The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [51]
BEAR REPUBLIC
345 Healdsburg Ave. • Healdsburg, CA 95448 • (707) 433-2337 • bearrepublic.com
Racer 5 is an American-style IPA of 7% ABV that, over the past few years, has zoomed into the best beer bars in America based on its incredibly floral aroma alone. It’s a reliably delicious beer, top in its class at the 2009 GABF, and now produced in a much bigger brewery nearby that isn’t open to the public. But the family-owned brewpub where it was born—decorated with memorabilia of auto racing—shows off what founder and head brewer Richard Norgrove has in the engine next, including one-offs in the original brew house.
WURSTKÜCHE
800 E. 3rd St. • Los Angeles, CA 90013 • (213) 687-4444 • wurstkucherestaurant.com
Located in downtown L.A.’s arts district, Wurstküche (est. 2008) peddles grilled sausages made with ingredients such as chile de árbol, rubbed sage, rattlesnake, chipotle, and cinnamon; and Belgian fries with toppings (truffle oil, tzatziki, bleu cheese with walnuts and bacon). The refreshment: twenty-four import and craft beers including caramelly Sticke (“secret”) beer from Zum Uerige brewery in Dusseldorf, brewed only on the third Tuesday of January and October.
FATHER’S OFFICE
1018 Montana Ave. • Santa Monica, CA 90403 • (310) 393-2337 • fathersoffice.com
Even without table service and a strict no-substitutions policy, Father’s Office has been Santa Monica’s best-known beer ’n’ burger destination since it opened in 2000, making it hard to get in at times. (Note: There’s a second, larger location in Culver City.) The culprits: thirty-six top-shelf taps and a sweet bottle list; chef-founder Sang Yoon’s Office Burger, consisting of juicy dry-aged strip steak, Maytag blue cheese, Gruyère, arugula, and apple-wood bacon; and a steady stream of beer-loving celebrities like Brooke Shields.
NEIGHBORHOOD
777 G St. • San Diego, CA 92101 • (619) 446-0002 • neighborhoodsd.com
Conceived as a hybrid of the traditional Japanese izakaya and a London gastropub, the small, contemporary Neighborhood (est. 2007) makes the otherwise touristy Gaslamp Quarter worth a trip. The beer list (twenty-seven taps and forty bottles) is excellent, with sought-after double IPAs like Port’s Mongo. Stave off hunger with eclectic choices like pink-salted deviled eggs, steak tartare, steamed pork buns, and ribs braised in Stone Smoked Porter.
SMALL BAR
4628 Park Blvd. • San Diego, CA 92116 • (619) 795-7998 • smallbarsd.com
Opened in 2009 by Scot Blair of Hamilton’s, this local lives up to its name in size, but not stature, with forty-two up-to-the-minute taps and a “handful” of bottled options (mostly local and Californian, with some European delicacies for good measure), served in a dimly lit bar painted floor to ceiling in red and black. Sustenance arrives in the form of chile verde, Wagyu beef sliders, and buttermilk fried chicken.
O’BRIEN’S PUB
4646 Convoy St. • San Diego, CA 92111-2315 • (858) 715-1745 • obrienspub.net
An unassuming soccer bar located in an anonymous strip mall next to a cluster of car dealerships, O’Brien’s has white plastic patio chairs, drop-panel ceilings, and a bar decorated with unfinished wood shingles. But as the self-proclaimed “hoppiest place on earth” it also boasts serious craft beer cred: twenty hard-to-get taps, eighty obscure and collectible bottles, regular casks, beer release parties for the likes of Lost Abbey, and the bragging rights to O’Brien’s IPA, a world-class example of the style originally brewed for the bar by Alpine.
Hawaii
BACK IN THE LATE-1960S “TINY BUBBLES” ERA OF DON HO—AND THE last days of surfing pioneer Duke Kahanamoku—the Hawaiian Islands’ beloved beer was an inexpensive industrial lager called Primo, which lacked much flavor but dated all the way back to 1898. The nostalgic brand withered away over the next couple of decades as corporate owners (Schlitz, then Stroh, then Pabst) moved production to the mainland and scrimped on glass and ingredients, none of which have ever spurred much of a luau.
These days, craft beer is surfing