married American GIs and resettled across the United States. We meet five of those brides, unmoored in the Midwest, in “Tea, With Music,” a bittersweet chamber musical with book and lyrics by Velina Hasu Houston and music by Nathan Wang, now at East West Players. The occasion is a tea ceremony - and an exorcism. In a small Kansas town, Himiko (Joan Almedilla) has killed herself after a downward spiral of loss and rage.

The brewers at Downtown's Angel City Brewery have been hard at work building a catalog of recipes and fine-tuning their brewhouse and processes while the final touches are made to the building prior to the official grand opening. Not content to simply offer his take on classic styles like the brewery's flagship Eureka Wit and Angeleno IPA, head brewer Dieter Forstner has turned to Los Angeles' culinary history for the inspiration for his most experimental brew: the French Sip. Playing off of the long-standing rivalry between Cole's and Philippe's the Original - the two Downtown institutions that both claim to have invented the French dip sandwich -- Angel City's French Sip is an au jus-inspired brew.

Longtime Poison frontman Bret Michaels steps back into the limelight this week with a new iTunes single out featuring Miley Cyrus, of all people, on a power ballad called "Nothing to Lose." His new album, "Custom Built," is due in late spring, and he's also in the cast of "The Celebrity Apprentice" season premiering March 14 on NBC. "And March 15 is my birthday, so everything is kind of hitting at the same time," said Michaels, who'll be 47. "It's a good feeling to still be this busy this far into my career."

It's Wednesday on the CW, the closest thing that broadcast television has to a youth network, and the curtain is being pulled back on two new series: a supernatural teen drama that does things right, and a reality show that makes a good point about not judging books by their cover (or their own reality shows), though it is artificial and thin and smeared with the dubious glitter of minor celebrity. "Destiny's not easy to run from," we hear a voice say at the top of "The Secret Circle.

Swiss police have seized 1,000 bottles of locally made "Keineken" beer after the Dutch beer giant Heineken NV complained that its brand was being infringed. The name "Keineken" appears to be a pun in German meaning "No Heineken." Heineken spokesman Jeroen Breuer said in Amsterdam that a judge ordered police to seize the brew after agreeing that the Keineken name was an infringement.

MUSIC The Decemberists On "The Hazards of Love" (2009), frontman Colin Meloy and his merry band of Pacific Northwest hucksters created a medieval rock opera. The band's latest album, "The King Is Dead," takes the opposite tack, exploring Americana, a much more simple, rustic format. The right players are on the record with Meloy — R.E.M.'s Peter Buck contributes guitar and mandolin, and Gillian Welch provides vocals that go a long way in establishing some measure of restraint here.

Homer Simpson would feel at home in Latin America. His favorite beer, Duff, is available in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Chile. The lager has the same logo as the brew that Homer guzzles at Moe's, his local bar in the Fox cartoon series. In South America, the beer's motto is "Yes it does exist!" But nobody seems to be willing to discuss Springfield's finest. The makers of Duff in South America say they aren't allowed to talk to the U.S. media. Duff Mexico — which started the Latin American trend — would not respond to interview requests.

In an Echo Park home, four friends gather around a fist-sized clay pot steaming with a rare vintage of pu'er - an aged tea from southern China whose most exotic variations sell for $1,500 a pound or more. They delicately pour the amber brew into tiny tasting cups. Then, holding the porcelain cups with just two fingers, they take in the fragrance. Finally, they sip, gingerly. The verdict is unanimous. "It's kind of got that dirty bandage taste," Louise Yang says.

We have egg on our faces. But The Redd Collection has come to our rescue. When we wrote last week about the about the rare beer tasting it was  hosting -- the one that included the grail-like Westvleteren 12 -- we erroneously listed the address of their beer supplier, Valley Beverage, as the location for the tasting. It seems some excited readers made the trek to Sherman Oaks only to be turned away with the news that the tasting was actually occurring at The Redd Collection's Culver City storefront.

