socalfood:

Where to Enjoy Craft Beer Instead of Champagne This New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles can be a mixed bag. There are the clubs in Hollywood of course, and you can always slide into 2013 wrapped in some high-backed booth at an old-school Beverly Hills Italian joint. But where is the common man to go? And what to drink when you get there?

Thankfully, Los Angeles has come a long way since the days of black tie hotel parties and champagne-only fetes. There are more craft beer options for New Year’s this year than ever before. And to show us all the love, some of the city’s best beer bars are opening their doors for all-night parties that focus on the brews instead of the bubble. From the beach to Burbank, there’s a craft beer New Year’s Eve party going down nearby, and you’re certainly invited.

Inside the Tony Yanow Empire
If you’re one of Tony Yanow’s growing hordes of supporters, you can toss him some of your hard-earned holiday money at one of his three L.A. outposts. At Golden Road Brewing in Atwater Village, $35 will get you an all-you-can-drink pass until 2am, plus you can spring for food at the bustling kitchen. If you’re itching for something a bit classier, $50 gets you into Chloe’s, the back bar that’s usually reserved for parties or beer industry folks. If you don’t plan on venturing past Echo Park, Mohawk Bend will set you back $45 for a family-style dinner and a New Year’s beer toast, complete with commemorative glass. At Tony’s namesake Darts Away in Burbank, the steeper $95 pricetag nets you unlimited drinks at a reserved indoor seat, plus a passing of appetizers and raffles all night long.
 
The Parish
Downtown’s take on an English pub (with significantly upgraded food) manages to pull together one of the city’s best local craft beer menus. The bar is currently tapping kegs of Eagle Rock Brewery, Brouwerij West, Ladyface, Cismontane and Strand. On New Year’s the taps will be getting heavy use thanks to a 10pm - 2am party. The $30 pre-sale level gets you a drink token and some passed appetizers, or you can chance getting in on the night of for $15 and no drink token.

Verdugo Bar
This no-frills craft beer spot in Glassell Park has been quietly putting together some of the best beer events of the past year, including their back patio Oktoberfest celebrations. Now you can duck the crowds and ring in 2013 with a night of your favorite local pints. There’s going to be a DJ inside, but they promise not to play bad music. And the best part? No cover, just good times.

City Tavern
Should you find yourself in Culver City for the night, City Tavern is your best craft beer bet. A $68 ticket gets you unlimited pours from 22 different taps and bottle beers, plus wine and champagne for anyone who wants it. If you’re looking to grab dinner, they’ll knock $10 off the ticket price.

Blue Palms Brewhouse
People about lost their mind in 2012 when Blue Palms Brewhouse was forced to temporarily shutter. The popular craft beer mega-spot is so beloved with beer fans that a movement was started and the place was saved from sinking under a bad lease. Now that the party is back on, you can ring in the new year with a $75 party package that includes unlimited beers from the tap, any entree and a commemorative glass. It’s probably the only thing that will help you remember the night.

The Surly Goat
If you’re looking for one of the more comprehensive tap lists in the city, West Hollywood’s The Surly Goat has you covered. For New Year’s, they’ll be pulling out some fancy pours to go along with their $50 price tag. While the hefty price doesn’t get you dinner or any other big perk, you can drink all night without paying another cent (selected booze and champagne as well), and you’re guaranteed to enjoy the best beers that Southern California and beyond have to offer.

Library AleHouse
Out in Santa Monica, the Library AleHouse has been spending December with a selection of strong beers. The high-ABV pours have been populating their taps for the past two weeks, and the festival ends when the year does. Thankfully, they’re going out in style, with an 8:30pm five-course dinner seating that includes vintage beer pairings and a champagne toast at midnight. If you’re just heading over for the Strong Ale Festival, you can expect everything from Lost Abbey, North Coast and Drake’s to Kulmbacher, Mikkeller and Heretic.

Here’s a thing I wrote about drinking beer tonight! 

socalfood:

Next Week is L.A. Beer Week

With summer beer patio sessions winding down and Oktoberfest on the horizon, it’s always nice to be able to slip a full week of drinking into the schedule. Or, rather, eleven full days, but who’s counting? Well, we are. LA Beer Week kicks off on September 20 and runs all throughout the Southland, so we’d like to enjoy every single hour we can.

Don’t think for a moment that there won’t be enough events happening around town to keep you occupied. The event organizers have teamed up with everyone from local craft brewers to Westside beer taverns, the Pasadena arm of the Stone Brewing company store and at least one Mongolian BBQ spot — and that’s just the first day. Weekend events include barrel-aged beers at City Tavern in Culver City, tap takeovers from Whittier to Calabasas, and a sour beer fun run with the folks from Firestone Walker. Basically, they’ll be pulling names out of a hat between Golden Road, Verdugo Bar, 38 Degrees, Far Bar and Blue Palms to determine where to go next on Saturday the 22nd, unloading a single barrel of their special pours at each stop.

Other sure-to-be-popular events cascading into next week include a Dogfish Head Ancient Ales Dinner, happening at Little Bear downtown. KCET already loves Little Bear and the Midas Touch ancient ale from Dogfish Head is one of the best we’ve tasted, so get your tickets now. Tony’s Darts Away in Burbank is using the LA Beer Week as an excuse to host an IPA festival from Sunday the 23rd through Friday the 28th, which overtakes (but doesn’t outshine) Cismontane Brewing’s Night Beer & Bacon happening at The York. Wowzers.

