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Made in the West

March 09, 2016
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Head brewer Mike Morrison fills a “crowler,” a 32-ounce aluminum can alternative to the growler.

One of the joys of the newly opened MadeWest Brewing Company is sitting on the patio and looking out to the Channel Islands with a cold housemade beer in your hands. Located in an industrial area of Ventura, and a new addition to the Off-Market Street Tasting Trail, the brewery is ultra hip: concrete floors, high ceilings and a black, white and stainless motif. There’s a striking, hand-painted brewery mural along one wall created by Scott Chenoweth, the brewery’s art director and marketing guru.

With a 30-barrel brewhouse and four 60-barrel fermenters, there’s lots of brewing capacity.

There’s lots of seating, too. People can pull up a chair at one of the long communal tables, sitting down with food brought in or ordered from a food truck stationed there and sample from the six or more beers on tap brewed in a West Coast style. Three to four will be core beers with a rotation of “one-offs” and seasonal varieties, says co-founder and head brewer Mike Morrison. (The other member of the team is co-founder and CEO Seth Gibson.)

The MW Standard (with German Hallertau hops) and WM Classic (with Hersbrucker and Cascade hops) are both cold-fermented ales. “We wanted to utilize our California ale yeast to produce lager-like flavor characteristics to diversify our beers,” says Morrison, a Ventura hometown guy who’s been brewing beer about a decade.

It’s an innovative craft, he says, with endless possibilities. So it’s not surprising that the day we visited the six beers ranged from a pale ale with three hop varieties (Mosaic, Simcoe and Equinox) to a porter with Cascade hops.

MadeWest Brewing Company
1744 Donlon St., Ventura
805-947-5002;
MadeWest.com