LAFC has a Beer Belly

When you visit the new stadium that the Los Angeles Football Club has built for their first season, you will be able to get some really good food as Beer Belly will be serving food inside!

No word on whether they will be able to serve beer or if so, whether the stadium concession will allow them to pick the #independent stuff but I expect since the Galaxy have a craft beer station that LAFC will follow suit.

Now when do the Portland Timbers come to town? #RCTID

Glendora is getting Smoggy

Well, happy birthday to me. I learned last week that Smog City is in the mix for a new food hall in Glendora. Granted it will require a healthy drive well past the end of the Gold Line and it is the 210 which has grown in crappy drive times.

Wait what was I talking about? Oh yes, the Glendora Public Market….

Food halls with brewery tenants are growing since the (shudder) GRB at the Grand Central Market.

I would love to see the next “big” food hall have a rotating L.A. County Brewers Guild brewery at a designated stall. And make it closer to Glendale.

Lazer Cat


I don’t know if cast members of Saturday Night Live will make an appearance at Lazer Cat but when Ryan Sweeney opens a new bar for the Goat Group, you can bet there will be good beer.

This Sunset Strip bar has everything, a light-up LED dance floor, neon, cocktails, 80’s vibe and pizza by the slice. Sorry channeled an un-funny Stephon there. But the above is true. A new kind of beer place for L.A. for sure.

Steelcraft, the Sequel


If you have quaffed a Smog City brew at the Bixby Knolls Steelcraft location, you may have wished that you had your own shipping container chic place of your own.

Well if you are near Garden Grove, the second SteelCraft is coming later this year and will house eight new restaurant iterations, from pizza to coffee to ice cream.

And for beer? Well none other than the excellent Beachwood Brewing. It will mark their 4th location around the southern end of the Los Angeles area.

An Old Chalet in Eagle Rock


The Black Boar is no more and it is back to being the Old Chalet. But this is not some retro throwback to old school suburban dive bars.

I visited the Black Boar when it made the switch and found it to be one of those, “hey, craft beer is cool, let’s sell that without really changing much inside” places. I didn’t need to go back what with the Oinkster just down the block one way and then Craft Beer Cellar opening much later further east.

Now it is in the capable hands of Clay Harding of 38 Degrees fame in his role as part of the Artisanal Brewers Collective. That means the beer will be better and it will be my closest bar from their group. Will it be of a theme with Tony’s and Mohawk Bend? And will I find Bell Marker beer on tap?

Only a first visit will tell.

1st Visit – Dankness Dojo

Olive is now Dank. Modern Times has opened their L.A. outpost, The Dankness Dojo.

Here is my initial take on the beer that I drank amidst the large crowd and the space, cause the MT crew rolls with big words and a lot of decor.

Don’t believe me?….

…or…

The space is thin with the coffee counter in the front and your left as you walk in. The bar is at the back with the brewing tanks partially obscured in front of you. You can get seating in the restaurant portion or try to snag a bar stool.

The menu board wasn’t the most easy to read and seemed to be the least designed part of the Dojo. Not to mention, on my visit, it was almost nearly all saison and saison variants. Not much “dank” to be had.

I visited after a visit to Boomtown Brewery and all the things that I like about that space, muted tones, couches, space to move were absent in the Dojo which felt just too constricted to me.

I will visit again and do a full beer write-up since I there was not elbow room or a table to put a taster flight on, I went for the Havnor IPA which was only so-so. Not bad, but it didn’t have a shine to it that other recent beers have had.

Santa aN/A


I would not have guessed two things.

1. That our closest Near Beer craft brewery would be in Orange County in Santa Ana.

2. That Bravus Brewing Co. is America’s First NON-Alcoholic Craft Brewery

They have an IPA, Oatmeal Stout and a red ale to start. Road trip now in the planning stages.

BP at Disney


Ballast Point already with an outpost in Long Beach will be adding a location across the street from the Happiest Place on Earth.

The San Diego brewery announced last week the fall slated opening of a small R7D brewery, tasting room and kitchen in the Downtown Disney District at the Disneyland Resort.

The Constellation Brands owned brewery has a growing footprint from six tasting room locations in California, a new brewery and tasting room in Daleville, Virginia. And also in the works is a brewery and kitchen in Chicago.

Having been priced out of most theme parks and especially Disneyland, I haven’t been to the connected shopping and eating mall in a while. So I don’t know what crowd is actually walking around shopping and staying for dinner after a long day at either of the two parks. This could be a no-brainer or maybe they won’t last long because that rent will not be cheap.

Bell Marker


The level of San Diego beer talk has lessened since L.A. has grown bigger and bigger but there is some new beer that will touch upon both large.

The Bell Marker had their opening just a few days ago in San Diego.

The new brewery is the first SD project for Artisanal Brewers Collective (ABC), which has been growing a stable of beer-centric bars and eateries around Los Angeles including The Stalking Horse which I previously wrote about HERE.

The 15-barrel brewing system is in the able hands of Noah Regnery, who has a resume that includes Pizza Port San Clemente and Hollister Brewing Company.

The initial tap list will include a house Cream Ale, Hefeweizen, Pale Ale, IPA and Brown Ale.

This could be a big year for the ABC and I am sure I will be writing about them more.