Right in downtown LA there is BUZZ wine beer shop (http://www.yelp.com/biz/buzz-wine-beer-shop-los-angeles) My personal favorite is Sunset Beer Company, it's in Echo Park, pretty close to downtown LA (http://www.yelp.com/biz/sunset-beer-company-los-angeles). I went to Sunset Beer Company twice this past weekend! Hope this helps!
If you hit up Sunset Beer Company make sure to check out the liquor store in the lot right next door by the laundry mat. They tend to have some good stuff also. I've scored ~5 Abyss, Firestone 16, parabola/Sucuba, and the like there before. Which always amuses me slightly, because Sunset usually is out of what I'm after and that liquor store often has it.
The girl knows of what she speaks! Ramirez has become one of the best in Los Angeles County, not just downtown. Buzz is a very cool wine store with real esoteric producers but has a very limited and somewhat pedestrian selection of beer. Not pedestrian in the "general sense" since they have a decent selection; pedestrian in that almost all other "decent" beer stores have the same.
