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Here is another SoCal brewery to keep an eye on as it puts the brewing equipment into place, Rip Current Brewing. You can check them out on FaceBook and eventually on their own website in the future.
The pace of new breweries is simply amazing, especially in locales that you would think have enough already. Now if we can get some East Coast brewers to build in LA.
Winters, California has a new brewery (with tap room underway) in Berryessa Brewing.
Aside from the cool logo, there is litle on the official Berryessa websites about their brews that I could find in a quick search so, like I asked with Southern Pacific Brewing, if you have sampled their beers at Sacramento or San Francisco beer weeks, let me know your thoughts and give me recommendations.
Should I try Freshie, their pale ale or their Common Sense California common first?
I and beer buddy Richard had the opportunity to get a tour of one of the newest breweries to open up in the LA area today, The LAB Brewing Company. Big thanks to Roger Bott for taking the time out of his busy brewing schedule to sit down and chat with us about the brewery.
We got to sample 5 of the beers (primarily 1st batches), including the still not quite done Kona coffee beer. 
And better than that, we got to hear the stories behind the beer and about Roger himself. He has been homebrewing and dreaming of opening a restaurant for a long time and now he is living the dream and creating a great beer destination in Agoura Hills just a few miles away from Ladyface Brewing.
Roger has been brave enough to put the first batches on display of the initial three brews:
Big Ass Red — Amber Ale
LAB XPA — IPAs baby brother
Take Her Home — Belgian style tripel
And we tasted the Wit and coffee beers too. I liked the XPA which was strongly bitter and vegetal and stronger hop-wise than intended due primarily to mechanical issues and Richard enjoyed the coffee stout the best which had a really great aroma and strong with a velvety taste. Probably due to the whole beans used in the brewing process.
I like the lab concept (water comes in beakers) which meshes well with Roger’s Amgen work background and it will be interesting to see where these beers go and how his other ideas pan out. It is so fun to see the growth of a brewery from the start. I will certainly try the coffee beer again and I am looking forward to the IPA and other creations too.
I mentioned Occidental Brewing in passing back in February but thanks to the New School Beer Blog I have been updated on their progress.
I like the old-timey feel and can’t wait to try their beers when I visit Portland in August.
As I was patiently waiting to see beer handles for El Segundo Brewing, another beach brewery was also bubbling away.
Venice Beach Brewing is headed by brewer Kerr Smith and has two beers ready….
Venice Ale
Our signature Amber Ale which we created right out of the gate. A unique blend of malt and hops crafted to perfection with love and lust. Not to mention a little help from the mighty Summit Hop.
June Gloom
Cloudy, like its namesake month, this superb Belgian White, a mix of half wheat and half barley, with a touch of coriander, makes this the perfect beer to chase those clouds away.
…..with two more (Dirty Blonde and Ink Chocolate Oatmeal Stout) in the pipeline.
There will be a release party sometime this month.
There are reports on the food blogs such as Grub Street about a new brewery in El Segundo (near LAX).
They have the prototypical initial beers: a pale ale, a red ale, an IPA and a stout under the Blue House name plate.
They may be opening soon but as faithful readers will know, these openings are never set in stone.
More news and reviews when the beer becomes available.
One of the first thing that hops out when you visit this brewers website is this tagline, “New Zealand’s first ultra cool, postmodern brewers of leftfield ales. Specialists in all styles.”
All you have to do is peruse their beer list to see that leftfield is an understatement.
How about:
Pot Kettle Black
“Remixed and remastered as a celebration of Pot Kettle Black’s double trophy-winning effort at BrewNZ 2009: Champion beer in the ‘Stouts and Porters’ class and winner of the ‘People’s Choice’ award at the Beervana festival.”
Firestone-Walker is getting some competition for their Buellton outpost. Figueroa Mountain Brewing will be firing up their kettles with a nice variety of beers including Hurricane Deck Helles, Danish Red (for the Solvang crowd) and Stagecoach Stout. They have an experienced brewer on board and I hope they can compete against the massive crush of wineries in that area of California.
Good Luck and I hope to visit soon.
I was perusing the IPA list at the wonderful Tony’s Darts Away (which you should go to, RIGHT NOW!) and one of beers was the Coulter IPA from a brewery that I had never heard of before in Orange County.
Cismontane brews the El Modena Brown, Peninsular Pale, two versions of a coffee stout along with the aforementioned IPA.
They have been open since April of this year and deserve a look see from all of you OC and South Bay beer geeks as well as us Los Angeles folk.
address
29851 Aventura Suite D.
Rancho Santa Margarita, CA
92688
Phone
(949) 888-BREW [2739]
Open
Thurday 2-8
Friday 2-8
Saturday 12-7
Sunday 12-5