Haggis Burritos, Tartan Kilts and Cask-Conditioned Beer at MacLeod Ale in Van Nuys
A warehouse in an industrial stretch of Van Nuys is not the first place you’d imagine to hear bagpipes playing, but somehow the welcoming tune makes perfect sense at MacLeod Ale. The small craft brewery stands apart from the many taprooms that have proliferated around L.A. in recent years not only because it specializes in British-style cask-conditioned ales rarely found in this part of the world, but also because it serves as a second home to Scottish ex-pats and San Fernando Valley locals alike.
While the brewery’s Scottish heritage is proudly on display year round, at certain times of year it shines particularly brightly. As was the case during the recently celebrated Robert Burns Night -- an evening to honor of the famous Scottish poet -- which featured bagpipes, a fair share of kilts, and a uniquely L.A.-twist on the much maligned national dish of Scotland, haggis burritos.
"We tried to give people an excuse to wear plaid,” explains Alastair Boase, brewery co-founder, and grandson of Roland MacLeod from the Isle of Skye, Scotland. “People started to show up here in kilts and tartan sashes because they decided this was the opportunity to wear them, and so we offered a 10% discount if you came in wearing a kilt. To a certain extent, it's kind of like the Renn Faire, people get really lavish with their attire."
Raised on a farm in the West Highlands of Scotland, Alastair moved to L.A. in 1988. Here he began working as a landscape designer and builder and for about 15 years found himself removed from Scottish culture. “I had gotten away from Scotland and it was a bit depressing growing up there with a lack of opportunities, the rain and the midges -- these small insects that bite you,” he admits. The closest he came to Celtic celebrations at the time was St. Patrick’s Day. That is, until an American friend -- looking for an excuse to wear a kilt purchased in Santa Monica -- bought the two of them practice chanters to learn to play the bagpipes. “You get to a certain point in your life when you miss that stuff.”
The two friends started the Gold Coast Pipe Band and would play charity fundraisers around L.A., as Boase explains, “just to have fun, make a bit of money and get some glory.” But as luck would have it, his renewed interest in his heritage ultimately led to meeting his wife and eventual brewery co-founder, Jennifer Febre Boase. Jennifer grew up in Pasadena, but spent years of her childhood in England where she developed an affinity for all things British. After studying music in school, and in addition to other career pursuits, she would later go on to became Pipe Major of the Pasadena Scottish Pipes and Drums, and while performing in the bagpipe circuit around L.A., met Alastair.
A craft beer lover in search of a career change to support her musical pursuits, Jennifer researched the prospect of opening a brewery. Then in 2012, while L.A.’s now-booming craft beer movement was still in its infancy, she found the time was right to set a plan in motion. Jennifer convinced Alastair, who was ready for a change himself, to help her launch a brewery with the added incentive of naming it after his grandfather. “He had two daughters, so it was the end of the line for his name,” Alastair says of his grandfather. “So it's nice to know that we can keep the name alive by opening the brewery.”
Before opening MacLeod Ale in June of 2014, the couple took an immersion course on starting a craft brewery with Tom Hennessy of Colorado Boy, a brewpub in Ridgway, Colorado. Hennessy is a huge fan of cask-conditioned ales, a traditional style of beer particularly popular in the UK and Ireland that is unfiltered and undergoes a secondary fermentation in the cask from which it’s served. The process creates a natural and gentle carbonation and is typically served using a manual hand pump -- known as a beer engine -- at a warmer temperature, around 55 degrees, compared to the usual 35 degrees of draught beers. “He encouraged us to do cask because he said it would set us apart from everybody else who's opening breweries with modern, cold and fizzy beers,” Alastair recalls. "Nobody else took him up on the suggestion, but we liked the idea both because it would set us apart and make him proud, so we did it."
When MacLeod first opened the brewery started with six beer engines for cask-conditioned beers and a couple nitro taps, which help create a similarly gentle carbonation and creamy texture with the help of nitrogen. The brewery has since added draught options as well -- both to cater to a larger beer-drinking crowd and to enable their beers to be served at bars without cask systems -- but even with those, they still focus on reviving traditional beer styles not often seen outside of the UK.
"The main thing that sets us apart from all the other breweries is that we're not brewing four IPAs just because it's a popular style, we're really expanding to other historical styles,” says Stephen Reeves, Taproom Manager at MacLeod Ale. “All of them are super well-balanced, not a palate wrecker, they're the kind of beers that you want to sit down for a couple hours and have pint after pint of the same thing."
Josiah Blomquist, Head Brewer at MacLeod Ale, refers to the brewery’s emphasis on utilizing older, and in some cases nearly extinct, beer recipes as a “liquid time machine.” Brews like the brown-hued and malt-forward King’s Taxes, a Scottish 60 shilling ale, and The Little Spree, a refreshing Yorkshire ale, serve as modern interpretations of old styles and a welcome change from the hoppy IPAs or tart sours that many other breweries focus on these days. The brewery even recently received the first Cask Marque Certification on the West coast from the esteemed, UK-based organization that closely monitors the quality of cask ale operations.
“It's so rare to find a place that takes cask and tries to appreciate it and execute for what it's supposed to be, instead of using it as a gimmick,” says Blomquist. “Making beers that are meant to be served off a beer engine at the proper temperature with the soft carbonation, it's just a different drinking experience. People often don't know about it, but when they do learn about, they love it.”
Blomquist says his primary goal for all of the beers at MacLeod Ale is balance. “The special challenges that cask brings - the higher temperature and the lower level of carbonation means that you have to pay attention to the body of the beer because it's very easy to have a beer be too dry and thin,” he explains. “But on the other end because there is the amount of carbonation to balance the palate sensation, it's also very easy to have a beer become too syrupy, almost sweet. I've tried to come up with a beer that works with both cask and draft, and it's proven to be extremely difficult because they are so different. So for now we brew beers that are specifically for cask and for draught and I'm still chasing that unicorn for the one that does both.”
