Re: Los Angeles: Bars

Try

Phil

Barney's beanery on santa monica blvd. not live music but lots o' good beer.

Stuff close to the coast in the LA area:

In Santa Monica:

- Library Alehouse, Main St., Santa Monica

- Father's Office, Montana, Santa Monica

Fantastic beer. Incredible beer food. Both are becoming yuppy hang-outs, but you can hit these places early and get good stuff without some asshole on a cell phone next to you. Father's Office has the best burger in LA, hands down; but you can only get it at certain times, and it costs a pretty penny, but worth every cent.

Most brew-cos I've been to suck in LA. The best I've found is Manhattan Beach Brewing company, right up from the pier in the city with the same name.

There's a place in Redondo Beach with hundreds of beers (I don't recall the name), but they have a freshness problem, and I hear that their food really sucks.

The Czech Point Restaurant in Redondo beach has Czech beers on tap, plus authentic Czech food and atmosphere. Cool place.

Torrance has an october-fest German town type deal, at which they sell flat beer in styrofoam cups...not recommended unless you are already well-lubricated. That way you can gulp down the flat German offerings and listen to Tubas, and actually enjoy it!

On the Beachfront Café, on the Venice boardwalk a couple hundred yards from the border with Santa Monica. Almost 100% European crowd here. They go through quite a lot of Erdinger Hefeweisse on tap...very fresh.

King's Head Pub, right at the end of Route 66 (aka Santa Monica Blvd) near Ocean Ave in Santa Monica. Great Brit beer selections, plus an atmosphere that is truly genuine Brit pub. Mostly Brits frequent this place.

If you're interested in home brewing, Culver City has a great home brewing supply shop in its old downtown section. Lots of good stuff for beer lovers at this place.

Cheers! John