The Burbank craft beer destination Tony's Darts Away , started by L.A. beer impresario Tony Yanow, is celebrating its third anniversary with a weekend-long party and a special house beer to be tapped during the festivities. The bar, once a quiet neighborhood dive , focuses on brewed-in-California beers and vegan eats, and it has found a thirsty following as craft beer's popularity has surged in Los Angeles. The anniversary celebration is set to begin at midnight April 13 -- three years to the minute since the first pints were poured at the renovated Tony's Darts Away -- and run through the following Sunday evening.

"We have made Italy, now we must make Italians," goes the old saying. Today we have made the euro, and the crisis of the euro is unmaking Europeans. People who felt enthusiastically European 10 years ago are reverting to angry national stereotypes. "Hitler-Merkel" read a banner carried by young Cypriot protesters this week. Next to those words was an image of the European flag, its yellow stars on a blue background crossed out in red. Sweeping negative generalizations are heard about "North" and "South" Europeans.

Culver City's wine purveyors The Redd Collection , known for throwing brag-worthy wine tastings, have joined forces with the Sherman Oaks beer and wine destination Valley Beverage to host a beer tasting Saturday that is sure to excite any rare-beer hunters. In addition to eight sought-after, and occasionally avant-garde, beers from the Bruery, the event features one of the rarest beers around: the singular Westvleteren 12.  The Bruery has been making experimental brews in Orange County for nearly five years, and you can sample some of the best examples of their subtly funky farmhouse ales, potent barrel-aged beers, and face-puckering sour brews at Saturday's tasting.

Sometimes you just have to step up to a big, strapping IPA. This one is positively steely with hops, boasting 104 International Bittering Units, nearly twice as much as in the average West Coast IPA. It's also high in malt and alcohol (9.4% by volume). It pours medium amber with a huge yellowish head. The nose is brisk and outdoorsy, almost resinous with pine scent. The entry on the palate is sweet with bitterness gradually sneaking up, though not quite as much bitternesss as the 104 IBUs might suggest.

The gig: Greg Koch, 48, and Steve Wagner, 54, are the founders of Stone Brewing Co., one of the largest brewers of craft beer in the United States. The company is best known for its hoppy, high-alcohol beers, including Stone IPA, Stone Ruination IPA and Arrogant Bastard Ale. Koch and Wagner started experimenting with home brews in Koch's Solana Beach, Calif., condominium in the early 1990s and opened a brewery in a San Marcos, Calif., warehouse in 1996. Stone has grown from 400 barrels that year to 177,200 barrels last year, developing a cult-like following among craft beer enthusiasts.

Generally, craft beer is a sign of refinement, but Brew at the Zoo is a safe place to indulge it alongside more animal instincts. Try samples of craft beers and pub food, listen to local bands and stalk your favorites animals at the zoo, including the Elephants of Asia exhibit. L.A. Zoo, 5333 Zoo Drive, L.A. 6 p.m. Fri. $40. Lazoo.org/brew

Nineteen people died in Chengdu and seven were seriously ill after drinking almost pure industrial alcohol sold as rice wine, the People's Daily reported Friday. The paper said two farmers and a wine merchant in the central Chinese city had been arrested and charged. It said the three bought more than four tons of industrial alcohol in mid-May, added some water and a dash of flavoring, then bottled the brew and sold it as rice wine.

Opened in 2010, Strand Brewing was an early entry into the L.A. craft beer scene, and soon you won't need to visit its Torrance taproom to get some 24th Street Pale Ale or Atticus IPA to enjoy at home. After three years of growing pains the small team has begun bottling its beers for distribution throughout Los Angeles. The South Bay brewery will package all the beers in its catalog on a rotating basis, and the first varieties to see the inside of the bottle will be 24th Street and Atticus IPA, the flagship Beach House Amber Ale, and Second Sleep Imperial Stout.

This is a column about two big deals in Southern California horse racing, the Santa Anita Handicap and Bobby Frankel. One will be run Saturday and the other is no longer with us. Neither will ever be forgettable. If it seems odd to talk about a live race via a dead man, then you don't understand the value horse racing puts on its legends and legacies. When Frankel died of cancer Nov. 16, 2009, at age 68, he had had hundreds of huge moments as a race trainer, including six Breeders' Cup victories, a Belmont Stakes win, five Eclipse Awards and a 1995 Hall of Fame induction.