As is usually the case with beer drinking, some hearty pub grub is also a key component of spending time at MacLeod Ale. While you’ll likely partake in the free peanuts -- note the shells scattered on the floor -- the brewery also invites food vendors and trucks. For traditional pub fare, such as Scottish pork pies and Scotch eggs, the Boases look to Bullseye Pub Fare and for fish and chips or deep fried haggis, you’ll find the Batter Fish truck parked in the lot in front of the brewery’s warehouse. But for a change of pace for this year’s Robert Burns Night celebrations, Alastair invited Eddie Sandoval, aka Steady Eddie of Tacos La Bomba, to create a unique feast with haggis.
Anyone who’s attended a New Year’s Eve celebration is familiar with Robert Burns’ “Auld Lang Syne” poem, but you may be less familiar with his “Address To A Haggis” -- an ode to the national dish of Scotland. The traditional pudding, which consists of sheep’s innards, oats and spices, wrapped up in a sheep’s stomach, is not usually high on anyone’s list of favorite foods, but it’s nonetheless a key component of the Robert Burns Day celebration. On the anniversary of Robert Burns’ birthday, January 25, 1759, Alastair will present a prepared haggis while sporting his kilt and formal Highland attire, while Jennifer follows behind playing the bagpipes, equally outfitted for the occasion. He then reads the poem while performing a ceremonial cutting of the haggis before sharing the spoils with the crowd.
This year, in addition to the traditional haggis ceremony, Sandoval brainstormed with the Boases to create a haggis burrito. “Traditionally haggis contains a lot of kidney, liver, heart, so the flavor just hits you,” Sandoval explains. “So we toned it down for our version, made it a little more Americanized. We used about 90% ground lamb and then just a small percentage of kidney, heart, liver, just so we can get that flavor out there but not overpowering. We don't want people to take a big bite and have it be all liver.” He also added onions, oats, nutmeg, as well as some vegetables, mashed potatoes and cheese, to help balance it out, and then wrapped it with a flour tortilla. The mashup turned out to be a hit and sold out early in the night.
Sandoval says the use of offal in haggis is not unlike Mexican traditions that utilize less popular and cheaper cuts of meat, such as tongue, tripe and brain. “It's the affordable cuts that you can really spice up and make it into a really good meal, rather than throwing it away and wasting it,” he says. “Any place where people have to struggle to survive or make the most of their resources, they find a way to use the whole animal.”
When he’s not creating haggis burritos, Sandoval makes regular appearances at MacLeod Ale serving up his own special style of tacos. Using a technique developed by his family and made by his mother in Nayarit, Mexico, he dips the corn tortillas in a special chile-based sauce similar to an enchilada sauce and sears them on the griddle before filling with various cuts of meat. “From the streets of Nayarit to the streets of L.A.,” Sandoval says proudly. “Never thought I'd be following in my mom’s footsteps, but it's fun. What we make is something that's special to us.”
Just as Sandoval is carrying on his family’s culinary traditions, Alastair admits to finding himself reconnected with his Scottish roots, "Since being in a pipe band, and opening a pub that has the Scottish hat for the emblem and named after the MacLeods, lots of Scottish people have gravitated towards this establishment and I really have found a Scottish community.”
David Lasher, a regular at MacLeod Ale and a proud descendant of the MacLean clan, explains that the community has grown even more in L.A. in recent years. "Because of the internet, and specifically things like Ancestry.com, the Scottish community has exponentially expanded. There are four full-time kilt makers in Los Angeles, but most people don't know that."
Walking through the taproom of MacLeod Ale, you’ll encounter a healthy mix of Scottish, Irish and English ex-pats drawn in by the familiar culture and beer styles, as well as a younger crowd who seem as equally at home. “Young people are moving to this area, it's one of the last areas in the Valley with affordable houses,” says Reeves. “So we see a lot of young couples and families that gravitate towards this place. There's really nothing else that's quite like this, or quite as comfortable. And a lot of people have really embraced the whole Scottish heritage thing. We're not trying to be kitschy like an Irish or Scottish pub you might see around the country, we're a little more authentic and modern version of that. Though, occasionally the bagpipes do get brought out."
The relatively sparse warehouse -- which features a long wooden bar, small tables and stools, and hung with strings of lights and Scottish flags -- is made to feel much warmer as a result of the community that the Boases have helped to create. You’ll find friends and newly-found friends sharing a few pints, playing board games together, or taking part in a darts tournament in the adjacent room. And most significantly, you’ll find people talking to each other, without their eyes glued to a flatscreen TV or their phone. “It's one of those kind of bars where you're actually talking to people instead of watching sports,” Reeves adds. “With no TVs, it really sets the bar high, you're sort of forced to really get to know your peers. It's kind of a Cheers bar in that way -- a lot of people know each other, but we're still welcoming of new people. It's kind of the way pubs work in the UK, it's the place where you go after work, have a couple of pints and socialize versus just getting wasted or watching a game. It brings more of an old world feel to a modern style warehouse in the middle of Van Nuys.”
Wayne Olkowski, another regular at the brewery who moved from Austin not long ago, immediately noticed the warmth and welcome of MacLeod Ale that was unlike any he experienced in Austin’s extensive craft beer world. "When I moved to Los Angeles, I don't think I would have been able to adjust to the craziness of this place if it were not for MacLeod,” he says. “That's honest. I consider these people my family and my friends, and I have no reason to go drink beer anywhere else. This place is spectacular."