New Old Lompoc News

By now you've heard that New Old Lompoc has joined the clash of local brewpubs to start distributing their beer in bottles. Look for 22-ounce bottles of Lompoc Strong Draft and C-Note IPA (pictured) on store shelves now.

C-Note is my standard choice when I'm at one of the Lompoc pubs -- it's so hoppy and delicious that I can rarely bring myself to choose something else. I'm happy to report that the bottled C-Note has all the pretty flower flavor you're used to in the pubs. That was a real fear I had -- sometimes there's a vast difference between a beer's draft version and the bottle, with Bridgeport IPA showing the wildest swing I can think of.

So, the bottled C-Note is tasty, and for a bomber it's a good deal: I picked up that bottle for $4. Now, happy hour price at the Hedge House is $3.25 for a pint; if Jeff Alworth is right about Lompoc using 14-ounce cheater pints, then you're coming out much cheaper buying C-Note in 22-ounce bottles. That's usually not the case with bombers: at Roots or Bridgeport your happy-hour pints are cheaper by the ounce than buying their beer in a 22-ounce bottle retail. Go figure.

[Update 2009/01/01: Lompoc Strong Draft is bottled under the name "Lompoc Special Draft". That's undoubtedly the ATF's way of protecting you from buying a beer called LSD just because you think it's strong. Dave brought a bottle of that over yesterday, and it's good stuff also, the roasty chocolatey flavors made it into the bottle. I'm always pleasantly surprised when I pry myself away from C-Note and enjoy a Strong Draft.]

One other bit of Lompoc news is that their website has recently been greatly improved. It used to be a dog-slow collage of images that wasn't worth the wait. The front page got fixed up a few months ago, but until more recently the pages for the other pubs like Hedge House still had the old look.