Lost Winds Brewing Company

 

Here's a sleeper in Orange County's most southern city. Instead of being near the beach like Pizza Port, Lost Winds required a steep climb up Ave Pico in your car to reach, but the climb is worth the reward of 20 different beers pouring from the taps. I like how Lost Winds stuck more to style with their beers (most of them anyways) instead of adding variant spices to each beer. Their red ale tasted like a balanced red ale, and the two Belgian styles I had tasted could convince some folks it came from Benelux. To add, large tulip glassware, beaker shaped pints, and smaller snifters make the glassware.

To compliment the good beer, there's no shortage of room as a second floor provides overflow space to busy nights (although my Friday night visit saw ample business with no stress of waiting 5 minutes in line). A trio of bartenders behind the bar sped up the beer ordering process, so props for being nicely staffed.