Our Southern California Trip Report

[Chris of thebeergeek.com]

The last couple of years, we have been adding breweries to the List at a fairly quick pace. During the Year in Beer, we reached 400 and in 2009, the 500 brewery milestone was ours. When we started thinking about 2010 goals, the 600 brewery milestone seemed like something realistic to shoot for.
We took the opportunity of the three-day MLK weekend to get started on our 600 brewery quest. Our destination was Southern California, an area we have neglected for years.

During our long weekend in Southern California, Chris added nine breweries and Merideth added ten. Merideth is now only one brewery behind Chris 535 to 534. 600 here we come!

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A Lady to the Rescue

Driving five hours for a beer; that is how our Southern California beer journey began.

With our goal of reaching 600 breweries in 2010, we needed to get busy. The three-day MLK weekend was a perfect opportunity to make a dent in the needed 76 breweries. But where to go? My first thought was Southern California, an area we haven’t done much beer traveling. Quite out of character, I waffled on this plan up until a few days prior to leaving. No offense to our SoCal friends, but the thought of spending the three-day weekend driving around the Greater LA area just didn’t appeal to me. But no alternative plan emerged that garnered the same number of breweries for the List. So on Friday evening, I picked Merideth up from work and we started the five hour drive to Ladyface Ale House & Brasserie in Agoura Hills...

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http://www.thebeergeek.com/blog/?p=1633

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Southern California Megalopolis Brew Tour Part I

Saturday morning we were back on Hwy 101 heading southeast. This was our big day of the trip, with several breweries and a sandwich shop on our itinerary. After successfully negotiating the Saturday morning traffic around downtown LA, we got on I-10 east to San Gabriel.For years, I have seen adverts in the Celebrator for Stuffed Sandwich and thought to myself that we needed to get there...

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http://www.thebeergeek.com/blog/?p=1652

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Southern California Megalopolis Brew Tour Part II

We must be getting older because Saturday’s activities took a bit out of us. And I don’t think waking up in the Inland Empire helped. After overcoming the morning fogginess and grogginess, we were back on the road headed west. Luckily we had an easier day of beer travel on Sunday.There was no way we could drive all the way to Southern California without visiting The Bruery in Placentia...

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http://www.thebeergeek.com/blog/?p=1711

[Chris of thebeergeek.com]

Yes... it is good to see LA finally join the rest of California. After years of avoiding Southern California, I strangely have this urge to go back.

Merideth tried one of the Strand beers at Naja's. Not sure which one...

[Ray Grace]

Glad to see you had a good time in the LA area. The area has been way behind the rest of the state when it comes to good beer, thankfully that seems to be changing with places like the Bruery and Bootleggers. I'm looking forward to trying beers from some brand new places in the area like Eagle Rock Brewing and the Strand in Torrance. The next time you find yourselves in LA, you have to try my favorite place Beachwood BBQ in Seal Beach, awesome food, awesome people, and of course an awesome beer list.

Cheers.