The joke goes that LA's official beer is a martini. The most adventurous beer selection at most bars in the city is usually Heineken or, sometimes, a Stella Artois. These days, it's about as easy to find a good dive bar as it is to find a medium-sized dog on Rodeo Dr.
That's not to say that beer isn't making a comeback. The opening of a second location of the 50-year-old Father's Office in Culver City represents an outpost of the beer underground into mixed drink territory. And now, thanks to the opening of the please-pray-it's-annual Los Angeles Beer Festival at Sony Pictures Studios, it seems that Culver has declared itself LA's de facto Beer District.
I counted around 70 different beer distributors set up at the festival though, admittedly, my addition wasn't perfect after a few. Brewers as well-established as Budweiser (a longtime resident of Fairfield, CA) and as passionate as Dean Bros unfolded their card tables in long, blue rows on the Sony lot. Brew fanatics (by my estimation, 75% dudes to 25% chicks) lined up as if it was a comic convention to fill their bottomless 4oz plastic mugs with new ales and lagers.
The focus was set decidedly towards the new; old standbys like Sierra Nevada (the beer that has been annexed by Los Angeles, even though it has been brewed in Chico, CA for 30 years) had shallow lines. The wait time was considerably (and deservedly) longer for other local contenders Firestone Walker, whose Union Jack IPA was most surprising and very floral, and tiny Coronado Brewing Co, whose Islander Pale Ale was the only beer I tried with a sufficient amount of hops.
At 5:00, in an exceedingly polite fashion, the crowd at Saturday's Beer Fest walked to their cars as the sun set. Though there was no uniform consensus on the beer to be crowned LA's own, perhaps there will be a few more pints of Angel City Ale served at the Farmer's Market, or a few more six-packs of Pyramid''s Thunderhead taken home from Ralph's.
Either way, the line at the mixed drink station at the festival was nonexistent, the mixicologists (or beverage experts, or whatever they're calling themselves these days) looked bored. And in the bar wars, that's always a victory.
Originally in Los Angeles Magazine
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