This beer store and bar offers a gigantic selection of brewskies, from West Coast microbrews to rare Belgian ales and small production specialty bottles. (There's also wine, and a pretty good little selection, but we rarely see anyone drinking it here.) There are refrigerated cases from which you can grab bottles to go, or get one opened at the bar (for a small corkage fee) and hang out with a plethora of Eastside beer nerds. There are always local brews on tap, and the space hosts special events such as a beer and cheese tasting with Stone Brewing's master brewer. Join the "mug club" and corkage fees are waived for a year, with each pour you buy going into your very own mug (well, more like a stein) that's kept behind the bar. The staff is super knowledgeable and friendly—no beer snobs here—and the atmosphere is cozy, with communal benches, comfy plush chairs and a smoking area outside. There's also a decent pizza place next door to help you soak up all that delicious booze.
Whiskey and wine have traditionally been the go-to for specialized imbibing. But beer, particularly craft and foreign varieties, has made tremendous inroads throughout the last decade, and a brewing boom has elevated the once overlooked beverage. With dedicated liquor shops and wine stores providing the unusual, hard-to-find and expensive in their particular categories, it only seems natural that a new vertical of stores specializing in beer would begin to flourish. Despite our historic lack of LA breweries (until recently), Los Angeles has always been a beer city, and the beer stores here are a manifestation of our affection for all things hoppy, malty, fruity, sour, crisp and, most certainly, cold.