For nearly five years, Brouwerij (prounced "brewery") West has been crafting their beer without a permanent home, using other breweries to bottle their Belgian-inspired ales—and if you haven't tried the Mør Mør yet, a quad-style with 10% ABV, get on it. Come summer, though, that's about to change. And in true California fashion, they're going green.
Brouwerij has planted roots in one of two WWII-era Navy warehouses at the Crafted at The Port of LA site, a massive 120,000-square foot building built in 1944. They'll be opening a tasting room, café, bottle shop and full-production brewery around July, but it's the commitment to green energy that makes this brewhouse stand out among all the other breweries popping up in the South Bay. Almost the entire roof will be covered in solar panels, generating well beyond the energy needed to power the property, and solidifying Brouwerij West as the greenest craft brewery in Southern California. Brouwerij also uses the eco-friendly Meura 2001 Micro mash filter to brew its ales, a century-old method that extracts more flavor while using 30 percent less water than traditional breweries use.
Brian Mercer, Brouwerij's CEO, brewmaster and a fourth-generation San Pedran with a fierce love for his city, is hoping the new brewery will give visitors to the port a reason to stick around. "The ships dock in San Pedro and then people get on a bus to Long Beach," says Mercer. "We need something to keep them here."
The space between the brewery and Crafted will be filled with picnic benches and trees, turning the lot into a veritable beer garden with unique ales that Mercer finally has the space to test out. "I'm looking forward to doing one-offs, a lot more wild beers and fresh fruit beers," he says. "And we'll have production space available for contract brewers." He does, after all, remember what it's like to not have a brewery to call his own.