{"id":3455,"date":"2014-04-23T18:08:28","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T18:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/food\/long-beach-s-beer-longevity-venerable-venues-that-pre-date-craft\/"},"modified":"2014-04-23T18:08:28","modified_gmt":"2014-04-23T18:08:28","slug":"long-beach-s-beer-longevity-venerable-venues-that-pre-date-craft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/food\/long-beach-s-beer-longevity-venerable-venues-that-pre-date-craft","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach’s Beer Longevity: Venerable Venues That Pre-Date Craft"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Yardhouse-2-Long-Beach\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

The original Yard House in Long Beach. Photo courtesy of Yard House. <\/em><\/p>\n

By Tomm Carroll |<\/strong> Arguably, until better beer bars like the Factory Gastrobar and Congregation Ale House, as well as the world-class Beachwood BBQ and Brewing brewpub, opened their respective doors in the last several years, the city of Long Beach was not really considered much of a craft beer destination. But that doesn\u2019t mean there wasn\u2019t a beer scene there. <\/p>\n

Like many Southern Californian communities, Long Beach was on board with and riding the second wave of better beer awareness with a couple of brewpubs and one of the first mega-multi-tap beer bars in the pre-craft days of the 1990s. And amazingly, each of them is still going strong today.<\/p>\n

\"\"Belmont Brewing Company in Belmont Shore came online in 1990, giving it the distinction of being the oldest extant brewpub in the greater Los Angeles area, closing in on a quarter century. Founders David Lott and David Hansen opened their pub right on the beachfront, with a spacious patio overlooking the ocean and the Long Beach skyline, the ultimate brew-with-a-view location for drinking fresh beer while enjoying tasty California cuisine.<\/p>\n

Back then, as was the case with a lot of the early brewpubs, most brewers tended to brew colors, rather than distinct styles\u2014a blonde, a golden, a red, a pale, a brown, and maybe a stout or a hefeweizen\u2014all of them ales. It was fresh beer, and it wasn\u2019t thin, yellowish liquid like the ubiquitous Budweiser and Coors, so it was a welcome respite from the then-norm.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure who the original brewmaster was, but by the mid-to-late \u201890s, BBC\u2019s third brewer, Kevin Day (now beer manager at Wine Warehouse distributors), manned the kettles and fermenters and even back then was experimenting with Belgian Tripel and English barleywine styles on the 7bbl system. After he left, the beers returned to that \u201890s style, and aside from the Ale of the Month (in which current brewmaster, David Blackwell, experiments quite successfully with more contemporary styles), the five house beers remain that way today: a blonde, a pale, an amber, a stout (Long Brach Crude, the most complex) and a strawberry blonde, the latter of which is still bottled and sold to accounts in the greater LA region.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Taking a tangent (although a related one) to the northeast, I must add that Lott and Hansen expanded their brewpub concept to downtown Los Angeles in 1996, finding another unique location with the Bonaventure Brewing Company. This time, they opened in the circular-shaped (now Westin) Bonaventure Hotel in a space that once housed a Bagel Nosh. And yes, the Bonaventure Brewing Company is still around, making it the oldest still-operational brewpub in the city of LA.<\/p>\n

Located on building\u2019s fourth floor, the pub was classy Californian, with cherrywood tables and chairs and historic beer-related photos (actress Jean Harlow at the repeal of Prohibition) adorning the walls. The room\u2019s back wall of doors opens up to an outside circular courtyard.<\/p>\n

The patio, which is more spacious than the inside, offers a gorgeous view of LA\u2019s sky-scratchers (its buildings aren\u2019t tall enough to be considered skyscrapers), and hosts the live jazz and blues bands that frequently play there. It\u2019s another distinctive locale for drinking and dining. Speaking of which, the menus\u2014both food and beverage\u2014are similar to sister pub Belmont\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Brewmaster Day was part of the concept as well, and did double duty here and at Belmont as Blackwell, who replaced him in 1999, does to this day. Even the beer styles (and names) mirror Belmont\u2019s tap list, only they are made in Bonaventure\u2019s glass-enclosed 10bbl system, which produces about 200 barrels per year.<\/p>\n

\"rockbottom3\"All of which begs the question: How can two brewpubs with the same brewer, offering the same basic beers that they did since the first George Bush administration, survive well into the 21st century? I guess there\u2019s something to be said for quality recipes and unwavering consistency!<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Back to Long Beach, we hit Rock Bottom…<\/p>\n

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, VISIT BEERPAPERLA.COM<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arguably, until better beer bars like the Factory Gastrobar and Congregation Ale House, as well as the world-class Beachwood BBQ and Brewing brewpub, opened their respective doors in the last several years, the city of Long Beach was not really considered much of a craft beer destination. But that doesn\u2019t mean there wasn\u2019t a beer scene there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":68708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1463,81],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","tag-beer-paper-la","tag-craft-beer","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}