Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
bottle shops, pubs and breweries
Looks like more beer is coming to Westlake Village in the form of new brewery, Naughty Pine.
Brewing has started and former Enegren brewer Brittany Brouhard is looking to make her brewery a real party of the community.
Look for a 1st Visit review when their taproom is open.
Hollywood Park development next to the now not as new SoFi Stadium in Inglewood will have a YouTube Theater but more importantly Three Weavers Brewing Company will target a spring 2022 satellite location in the sprawling complex that has not been able to fully develop due to, well, you know.
One day, Angelenos may get to stroll the grounds and have a beer. Let’s hope it is before the LA Olympics.
The low gas light pops up on your car’s dashboard, you turn into a gas station to fill up and decide to get a snack too, when what do your beer eyes see? An eclectic selection of craft beers.
Yes, you should follow Arroyo Shell on Instagram. And you should visit as well. Is it an exhaustive selection like the standard bearer for LA, Sunset Beer? No. It covers three cold cases total, most of which seem dedicated to Bottle Logic Brewing. Making this Pasadena spot, near the Del Mar stop of the Gold Line, a de facto second tap room for the Anaheim brewery.
If you visit, expect IPA but that is secondary to stouts, smoothie beers and even craft seltzer. And don’t come looking for a sampling of LA beer, no. You are going to find Great Notion, Brewery X, Barrier, Drekker and frankly a a different curated list than in most places.
You can buy singles, they have holders at the ready and the prices are better than fair. I bought a Great Notion stout for under $7. Cheaper than gas.
Add Arroyo Shell to your beer buying stops.
For many months we have seen anniversaries go by without any celebration due to the pandemic, now we are starting to see more pop up which brings us to AleSmith which is on year 26. Follow their social media to see details on their plans as they arrive.
As traveling starts to ramp back up, where to drink guides are starting to ramp up as well.
And one place Angelenos might be looking to test the beer travel waters is San Diego.
Click HERE to get a nice listing of breweries that are coming to the city and county of San Diego.
I have checked out NoHo’s Lawless Brewing on opening weekend and now was the tine to give a second visit.
This was on the tab of GoTab which is an online ordering system that Lawless as well as Firestone Walker in Venice uses for contactless orders.
(I promise to talk about the two beers I sampled as well)
You simply point your phones camera at the QR code and you are whisked to the website to order. For Lawless, it also included the food vendor. You choose your beers, enter your credit card and phone number for texts and wait for your beers to arrive.
That is the optimum outcome. I played a bit dumb (not that hard for me) and had one of the GoTab people help me order. That order never came. A good fifteen minutes went by before another GoTab rep ordered on her phone and then my beers came. I noticed that food orders were taking quite some time too.
It comes down to people in the end. This is supposed to supplant going up to the bar yourself or having waitstaff but having to explain the system repeatedly or having people going to the bar to find their order doesn’t really save time for the people. I think it would be more advantageous to have a person walking the order line talking about the beers and being general host help.
I do think this technology is probably coming but for now, it is not going to be a reason for me to go to a brewery or return to one.
Sampled
Dirk Kirkin Barrel-Aged Scotch Ale – nice spice character to this. Good balance of barrel notes to base beer
Bonjour Saison – a good first effort at a Saison. I think it could use a bit more ester quality to it.
The long awaited and much anticipated opening of the Homage Brewing Chinatown happens today.
Obviously delayed by, you know that sinkhole that swallowed 2020, it is great to see them join Highland Park to make this section of LA a beer destination to reckon with.
You will notice activity in a different spot the next time you visit Pacific Plate Brewing because they have a new drinking space straight across from their brewery on Myrtle Avenue.
Thanks to a certain virus, I don’t think I have been in Hollywood in over a year, but now there is a reason to visit…
…yup, Stout has created a bottle shop next to their Cahuenga Boulevard restaurant. I checked their online store and they have quite a few aged bottles to buy.
I made a trek down to Radiant Beer Co. on a sunny day in early May to get a feel as to their range of beers. I have has a few Radiant cans up to this point but I wanted to sample a hazy IPA made with Phantasm! powder which is a grape product akin to hop powder.
Before that, I started with the Light and the Crispy. Blank Slate witbier and Sun Spangles amber. The wit has chamomile but it was a little too faint for me. The amber was solid which is a good indicator that attention was paid.
Then it was on to the hoppy portion of the taster tray. Hazy pale, Secondary Motion was a strong contender for best beer. Spoiler, it kept the #1 spot Super soft with a citrus smoothie taste to it. Then it was on to the Sounds Phantastic! which was another well done hazy. Both the pale and the IPA have the haze but didn’t have that ugly brown unfiltered cider look. They were colorful yellow in keeping with the brewery name . Lastly was the On Chill IPA (yes, i stayed away from the pastry stouts on purpose), it was my least favorite of the group. The combo of hops used ended up being a muddle to me
The location is right up next to a railroad track on busy Lincoln Ave. so when safe, I would recommend staying indoors which is a lovely space. I like the bright colors too. Visually makes one happy. And the staff was super friendly and helpful which I appreciated.
Certainly add this to any Anaheim brewery adventure.