I made my first official visit to Lomita recently. Traveling for beer does indeed force one to parts of Los Angeles that you may see only on freeway exit signs. This time I am drinking my first beers from Burnin’ Daylight which occupies a new development block on Narbonne Street.
Right off the bat I notice two things: One, they have a kitchen with a short food menu which is nice and second, the place was damn cold. So cold that blankets were being passed out. The A/C must have decided to work extra overtime. There is a nice amount of outdoor over a barrel seating and upcycled malt bag pillows inside that make the place homey.
There was a good spectrum of beer styles on offer from the civic named Lomita Light Lager to a Bourbon-Barrel aged stout and IPA’s in-between. I enjoyed the Wheat Mas wheat driven IPA. It had a bright hoppy flavor and a bit of strength behind it too. The Gold Days Coffee Milt Stout was a little green coffee bean tasting for the style but coffee lovers like myself are bound to find it tasty nonetheless. The Small Town Feel DIPA was on track doubling up Citra and Simcoe though it was a little too tongue scrapey old school West Coast (or I have gotten soft). The least favorite was the Appian Amber. This is a style that should be easily executed, clean and crisp but this had a weird aftertaste going on that was not my thing.
Overall, I like the feel of the place and for a new brewery, they seemed to be on track with the beers. They are also not too far from the other South Bay breweries so it is easy to add this to the beginning or end of a trip or to make a specific choice to come.