5 Breweries And Tap Houses To Get A Taste Of LA's Dynamic Beer Scene, According To A Local

I've been in Los Angeles for nine years and have watched as the beer scene here exploded and contracted along with the rest of the country. I grew up in hop-centric Portland, Oregon, and I still try to time visits home around the fresh-hop season. I didn't drink until later in life, so I don't have a nostalgic taste for the college party 30-rack of cheap beers. When I eventually started drinking beer, I went on a quest to try all the styles. I like them all, but, as a true Pacific Northwesterner, I do lean toward the hops.

LA is rarely mentioned when people talk about great West Coast beers. When the topic floats to U.S. cities with the best beer, places like Portland, San Diego, and Seattle are talked about more. The depth and the history of the beer scenes in those cities are hard to beat, but the top breweries and tap houses in LA can stand among the best places anywhere else.

Picking just five excellent taprooms and bars to drink beer isn't easy. I stuck to spots closer to Northeast LA, where I spend most of my time, and skewed towards beer bars with broad options or breweries with many guest beers — with one exception. If you're in LA looking for a pint, there are many great establishments in addition to my top-five list that are worth popping into. These include Monkish, Homage, Three Weavers, Beachwood, El Segundo Brewing Company, Hop Merchants, and Common Space.

Some of the best hops in the city are found at Highland Park Brewery. The West Coast and hazy IPAs are consistently delicious. Its line of hopped pilsners is refreshing and full of hop flavor, sitting atop the crackery pilsner profile. Griffith J. Griffith, the brewery's homage to the industrialist and attempted murderer who donated the land that became Griffith Park, is a celebrated series of barrel-aged stouts that draw crowds upon their release every year.

The original location is a small production facility behind The Hermosillo bar on York Boulevard in the Highland Park neighborhood. The Hermosillo's tap list includes many options from the brewery alongside guest beers from some of the top breweries in California and across the U.S. During Covid, the parking lot turned into a beer garden, and it's now one of the best spots to enjoy a beer outdoors in a city that's well-appointed for spending time outside.

Across from Chinatown's Los Angeles State Historic Park (a great area for picnicking, with a view of downtown one way and rugged mountains the other), sits Highland Park Brewery's official taproom. Here, you can try a wide variety of beers, perhaps on a weekend after a game of soccer or ultimate frisbee in the park. The tap list is ever-changing, but I'm partial to the hoppy pilsners like Timbo Pils or any variation of it, and hazy IPAs like Pillow. If you're with people who don't love beer, the slushie of the day, made with hard seltzer, will cool them down on a 90-degree afternoon.

You can easily miss Glendale Tap as you speed by with the traffic. It doesn't look like much from the outside, just a door on the corner of San Fernando and Magnolia in an industrial area. Inside, you'll find the best tap list in the Los Angeles area, featuring many West Coast greats like Green Cheek, Humble Sea, Russian River, pFriem, Great Notion, and nearby Highland Park. All the major types of beer are represented on 52 taps. Many unique and hard-to-find beers appear on the menu, like the recent sighting of Maine Beer's Lunch IPA and exclusive bottles from Horus Aged Ales. Old beer signs hang on the walls, and it's usually easy to get some time at the pool table. Glendale Tap has a chill vibe. The only time it's really packed is for trivia on Wednesday nights.

The back patio often has excellent food pop-ups and boasts a cozy, eclectic setting. There's a garage painted in woody earth tones where you'll find a ping pong table, foosball, and a hook-and-ring toss game. The atmosphere transports you right into the suburbs of Milwaukie in the '80s — the only thing tying you to the present is a glass of the thickest, juiciest hazy IPA you've ever had.

Tucked away in Glassell Park is the low-key Verdugo Bar. Its large, well-shaded patio, along with its parking lot turned second patio, allows for a lot of space to host gatherings. The 20 taps offer some of the best beers in California and the world. For all of its lack of pretension, Verdugo Bar is one of the few places to get one of the original white whale beers, Pliny The Younger. They have a full bar, including a couple of delicious smoothie cocktails, so it's safe to bring your non-beer-loving friends. The interior is dimly lit and old-LA cool. There are cozy booths and a curved bar from the '30s to sit at.

Across the street is one of the best new pizzerias in LA, Park Pizza. QR codes to order a pie are on each table in the bar, and staff will run across the street and deliver your pizza to you. There are also food vendors that occasionally set up on the patio.

Solarc proves that Los Angeles craves spaces that are genuine expressions of the people creating them instead of chasing trends. In a city full of places seemingly built by marketing teams, finding a place like Solarc is a reminder of how loaded with creatives LA really is. The large windows up front are covered in multi-colored abstract shapes, turning the room into a kaleidoscope during the day. The walls are lined with aluminum foil to add reflections. Solarc specializes in gruit beer, which uses other bittering agents besides hops. Here, you'll be able to try beers brewed with additions such as wormwood, tea, and locally harvested herbs. The menu is always changing, but in the past, you could find such beers as Glasselllager, a lager made with sage, yarrow, and rye; Earl, an ale with earl grey tea, lemon verbena, and rosemary; and the Herbal IPA with wormwood, mugwort, sage, and sumac.

At night, musicians, including the owners at times, play drone-y, ambient soundscapes that further your transportation into the worlds the people running Solarc inhabit. Mondays are home to Ladle Night, when $5 cups of soup are served. If you need a break from beer, the brewery has kombucha or carbonated herbal tea on tap.

When I first moved to LA, this is where my friend brought me to introduce me to California beers. The tap list doesn't leave the state, and, to signify where its beer style loyalty lies, the beers here are separated into two categories: IPAs and Not IPAs. Tony's Darts Away is also known for its good bar food. The menu is largely vegan, but non-vegan options are available for those who indulge beyond a plant-based diet. Vegan sausages, buffalo wraps, burgers, and bowls are offered, and many of these options are available with real meat instead. Tony's also makes a good breakfast burrito on the weekend, perfect to pair with your Double IPA at 10 a.m. after a late night.

Formerly named Darts Away, the spot was purchased by the ex-CEO of music.com, Tony Yanow. He turned it into the famed beer spot it is today. It's not just about beer, as it's one of the better sports bars in the area, too. This is another place you can find the hard-to-get Pliny The Younger triple IPA. Tony's is an institution not just in the city of Burbank, but in the greater LA area.