LAGuide

The Best Breweries In LA

Where to go for West Coast IPAs, Belgian ales, and a good time drinking next to steel tanks.
The Best Breweries In LA image

photo credit: Frogtown Brewery

LA's massive craft beer wave of the 2010s has long subsided, but there are still plenty of great places to drink a local pint. But hanging out in an LA brewery means more than just drinking good beer—it's about having a good time, too. From tiny tap rooms in the South Bay to sprawling warehouses in DTLA filled with games and dance floors, these are the 15 best breweries in LA.

THE SPOTS

photo credit: Marie Buck

Brewery

Lincoln Heights

$$$$Perfect For:Outdoor SeatingDrinking Good BeerDay DrinkingOutdoor/Patio Situation
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Equal parts brewery, cider house, and beer garden, this Lincoln Heights spot is the perfect place for your crew to gather around a fire pit, order flights of Mexican lagers, farmhouse ales, and Basque-style ciders, and contemplate taking an axe-throwing class together. The giant patio is filled with wooden benches, tree stumps, and metal structures, achieving something that feels like a grown-up summer camp where people overuse the word "dude." Plus, food pop-ups operate most nights.

Three Weavers is located in the middle of an industrial neighborhood right behind Randy’s Donuts in Inglewood. It’s a big taproom that’s ideal for large groups: we like to come in with a build-your-own picnic and post up for the day at one of their tables. You might recognize the Expatriate IPA from any decent bar or restaurant tap list in town, but there’s a lot more to like than that—the Cambodian Cowboy imperial stout is boozy, chocolatey, and made with actual Cambodian coffee, and the Dark & Jammy is a great sour ale.

Homage Brewing is for people who love good beer but also want to dance. There’s a pleasant patio out front where you might spot a couple of toddlers with their tattooed parents. But the real scene is inside the garage, which has a long bar, a disco ball, and (on weekends) a DJ spinning vinyl. Most people come here to sip housemade IPAs and snack on masa-battered chicken wings during the day, but on Friday and Saturday nights, the dance floor is packed until 1am. Head there the next time you’re looking for a place to drink dry-hopped saisons and meet someone with a color-coordinated tote bag.

This all-Belgian brewery in Torrance was one of the first places on the West Coast to kick off the hazy/juicy IPA craze, with every brewery from here to Seattle following suit. And while the lines for their fantastic limited-release beers aren't as long as they used to be (no more camping overnight), their barebone industrial taproom with a dog- and kid-friendly patio is still a pleasant place to hang out with a small-batch IPA or Belgian tripel. Expect a rotating roster of food trucks in the evening, and a large selection of cans available to-go.

If you think you took a wrong turn and ended up in a warehouse yard, you’re at the right place. Boomtown Brewing is the most fun thing happening on this extra-industrial block of the Arts District, and somewhere you can fit a lot of people on a weekend afternoon. Between an alleyway and two giant warehouses, there’s plenty of seating. Expect nearly 20 beers on the menu including crisp rice lagers, fruity sours, and a tasty California IPA humorously called the Nose Job. You’ll also usually find some kind of entertainment happening at any given time, from ping pong to pool to the occasional live DJ set.

Paperback Brewing has very good beer, especially if you’re a hazy IPA connoisseur, but the biggest reason we love this Glendale brewery is its space. Located in an old 1940s-era airplane hangar, drinking at Paperback feels like you’re in line for Soarin’ Around The World at California Adventure, except the only ride here is sitting and relaxing for a few hours. Even during peak weekend hours, you’ll always be able to find an open table, and when you get hungry, you’ll find a food truck or two parked out front. 

Hold up, there’s a British-style brewery in Van Nuys? And it’s amazing? Yes and yes. This indoor-outdoor taproom in an industrial section of the Valley is less "dark and cozy pub" and more "low-key loading dock with brewing equipment" but we love that there are lots of tables, lots of dart boards, and a welcoming crowd of locals. The beers here are brewed and poured in cask, which means robust flavors and little-to-no carbonation (it's a little odd to get used to, but quite tasty). For food options, expect a rotating cast of food trucks.

