New Beer Shop in Echo Park

ONE of the Misread City's favorite LA hangouts in Colorado Wine Company in Eagle Rock: It opened shortly before we moved to the Eastside and has been a sort of neighborhood bar. Fans of the dedication to low prices and high quality -- as well as eccentric and small-batch wines -- this place serves up will be as excited as your humble blogger about the latest news.

John and Jen Nugent, who own the wine shop, will help launch and run Sunset Beer Company, which, with luck, will open on Sunset Blvd. next spring. (An article in Echo Park Now.) It's based on the set up of the wine shop, which includes a tasting area.

I should say that while this couple has turned me on to many fine bottles of wine, John is also responsible for introducing me to Belgium's wonderful farmhouse ale Saison Dupont and hence bringing back -- in part -- to beer.

Ths morning John sent out the following note about the new venture and his need for support:

Slated to open in Spring of 2011, Sunset Beer Company will happily live on Sunset boulevard in Echo Park.  The concept behind Sunset Beer Co. comes from many evenings of beer drinking (uh...tasting) on one of the most famous porches in Eagle Rock at the home of Jenna and Drew VonAh.  It's here that we tried Eagle Rock Brewery beer before the brewery opened and listened to our beer fanatic friends talk about the lengths they must go to to find their coveted beers.  Why not make the hunt a little easier by putting everything in one place?

Sunset Beer Co. is a partnership between Jennifer and John of CoWineCo and Jenna and Drew VonAh.  The concept will be quite familiar to you - a retail shop with a tasting area.  But the retail shop will be twice the size of CoWineCo featuring many hundreds of bottles of beer from around the globe (all properly chilled of course), and the tasting area will have taps instead of rows of wine glasses (but for you grape-centric die-hards, yes there will be wine available as well).  And I must mention, our nifty logo comes courtesy Evan Spiridellis of JibJab.com, an old friend who is also a lover of beer.

Do you like the idea?  Are you salivating and annoyed that this place won't open until Spring 2011? Well, you can help!  If you would like to express your support for this business either as a potential customer or as a current customer of CoWineCo who just wants the city to know that we run a responsible business, please write a letter or email.  Our hearing is very soon, so letters would have to be postmarked by this coming Monday, October 18th.  Any and all support will help us get our license in a timely manner and would be MUCH appreciated by Jenna, Drew, Jennifer, John, Evie, Walter, their cats, their extended families and that family of skunks living in their garage.

Please send emails/letters to our license expediter and they will be presented to the Zoning Adminstrator during our hearing:

Andy Inthavong

andy4artrodriguez@yahoo.com

or

Art Rodriguez & Associates

Attn:  Andy Inthavong / RE: Sunset Beer Company

709 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 200

Pasadena, CA 91101

To celebrate the impending opening of our new store, we are revamping our in-store beer pricing at CoWineCo to match the format of Sunset Beer Co.  You can now enjoy any bottled beer at our bar for the retail price + $2.  That means that Allagash White that is $5-$9 a glass at every brewpub in LA will be $4.50.  So beer nerds, you will be very happy about our 30-40 beers at CoWineCo, and you'll be REALLY happy when Sunset Beer Co. opens its doors.

Eagle Rock and Small Business

TONIGHT I go to a wake of sorts for Paper, a shop on Eagle Rock's Colorado Boulevard. The shop sold cool books, smart gifts, letterpress printed cards, and leather journals -- exactly the kind of combination that signals the arrival of a neighborhood into bobo heaven.

The closing of the store -- done in by the recession, of course -- is especially poignant because owner Shannon Bedell lost another shop about two years ago. Blue Heeler specialized in very stylish imports from Australia, from men's bags to a whole range of chick stuff, and added some flava to Eagle Rock Boulevard and to this side of LA in general.

Bedell has also appeared in two New York Times stories on what's called Northeast Los Angeles, which is sort of our Brooklyn. The first was about the arrival of this crescent of neighborhoods to hipsterville. The second, written by yours truly, came out about a year ago and questioned whether a newly cool neighborhood could survive the recession.

That question seemed complicated to me then, and seems no less complicated now. Since my story, two of my main sources -- Bedell, and Kelly Witmer, who ran the boutique Regeneration -- have lost their shops.

