Monday is here, and it’s time to start another week. Pick of the Weekend is our weekly post where we recap our favorite brews of the weekend past.

It was a whirlwind weekend, and it was hot in LA! Trying to stay cool, we kept reaching for a nice cold lager.

Victory Prima Pils is our go-to refreshing pilsner. It is well executed German pils that turns up the hops enough to keep us west-coast hopheads happy, and we have a hard time keeping it stocked in the fridge. In fact, we ran out this weekend! We turned to a few other pils to quench our thirst, including the Lagunitas Pils and the Oskar Blues Momma’s Little Yellow Pils. Both were average, but nothing to get excited over. There was also a bottle of Tuatara Bohemia Pilsner from New Zealand that we had found recently, and it was quite nice even if it was a bit past its prime.

The Dogfish Head My Antonia however was an excellent ”off-centered” take on the pilsner style. Called a “continuously hopped imperial pilsner,” the 7.5%ABV lager uses a rich malt body as a foundation for towering levels of hop flavor. Sweet and full of citrus notes and layers of flavor this was a lager that begged to be sipped and not just mindlessly quaffed. Dogfish Head doesn’t brew this one very often, so if you are a pilsner fan grab a bottle (or two) when you see it.

After sampling a bevy of superlative brews, including some prerelease samples of the new Angel City Brewing pilot beers, at the LA Beer Bloggers summit at Sunset Beer Co we made the quick jaunt up the 2 to the Eagle Rock Brewing taproom to decompress and go over our notes. Thankfully the last keg of Eagle Rock’s new Imperialist double IPA hadn’t kicked yet, and we were able to finally try a sample of it. And it did not disappoint. The IPA finds a comfortable balance between piney and citrusy hop flavor, and I’m looking forward to more of this in the future (let’s hope they bottle it!)

We hadn’t been to the brewery since we helped out with the Unity brew day, and in the month since then the wall of portraits was completed! If you’ve been in the taproom you’ve no doubt noticed the portraits of the Eagle Rock Brewing family on the wall opposite the bar, and for many months Brewer Erick and Andrew were represented only by a white canvas with painted beards. But now Erick and Andrew’s portraits are completed and on display, and we think they rock!

How did you manage to keep cool during the scorching weekend temperatures?