Sweet Casa Agria

Casa Agria Specialty Ales is a small brewery in Oxnard, located in a boring, light industrial building at the edge of farmland not far from Highway 101. If you look down to check a text, or are not trying to find Casa Agria you will miss it. That would be a shame. Agria is Spanish for sour, which plays to Casa Agria's barrel aged focus. Casa Agria's website stated that the brewery's focus is "mixed fermentation farmhouse style ales, barrel aged wild ales, and Northeast style India pale ales." I'd add it also produces Mexican-style lagers.

The brewery is partitioned into three sections: a small bar and tasting room in the front, and in the back a room for brewery operations and a room for barrel storage that has additional tables for tasting room visitors. Casa Agria had every table occupied the evening I visited, so people are finding this brewery.

I did not try any of Casa Agria's sour or wild ales, which I regret as I write this post, but it had a saison and a couple of sours on draft, and it had wild ale bottles available for purchase. Of course, I tried its hazy IPA, Jets Overhead (pictured above), a 7% ABV beer. I found it sweet, fruity, and benign. It's a fine enough beer, not the best hazy IPA I have ever tried but good enough for me to buy a four-pack. I liked the 5% Casa Real Mexican-style amber lager, pictured below. Casa Real drinks lighter than its color but is not a thin beer. It brought roasted malts with some caramel, and the bread-like yeast you expect from a Mexican lager. Modelo Negra who?

The people working at Casa Agria were nice and enthusiastic about its beer. Despite the crowd, we felt welcome and were able to have a conversation. Casa Agria es una pequeña joya.