The Beer Company

Making something from scratch is even more satisfying when made in a place built from scratch -- though if you speak jive, that could technically be pretty much anywhere. For homemade beer from a homemade home, check out The Beer Company.

From a dude whose first sudsy effort (Huntington Beach Beer Company) was just built into an existing brewery, TBC's a brewtastic palace he's actually built himself: a dark hardwood griller with an upper-deck, couched lounge and huge elliptical bar, all fronted by a glassed-in micro-brewery where you can see the CO2 bubbling up from fermentation -- it's ok, that design aspect is totally considered a compliment in Japan! The monstrous, granite-topped bar houses a full complement of liquors, and 68 solid-copper taps which'll soon be spouting 12 guest locals and eight house-brews; four are still fermenting (including soon-to-come-but-super-top-secret "Broadway Brown" & "Pariah Pale"), but currently a-pourin' varietals include the 5.5% ABV hef "6th Street Wheat", and the 4% "San Diego Blonde", which the hef will pair well with until it finds a younger, blonder beer. The current, soft-opening menu (soon to be vastly expanded upon) ranges from the blue cheese/bacon/avocado California Burger, to the chicken/mushrooms/onions/artichokes Garlic Ranch Pizza, to a chicken fettucini dish in a corn/peppers/almonds spicy cream sauce called the the Southwestern Caliente, also the name of a Univision sitcom set in an Applebee's.

To keep you contented, they're running a 3-7PM Mon-Sat happy hour with $3 house brews/wines/wells & food specials, and the same deals 10PM-1AM on Sun-Thurs, which they're calling "reverse happy hour" -- because a "sad hour" just sounds like a bunch of nonsense.