Weiland Brewery Underground

 

I visited Weiland Brewery Underground for happy hour today. This is located underneath in the old Arco towers, now Paul Hastings Building. It was fairly empty today. They had booths, tables, and a bar area with plenty of monitors around.

It's got your typical sports bar vibe. The tap list consisted of about 15 taps of standard craft beers along with couple house beers. I tried their Weiland Amber Ale. It was okay.

I had some nachos along with a pint of Amber Ale.

The servers seemed a little disinterested. A decent place to grab a beer and some food after work, if you work nearby, but I enjoyed my time at other area establishments more.

This was located in an underground mall that seems to be designed to feed office building above it. They had $2.50 pints during Happy Hour. I was there at lunch, so the beers were $4, which still isn't bad.

First of all, I was one of perhaps four diners throughout the place--it could easily fit 200. It appeared that this was very unusual because the staff kept talking about how slow it was. I sat at the bar and received prompt attention. They offer three of their own beers on tap and three local micros on the other taps. They also had Murphy's Stout on tap; something I haven't seen since being in Ireland twelve years ago.

The food is a typical bar menu, California style. I ordered an Ahi Tuna burger. It was seared and served raw in the center (the way I like it). Odd, that I wasn't asked how I'd like cooked. I liked that I could get a salad, fries or fresh fried chips.

The beers were very good--I had a pint of the Amber and an IPA.

One interesting note, they use the mall bathrooms where one must get a token to get in.

Located in an underground mini-mall in downtown Los Angeles. The atmosphere is that of a sports bar, with several TVs located around the place. They have a long bar that has a new age look. Not a type of bar setup I would expect for a brew house. It looks more like a bar that you would find in a club. The crowd was light when I went but I would expect it would be a happy hour type of place once work lets out. They offered their own brews on draught and a couple of others, including Chimay. They had a fairly decent selection of bottles ranging from macro, Mexican macro, Stone, Chimay, Ommegang, and Avery. During my visit I had their hefe, IPA, and blonde. I also had they Craftsman Holiday Ale. Their hefe was quite terrible as it didn't have any wheat characteristics whatsoever. Their IPA had a decent piney hop flavor, and their blonde had a toasted straw and light grain flavor but was a notch or two above a macro. The Craftsman was my favorite by far and was a nice and spicy winter warmer with nutmeg being the prodominate spice. The service was fine from an attention standpoint but they didn't know how to properly serve beer as all of my beers were served out of a frozen glass. I also didn't see any specialty glasses for the higher end bottles that they offered. Far from a great beer bar/brew house but the bottle selection is decent, though their own brews weren't that impressive. If you are stuck in downtown LA, it is worth a visit since you have very limited options.