The pièce de résistance, of course, is the Sunday night unlimited tasting event, happening at downtown LA’s Union Station. Your $50 presale ticket gets you unlimited four-ounce pours from more than 70 different beer brewers. The locals are sure to be heavily represented, but fantastic international breweries like Schneider-Weisse, Affligem, Chimay and Birra Moretti will also be on hand for the fete. You can also expect plenty of food trucks and snack stations to be set up around the perimeter, making sure you spend your time — and money — wisely over the course of the four-hour event. And since it’s all happening at Union Station, public transportation is practically a must.

You can check out the full event calendar here, although more great nights of fun and beer are being added all the time. And since these great events are happening all over the land, there’s likely one right in your backyard. Not that you needed an excuse to fill up your week with beer.

For more food and drink events visit kcet.org/events/food.

L.A. BEER WEEK! L.A. BEER WEEK!

Here’s a little piece I put together about summertime drinking. You’re welcome.

socalfood:

Outdoor Beer Drinking: Five Great Eastside Spots

As we roll into August and the inevitable end of yet another summer, it’s important to stay focused. Jobs, friends, money … it all comes and goes. What’s here to stay is summertime drinking. All alone or with a group of buddies, there are few things more enjoyable than a pint of cold beer on an outdoor patio, with the sun or the stars floating their image in the amber of your glass.

Not sure where to go for a drink amongst the elements? Let us guide you. There are plenty of great places in Los Angeles to sit back with some suds. Here are five of the best outdoor beer drinking spots on the Eastside.

Golden Road Brew Pub

As a natural extension of the flagship Golden Road Brewing operation, the Golden Road brew pub sits in an industrial cut of buildings at the northern tip of Atwater Village. Eschewing old wooden benches and waves of ivy for a decidedly more urban look, the patio is open to the air (and the occasional passing train) on one full side, giving summertime drinkers a nice breeze and plenty of shade. The beers you’re looking for are inside the warehouse, along with a selection of finely-tuned bar food. This being Tony Yanow’s place and all, the beers are mostly from the brewing operation next door, but a few California competitors are usually snuck up on the chalkboard as well. It’s also a great summertime spot for a Midnight Snack.

Biergarten at The Standard Hotel

Whatever you may think of the clientele that flocks to downtown’s The Standard hotel in the summer time, there’s no denying that they’ve got a pretty great rooftop set up going on. There’s the pool, perpetually clogged with hardbodies and young out-of-towners. Then there’s the biergarten, a small but sufficient ode to Austrian and German fare. They’ve got all the basics covered, in some approximation: the turf that stands in for real grass, the long wooden tables, the rising shrubbery. Nothing can take away from the sweeping views of downtown Los Angeles though. On warm summer nights, as the heat begins to lift away and the lights from some poor schmuck’s office window illuminates the distance, there are few better places to be caught with a stein in your hand.

See more here!

socalfood:

Midnight Snack: Malo with Tomorrow Magazine

Losing your job is never an easy proposition. When your job involved writing and editing for the ever-shrinking print media landscape, it can be even more troubling. Yet when the editorial staff of LA-based GOOD Magazine were let go en masse, they didn’t spend much time drowning their sorrows. Just over a month later, the crew has banded together with a fully-funded Kickstarter and a dream: to put together one last project, on their own terms and in their own voices. Dubbed Tomorrow Magazine, the one-off issue plans to focus on the future, in all its iterations. Several members of the group — Ann Friedman, Cord Jefferson, Zak Stone, Megan Greenwell, and Amanda Hess — sat down with us at KCET to talk about what lies ahead for themselves as well as Tomorrow Magazine. Then we talked about burritos….

Ann: I mean, we love each other.

Amanda: We’re also all of similar age and many of us moved here at the same time.

Cord: That’s not hyperbole, either. I legit love all of these people.

Megan: We use the word family, and it’s really true.

Farley: As the story goes, you guys hatched Tomorrow Magazine at a bar on the night you got fired. So what happened?

Cord: We went to Edendale. Who was there? Me, Megan, Tim [Fernholz] … there were several of us there, and some former colleagues who still work there, just hanging out. We just said, screw this, let’s make one last thing together.

Amanda: I was set to go to New York when I got fired, so I had to go in early just to get let go.

Megan: I had to take her in, then drive her to LAX, then sprint back in my car as quickly as possible so I wouldn’t be late to get fired myself.

Cord: Don’t be late to get fired!

Amanda: After five hours on the plane, I turned on my phone to all of these messages from people throughout my career, but also messages from all of these people. And those were the best ones.

Ann: I just feel sorry for everyone that didn’t get the chance to get fired with us.

Read more here.

It’s not that hard to understand why: both of these places suck. 

tumblangeles:

I question the validity of the previous claim to LA’s best burger joints as they failed to mention the best 2 places:

Hole in the Wall Burger Joint (home made Brioche buns & Sweet potato fries!)
@11058 Santa Monica Blvd.
at South Bentley Avenue (behind Winchell’s Donuts)

and

Rounds Premium Burgers (The best $5 burger money can buy.)
8871 Santa Monica Blvd.  [open till 2am!]
West Hollywood