Steingarten LA

Top Hops: Best 5 New Craft Beer Bars of 2011

By Daniel Drennon

Keith Underwood

The Many Colors of Craft Beer

​Over the past few years, sales of mass-produced beer (Bud, Miller, Coors and the like) are down along with housing, investments and other barometers of economic growth. Guess what is not down? Craft breweries. Craft beer bars. Craft beer sales.
According to the Brewers Association, which represents the artists who brew innovative and exceptionally drinkable beer, craft beer sales went up 11 percent in 2010 and were up 14 percent in the first six months of 2011. Conversely, mass brewers are losing sales (silent applause OK here). Droves of (good) beer fans are supporting new beer bars in numbers that have bar owners expanding into second and even third locations within years of opening the first. Plus, seemingly every new restaurant that opens must offer 24 or more tap handles of craft beer.
“It’s an artistic movement,” says Tony Yanow, who this summer opened Mohawk Bend in Echo Park. Yes, great craft brewers are a form of art. Here are the top five new beer bars of 2011, in alphabetical order.

Steingarten L.A., West Los Angeles
David Watrous, aka the Gueuze Hound and a self-described “beer evangelist,” has created 20 taps of rotating excellence and a bottle list that is even better. Watrous has forgotten more about sours, lambics and gueuzes than we know. Hence, if your beer preferences lean in that direction, Steingarten should be your new home away from home. If they lean more toward California craft, he has you covered there as well. Steingarten has frequent beer event nights with brewers. We especially recommend the happy hour, 4-7 p.m. weeknights. The food, which focuses on sausages and burgers, is excellent. The interior bar and restaurant are warm and welcoming. And the outdoor patio in the back is an escape from the hustle and bustle (read: traffic) of the Pico corridor. 10543 W. Pico Blvd., W.L.A.