Originally from Georgia, Creature Comforts is a Downtown brewery in the same complex as Rossoblu and Dama. The industrial space has a large interior with plenty of TVs, plus a giant wrap-around front patio ideal for getting a little red on a Saturday afternoon. They’ve got around 12 different beers on tap ranging from Belgian-style pilsners to a sour ale, but we tend to go for the Bigger Dreams, a hazy IPA with heavy notes of tangerine and grapefruit. If you’re looking for a quick drink before dinner, Creature Comforts is a great low-key option. 

Open since late 2023, Solarc is one of the newer breweries in LA—and one of the most unique, too. Rather than a typical line-up of IPAs and lagers, this Glassell Park brewery specializes in gruit, a medieval style of beer made with bittering agents other than hops. At Solarc, that means beer flavored with things like wormwood, black tea, and turmeric, and fermented with wild yeasts collected around Los Angeles. The whole operation is bordering on being a Portlandia sketch, but there’s no denying that hanging for a few hours in their quirky, colorful space (the walls are literally covered in aluminum foil) is a great way to spend a Sunday. 

There are plenty of sprawling warehouse breweries in LA, but Browuerji West in San Pedro beats them all in square footage. This brewery on the docks of Port of LA occupies a WWII-era naval warehouse so large it could host a regulation flag football game. Aside from the huge indoor taproom, there’s a big outdoor courtyard with food trucks and live music on weekends, and a marketplace selling local crafts across the street. As impressive as the space is, the beer is even better. Don’t miss the top-selling Dog Ate My Homework—a purplish, juicy blackberry saison—or Popfuji, a malty, refreshing unfiltered pilsner.

All Season Brewing in Mid-Wilshire is geographically central, making it an easy place to bring together people who live on opposite sides of the city. Which might also explain why this place is perpetually packed. Housed in a former car service station, All Season has indoor and outdoor seating, a row of skeeball machines, and a Chicas Taco window out back, so you don’t have to wander far for food. We also like that the short menu of draft beers is big on IPAs, including the citrusy Figure 8 that you can order by the pitcher. 

One of the smallest breweries on this guide, Frogtown feels a bit like you’re hanging out in your friend’s garage, except there’s an industrial brewing set-up instead of an unused homebrew kit. The Lites Out pilsner is ideal if you’re there in the daytime (it’s only 4.1% ABV), but there's also a good selection of hazy and milkshake IPAs if you want to kick things up a bit in the evening. There's usually a food truck on-site most evenings, but you can also bring in food—on weekend afternoons our move is to walk over to Wax Paper right up the block for a post-pilsner sandwich.

If you’ve spent much time in the South Bay, you’ve probably driven past LA Ale Works' taproom in Hawthorne, a few blocks from SpaceX (and right across the street from another solid brewery, Common Space). Ale Works is a good spot to host a party when you don't know how many people will show up. The massive warehouse tends to be full of 30-somethings gathered to discuss cryptocurrency or watch sports, and there's a great collection of IPAs, lagers, stouts, and sours to carry everyone through the night. There’s no food inside, but there’s usually vendors selling pizza, tacos, and burgers out front. When it’s warm,  take advantage of outdoor picnic tables spread across the astroturf lawn. They also have a smaller tasting room in Culver City right next to the metro.

Though HPB is technically no longer in Highland Park, their warehouse-y Chinatown space is twice the size as the original, with plenty of tables for big groups, a dog-friendly front patio facing the park, and a wraparound bar with lots of taps inside. There's a solid menu of bar snacks menu with things like burgers and wings to fish sandwiches and kimchi, all way better than they need to be. And yes, the beer is still fantastic. This is where you should be drinking hoppy pilsners before a Dodgers game.

Sure, you can find Ballast Point IPAs at any grocery store these days—and the atmosphere at their harborside brewpub can sometimes feel like a tailgate party—but once you walk upstairs to their dockside patio, none of that matters. With panoramic views of the Long Beach shoreline, this is what drinking beer in California is all about. There’s more than enough room to spread out, drink one of the 30-plus options on tap, and claim your very own fire pit. The food is what you’d expect on a brewery menu: burgers, fish tacos, and flatbreads. Everything is solid and once you lay eyes on the Pacific off in the distance, you’ll probably forget what you ordered anyway.

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