SoCal Trip Suggestions

Don't skip Pizza Port. I recommend all of their locations. OB has Bacon & Eggs, my all-time favorite porter or stout. Carlsbad Pizza Port has a great bottle shop attached. Solana Beach has an awesome vibe- Tomme Arthur's original spot. Keep in mind that they are different from Lost Abbey/Port.

In SD:

Monkey Paw
Tiger! Tiger! or Blind Lady Alehouse(Automatic Brewing Co. & great food)
Mike Hess Brewing (in North Park near Toronado, Hamilton's, and the South Park Stone Store)

For Stone, I recommend visiting Liberty Station or just the South Park store. The brewery is way out of your way (although you could tie in your Lost Abbey visit, and maybe hit a few other smaller breweries up there).

That's probably enough to keep you busy. Do NOT skip Alpine. If you go up or come back through Julian, Nickel's is brewing up there now.

Pubs: O'Brien's (near Societe), Hamilton's, Toronado, Churchill's

Bottleshops: Bottlecraft, Vine & Bine, Krisp Market (downtown), Distiller's Outlet (Poway)

Food: Carnitas Snack Shack, Buona Forchetta, MXN for a California Burrito, Pizza Port for Beer Buddies.

 

Beachwood BBQ and Brewing and Taps Fish House in LA.
Mike Hess brewing in San Diego is near Alesmith and well worth the trip, also there are some pretty good breweries (Mother Earth, Rip Current, Iron Fist, Belching Beaver) in Vista near Lost Abbey and Stone.

 

Pizza Port in San Clemente or Carlsbad - Great beer and pizza, very laid back place right by the beach

Havens in Orange is one of my favorites - Good beer selection and some nice food, I personally love the pig ears - Also, right up the street from Havens is the provisions shop which was formerly under The Bruery but is now owned and operated by Havens. They have some nice cheeses/charcuterie plates. Hangin out back by the fire pits is always a good time

 

Yeah. Mike Hess has their original Nano location up near Alesmith and their new location down in North Park, near SD proper.

Forgot about Beachwood- don't skip them.

Also, eat at Alpine. I recommend hitting the pub at 11am on a Tuesday and then eating/tasting beers until 12 noon when the brewery opens. They bottle on Mondays, so the freshest bottles are always on Tuesdays. It's also the mellowest time to go up there. Late afternoons/evenings & weekends are packed.

 

I believe Alpine is closed Sundays & Mondays. I could be wrong on the Sundays part.

If you're a baseball fan, Petco Park is a great beer destination in it's own right.

 

Additionally, Mission Brewery is just a stone's throw from Petco Park and has a pretty nice tasting room. Nothing too fancy, though.

 

I'm going to revive this thread to get some LA-specific (and more specifically, near N. Hollywood) suggestions for breweries, brewpubs, and spots with great tap lists.

Also, I will be heading from N. Hollywood to Joshua Tree and intend to hit The Bruery on the way. Google Maps suggests it's doable, do BAs agree. I want to kill two birds with one stone rather than make the 45 minute drive to Placentia only to turn around. What do LA BAs think?

 

Wow! With no traffic at all, you're looking at 45 minutes to Bruery, and then 2 hours from Bruery to JT forest. Depending on time of day and traffic...lawls...3-4 hours, easily, then you have to go back.

 

Isnt' the Bruery south of LA, like almost in Anaheim? I wouldn't do it- the Bruery tap list usually isn't so spectacular that you'd want to cut into your Joshua Tree time- plus, the road to JT can be super slow if you don't get out of LA at the right time.

Don't skip Pappy & Harriet's just outside of Joshua Tree. Not a great beer selection, but the food and ambiance is awesome.

 

Spending the night at JT... with beer, food and lodging provided by Sierra Nevada. It occurs to me that I probably should hit the Bruery on the return trip now that I think of it.

 

Monkey Paw is the place to hit up before/after Padres games. About a 15 minute walk to the ballpark from there, and you'll pass Mission Brewing on the way. Neighborhood is down there and has a solid taplist as well.

 

You just relied to a post from June.
Anyways, if I was in Noho I would go to Vendome TL for some bottles and Tony's Darts Away for drinks and grub. Their taplist is on their website and updated frequently. Golden Road is the closest brewery. I'd think about taking the 210 instead of the 10.

 

Not doable. There's this little concept called traffic and we have lots of it.

 

If you just want some good beer with you out at JT, then just hit up a nearby Total Wine on your way there. I wouldn't go too far out of the way for beer on that kind of a drive.

 

When I was in LA in December I hit Eagle Rock over Golden Road, so I'd probably pick the latter this time around. I found Eagle Rock to be pretty good, particularly Solidarity the red/amber with coffee added (forget the beer's name).

 

I get that LA traffic is horrific, but y'all making it sound like driving towards a tornado rather than against it. Would the fact that we'd be leaving mid-morning make a difference as far as your opinions? Or is traffic really that fucked all the time?

 

It's really that bad all the time. You have no idea. It's gotten progressively worse. Especially with all the construction going on to theoretically "expand" the freeways. I imagine that by the time CalTrans is done, however, the population will have increased so much that it will have negated the expansion

 

Which in turn will require more construction to expand again. A never ending cycle of having 50% of the lanes closed almost at all times through LA.

I know when I travel to central CA for thanksgiving each year we leave at 3am in the morning and usually pass through the construction area with no issues. Could be that they arne't working at the time, or that no one else is dumb enough to be driving at that time, either way....from personal experience, that is roughly the only time traffic seems to not exist.