Hop Merchants Tops

North Hollywood bottle shop and bar, Hop Merchants unveiled their customer best of list for 2023 and it’s an interesting mix of hip breweries and locals…

Good to see HPB come out on top and a little weird to see North Park so low but an interesting snapshot in time and I hope they do it again in years to come so the lists can be compared.

Back to Takeovers?

Before 2020-2022 happened, I had tired of the festival and tap takeovers but I am surprised that both are in my sights again for 2023.

And one place that has a couple tap takeovers already this year that have been very strong, that would be Hop Merchants in North Hollywood, one of my regular can buying haunts.

So, follow them on the socials to see if the continue the trend started with Other Half and Radiant.

4th for the Merchants

You might want to be in North Hollywood on Saturday October 22nd.  That is the date for the Hop Merchants 4th Anniversary Extravaganza! 

The Bottle (can) Shop will have a special tap list, which will include a collaboration beer with their closest brewery, Lawless Brewing.

Label Art Playoffs

NoHo bottle shop, Hop Merchants harnessed the opinions of the interwebs to determine March Madness bracket style, the best can label currently out there…

I voted in a few of the rounds but my choice did not make it far, instead, the winner was…

…which to me looks more candy wrapper than beer label art. Brouwerij West, El Segundo and others like Highland Park and Los Angeles Ale Works had better art in my humble opinion.

That said, I hope that Hop Merchants does this again next yeat.

Review – NoHo Hop Merchants

Last week, I gave you the heads-up about Hop Merchants, well here are some photos and a quick review….

Just past the big street-wide NoHo banner on Lankershim is the rectangular space that Hop merchants calls home. With a brick wall on one side and nicely framed beer art / beer education posters on the walls, it is a nice space to drink in. There is an L shaped bar with a medium amount of seating and table seating closer to the sunshiney front window.

There are 16 taps and on opening day it was straight up LA beer only, the cooler and the “dry” storage were only partially full but even if stocked up would not be as much beer to-go as Craft Beer Cellar in Eagle Rock or Sunset Beer Co. The stocking is still “in progress” and my guess is that more coolers will need to be added at the expense of some seating.

The beer pricing is good and the selection was wide-ranging without being too IPA tilted. You can even order up 10oz pours which I appreciate. I had the Trustworthy IPA and a Vienna lager from Pocock Brewing which were served up well.

Next time I am in the neighborhood, I will check them out.

North Hollywood Hop Merchants

I am a fan of the bottle shop tap room, nothing I like more than browsing the bottles and cans with a pint in hand. And the SoCal area is getting a new one, this time in North Hollywood…5013 Lankershim Boulevard to be precise.

Hop Merchants will have 16 rotating taps of local beer as well as 300+ bottles and cans to choose from.

Expect a review sometime after they open on October 20th.