At the same time, a very fine gourmet Mexican cafe has opened near the Trader Joe's, and last night I had a Belgian style wheat beer made by the new Eagle Rock Brewery. (Their first batch seemed to have been released last month at the Verdugo Bar, a place I highly recommend. Especially now that The Chalet is gone) And of course, while no one is immune to the economy's chill, Colorado Wine Company continues to thrive and it's as hard as ever to get a seat at Auntie Em's.

Back to Shannon for a minute. She's exactly the kind of small business person -- social, curious, good taste -- any neighborhood needs, and her shops made Eagle Rock distinctive. I'm sorry to see her stores go, and hope she, and the neighborhood itself, rise again when things improve.

Photo credit: Colorado Wine Co.

Los Angeles vs. the Gastropub

We seem to be in the grip of a full-scale beer renaissance here in LA. It's taken a while to get here -- as beer expert Hallie Beaune has pointed out, Southern California's proximity to wine country and the (often mistaken) impression that beer has more calories than cocktails or wine has held back beer's progress in this slimness-obsessed town. (Even as a wine-lover, I cannot help but think that the nouveau-riche association of wine with "classy" has helped wine and again, hurt beer.)

In any case, beer is here, and places like the Verdugo Bar in Glassell Park, the York in nearby Highland Park, and Father's Office in Santa Monica and Culver City remind me why I like the stuff so much. (And why Budweiser and most American lagers are so meager by comparison with, say, a Craftsman real ale or Scotland's Bellhaven.)

HERE is a piece I wrote for Portland's Oregonian (it comes out on Sunday) that looks at five gastropubs from the Eastside to the ocean. Where's Golden State, with its delectable sweet potato fries? Where's Ford's Filling Station, with its handsome celebrity chef? Sorry guys, I only had five. In my list I was looking for places with strong, unusual beer lists and good-to-excellent food, which I define -- for most of these spots -- as requiring a very fine burger as well as a range of less conventional offerings.

Those with strong opinions should vent them here or hold them for an upcoming poll on the city's best burger.

"The Naked Pint"

AFTER years as a wine drinker, I've begun to reorient slightly back to beer -- I think this is happening to a lot of people, especially in LA. so I was delighted to come across the new book, "The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer." Author Christine Perozzi is a celebrated beer sommelier who founded beerforchicks.com and Hallie Beune helped manage Father's Office and taught at the gastropub's beer school. Despite a few moments of cutesy writing, the book is accessible, engaging and full of good information, including descriptions of international beer styles -- wheat beers to stouts and porters -- advice on cooking with beer, and instruction on home brewing.

I spoke to Hallie the other day. (This is the first, by the way, of a series of brief author q+a's, involving books with West coast themes.)

Q: Let's start with the obvious: Chicks and beer. Age-old stereotypes tell us women drink wine, men drink beer.

A: It's funny, we mention in the book that historically women brewed beer, even in ancient Egypt. When women were in charge of cooking, they were also brewing ale. So it's funny that women look at a pint of beer and say, 'No thanks, I'll have a white wine.'

But when we went through Prohibition, it made it hard to brew at home. And later, advertising showed that if a woman is around beer she has to be wearing a wet T-shirt.

Q: It seems like LA has come belatedly but quite strongly to the craft beer renaissance, after being a wine town for a long time.

A: New York has had this scene for a lot longer than LA. We're right next to wine country, and LA suffers from the fact that everybody's looking for something low in calories. All these cocktails made from fine ingredients are anything but low calorie, by the way.

But people here love food like they do in any city, and there's a more casual trend in dining these days. And it just doesn't make sense to have a mass produced light lager list next to a great wine list and a menu of locally sourced food. Once people try the craft beers they won't go back.

Q: What are some of your favorite places to drink, and your favorite California breweries?

A: We love Craftsman Brewery in Pasadena, he makes a beer brewed with hand-picked sage. Russian River does really interesting beers, up north. And Stone helped to spread the word about craft beers. There's a new brewery opening in Eagle Rock -- it's starting to happen in LA.

We also like the Verdugo Bar -- he's truly passionate, and you know you'll find something interesting. We love the Golden State, over on Fairfax, where they have a beer float. And we love the Daily Pint on the Westside.

The other cool thing is restaurants realizing they need to have a good beer list, like BarBrix in Silverlake and Mozza [Nancy Silverton's pizza shrine.]

Q: What do you hope people will do after reading your book?

