Craft beer launches with East L.A. perspective

EAST LOS ANGELES, Calif. (KABC) -- Cerveceria Mundial calls itself "the first true Mexican-American beer." The "virtual" brewing company's mission is to produce quality, California-made craft beer with an Angeleno perspective spiked with a little "east of the LA River" multicultural/multilingual flavor.

"We're really excited to launch here in Boyle Heights. It was only fitting," said Julio Trejo, founder and co-owner of Cerveceria Mundial. "This beer represents not only the Eastside, but the sub cultures of the Eastside."

"There's a lot of activity happening in Downtown, the South Bay, pretty much all over Los Angeles. But now we're starting to see a legitimate, real deal craft beer scene here in the Eastside."

The new beer company held its launch event at Xelas, a bar in Boyle Heights that's become a popular destination for craft beer fans east of Downtown L.A.

"We feel that it's important to create a platform that embraces Latinos in craft beer and showcase what they're brewing," said Corissa Hernandez, co-owner of Xelas Bar. "In this case, we have someone who's homegrown that we're not going to overlook."

"I think that there's a big void in the market. I didn't think there was enough representation for Latinos," said Trejo. "So I partnered with a friend, and we developed a recipe."

Trejo brought Ray Ricky Rivera on his team as the V.P of Operations. Rivera is a co-founder of the So-Cal Cerveceros, a Latino craft beer homebrew club that has grown to over 150 members.

"We're branding this and promoting this as a Mexican-American Pale Ale," said Rivera. "Technically, that's not a real style. That doesn't really exist, but we're saying, 'Hey, we're Mexican-American. There's not a lot of people like us in the beer industry. This is our Pale Ale.'"

Cerveceria Mundial's first beer named La Codorniz Quail Ale is a tribute to the California state bird. It's available only in cans at select stores throughout Los Angeles. The beer company's official ambassadors are L.A.'s popular Reggae-Ska band, The Delirians, who are featured on the beer cans.

For more information, go to: http://cerveceriamundial.com