Named for its devotion to the style developed by Trappist monks in Belgium, Lost Abbey made a name for itself crafting the most highly-sought sour beers on the West Coast, in addition to exquisite farmhouse ales. Stone originally opened in San Marcos, but when it outgrew its original brewery, The Lost Abbey (155 Mata Way #104, San Marcos) moved in. The Lost Abbey shares its tasting room and brewery with Port Brewing, which makes several classic San Diego beers, and The Hop Concept, devoted to new IPA trends. Its Escondido restaurant and beer garden (2816 Historic Decatur Rd #116, San Diego) is a veritable Disneyland for craft beer drinkers, and you’ll find a second, Liberty Station location just behind San Diego Airport. In San Diego’s North County, Stone Brewing is another godfather of the beer scene, often credited for introducing the region’s brashly hopped specialty-the West Coast IPA-to the world. It boasts the largest tasting room in town, plus a vast patio, a small museum celebrating local baseball legend Tony Gywnn, and a one-of-a-kind blending bar where you can mix and match various beers to taste, just like professional brewers do. AleSmith Brewing Company (9990 AleSmith Ct, San Diego), for example, has set the bar for world-class beer since opening in 1995. DIY tasting menus next to the bar make for more efficient service-simply tick off five beers you’d like to try, and a beertender will set you up with a colorful flight.Ĭall me biased toward my hometown, but any craft enthusiast will tell you San Diego is the capital of craft beer in SoCal (and possibly the entire American Southwest). Barrel aged, sour, and experimental beers tend to be this creative brewer’s bailiwick, but intense variety is what keeps its tasting room packed. The OC’s most venerable brewery is The Bruery (717 Dunn Way, Placentia), and it specializes in-well, having no particular specialty. Orange County’s highly regarded brewery, The Bruery, offers the area’s most colorful tasting flights. Its hoppy beers are outstanding, and a new beer garden will make the tasting room a prime destination on warm nights. Noble Ale Works (1621 S Sinclair St B, Anaheim) also reigns as a World Beer Cup champion, even claiming gold medal in the uber-competitive American IPA category. Orange County hasn’t long been recognized as a craft beer destination, but a spate of breweries in and around Anaheim have very much changed that. Both styles happen to pair extremely well with smokehouse BBQ, so good news! Beachwood’s just as adept with ribs and pulled pork as it is with malts and hops. The brewpub has emerged as one of the best IPA producers on the entire West Coast, yet reigns as World Beer Cup champion on the strength of its excellent stouts. Only twenty minutes from Torrance, Long Beach’s Beachwood Brewing & BBQ (210 E 3rd St, Long Beach) stands in a class of its own. Long Beach brewpub Beachwood BBQ offers a great variety of incredible IPAs it’s tough to go wrong, but check out Citraholic, Amalgamator and Pride of cHops. These days, hundreds of devoted fans often lead to hours-long lines. When the small brewery opened, it focused exclusively on Belgian-style beers-they even posted a sign proclaiming “No IPAs.” That sign came down in a big way in 2016, when Monkish joined the craze and quickly mastered the hazy Northeast style of IPA. The strong hop aromas practically burst out of each crisp pint, rising to the high ceilings of the often-packed tasting room.Ībout ten miles south you might head to another unlikely destination: Torrance’s Monkish Brewing (20311 S Western Ave, Torrance). The small, Main Street brewery specializes in a style of beer commonly associated with SoCal: the West Coast IPA. Heading into off-the-beaten-path sections of LA’s South Bay region, the first stop sits just below the airport, in El Segundo, at its namesake El Segundo Brewing (140 Main St, El Segundo). But to find the best brews in LA County, turn westbound and down. The hip areas in and around downtown Los Angeles boast a rapidly advancing beer scene. But your chances of finding The One go up significantly if you know where to look. In the past ten years alone, hundreds of craft breweries have sprung up in Southern California, and on any given day, you might be tasting the best beer of your life at (nearly) any one of them. Recommendations from the African Diaspora.Workman Publishing Arrow Icon Arrow icon.Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Arrow Icon Arrow icon.Little, Brown and Company Arrow Icon Arrow icon.Hachette Nashville Arrow Icon Arrow icon.Grand Central Publishing Arrow Icon Arrow icon.
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