A: I would love it if people who think they love one style of beer go through the book and see the variety of flavors. There's a beer for every dish.

If we could change the conception of beer around the country, that would satisfy us.

Photo credit: That's my pic of downtown LA's Wurstkuche.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

TODAY this blog and its followers celebrate st. patrick's day, a holiday a lot of upper-middle-class people -- including many educated irish-americans -- scorn. slate ran its usual spoilsport/ contrarian piece pointing out that patrick himself didnt rid the country of snakes and wasnt even irish.

i've read this story (which is quite well executed) ever year, and still love st. patrick's. i say this as someone with no interest in green beer, working class homophobia or the slavish worship of the catholic church. but despite my jewish surname i am mostly irish (full disclosure: half of that derives not from heel-clicking celts but from protestant oppressors) and this holiday is one of the few opportunities to connect with a heritage that now seems very remote from the life of southern california. when i was in the trader joe's in glendale a few days ago and asked after the corned beef, a young woman working the floor looked at me as if i had asked for kelp from saturn. of course, in the days of mulholland and doheny, LA was a very irish city.

these days, ireland itself has snapped out of its "celtic tiger" phase and has an unemployment rate of around 10% -- bad for them, tho a touch lower than LA county right now. (here is a great simpsons bit on irish identity.)

but that's another discussion. for now, i am wearing a pine-green american apparel shirt, have a big pot of corned beef simmering away in murphy's stout upstairs, i am going to blast van morrison until my wife makes me take it off, and will try to steal a few minutes to read yeats after introducing my little son to what i hope will stick as an important family ritual. for the timberg/sinnott family, this one goes back to turn-of-the-century, brooklyn -- long ago and very far away. as ian (sorry for the scottish name) would say, CHEERS!

PS. A poll of the world's greatest irishmen to appear very shortly on this blog. i apologize in advance for it being all male, esp since the best irish writer going right now may be anne enright... simply amazing how many great musicians come from this tiny island, esp if you consider, as i do, john lennon and morrissey -- both of irish-catholic descent -- the greatest "english" musical figures of the '60s and '80s, respectively. 

Photo credit: Flickr user 36 and 37

Gastropubs and Highland Park

The other night i went to the reasonably new "gastropub" in the formerly rundown-- now thriving -- area of los angeles called highland park. an english friend, who i sometimes go pub-hopping with near his home off the hampstead heath, grumbles these days when his beloved victorian watering holes "go gastro," in his words.

but i'm in favor of the trend, partly because english pub food, and most american bar grub, is so ghastly. especially when you outgrow buffalo wings or "crisps" as the brits call them.

the place in highland park, The York, reminded me why the trend is so heartening. it's not as ambitious as the great british gastropubs like the Anchor & Hope on london's south bank (where i had a memorable meal after an '07 tate modern visit). but it not only serves one of the best burgers i know (with harissa and pickled onions no less), hand cut fries, etc, but a very fine shrimp bruschetta, an excellent mixed greens with beets and goat cheese, tasty grilled vegetable sandwich, etc.

of course, a pub is largely about drinks, and here the place comes through quite well. the york is primarily a beer place, but their wines go way beyond the usual unholy trinity of over-oaked chard, flaccid melot and overpriced cab here. there's usually, for instance, a very fine white rhone on the list -- when's the last time you've seen that on a pub menu? -- and that still-underrated red, cabernet franc, by the glass as well.

beer-wise there is too much to get into here... i'll say only that along with delights like stone pale ale and fat tire on draft (and rogue and allagash in bottles) they serve my current favorite: craftsman brewing company's old-school ale, which is cask-poured and the kind of thing you usually have to go to britain to get.

the place also also an excellent historical-reuse design that makes good use of old brick and a vaulted ceiling that was not exposed in the place's former life, with very modern lighting.

from my limited visits, i'd say the york offers the best of several worlds: well-rendered contemporary cuisine that a skinny woman can eat without guilt, decent wine list, wide range of traditional ales, and a warm, friendly neighborhood spirit -- very different than the forced booziness of a sports bar -- that can be very hard to find in this most private of cities. great jukebox too.

(By the way, this picture is not of the york but a place basically under london bridge called Market Porter. it is not, for what it's worth, really a gastropub, but it's across from a great farmers market that has been going, i think, since roman times, and right next to a grilled sausage place that i'll wager is of much more recent vintage.)

Photo credit: SRT