L.A.'s Craft Beer Revolution Has Golden State's Jason Bernstein Raising His Pint Glass

On Feb. 21, a polite yet serpentine line spilled out the doors of the Surly Goat onto Santa Monica Boulevard, as people queued up for the opportunity to sip Russian River's Pliny the Younger Triple IPA.

PHOTO BY TED SOQUI

The craft beer movement has taken L.A. by storm, and it hasn't peaked yet, says Jason Bernstein.

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Golden State Cafe

426 N. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Category: Restaurant > Italian

Region: Melrose/ Beverly/ Fairfax

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If successful, they would all tell the tale that they were there, and they partook. Pliny the Younger is currently the No. 1 beer in the world on BeerAdvocate, and its release every February ignites a fever among the craft beer community. In the weeks following, you often overhear: "Did you get it?" "Did you try it?" "I didn't have it this year, but had it last year." Or, more commonly from those at the end of lines, "Was it worth it?"

The "it" in question is a rich, resinous triple IPA with a gilded aroma of mango and melon and a long, clean, spicy finish, its beguiling aroma almost completely occluding the 10.5 percent alcohol content. A mere handful of kegs were delivered to Los Angeles, and every single one sold out within hours of being tapped.

The craft beer community needs Pliny the Younger. It needs Black Tuesday or Dark Lord or any number of limited releases, in the same way the wine community needs the 85 DRC Romanee Conti and the Beanie Baby community needs Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant. They represent a kind of brass ring, as well as underscore tangible galvanization of a community with shared aesthetic ideals.

To the uninitiated, waiting in line two hours for a glass of strong bitter beer seems as absurd as paying $171,000 for a case of red wine, or a $4,500 stuffed blue elephant. But for those in the know, it's part and parcel of the membership itself.

Some have pointed to "extreme beer mania" as a bellwether for the craft beer revolution. Ultimately, though, these oddball rare beers are aimed at the already die-hard section of the craft-beer community. The password isn't "swordfish"; it's a bottle of Kate the Great, and its members are already demarcated — they're the folks standing in line next to you at the Surly Goat.

The heart of the revolution is somewhere else.

Los Angeles is in the middle of an evolution that isn't marked by an extension of the extreme, but rather a shift in the mean. Simply stated, we Angelenos have access to, and are drinking, better beer.

It wasn't always like that.

When I moved back home to Los Angeles from the Bay Area in 2000, I immediately realized that one of the aspects I had taken for granted up north was the entrenched beer culture. San Francisco had no special pipeline to good beer; its residents simply prioritized the stuff — in much the way that shoppers at farmers market prioritize good vegetables.

San Francisco had this kind of relationship to its beer in 2000; L.A. did not. Back then, there were a few craft beer destinations in L.A. — Father's Office, Lucky Baldwins and Stuffed Sandwich come to mind — but they constituted a kind of destination, a schlep. And if you were talking about good beer in L.A. in 2000, you were more than likely referring to something foreign, likely German or Belgian, not necessarily for elitist reasons but because these countries had tradition on their side.

Twelve years later, there has been a precipitous shift in our food environment. We Angelenos want to know the pedigree of our food, and we realize many of the world's finest ingredients are from California. Localism is now a compelling motivation.

As such, America's brewers have stepped up their game. We can't compete using terms like "tradition" and "refinement" — we don't have 500 years of brewing tradition on our side. But we do make the most dynamic and exciting beers in the world by melding classic brewing techniques with local and innovative ingredients. And the fact that your beer hasn't traveled 8,000 miles means it's fresher.

But the movement would still be fundamentally meaningless, or at least stifled, if these excellent beers went unappreciated.

American craft brewers start out financially disadvantaged (because they're usually startups built from passion) and communicatively disadvantaged (because they lack the massive marketing budgets of brewing juggernauts). What's required is a bottom-up groundswell of interest, as opposed to the top-down imposition that mass media affords. Think of a KCRW indie band versus anything on KIIS FM.

Since localism has become such an important factor in our decision making, Southern California microbreweries have become hometown heroes. Local breweries such as Craftsman, the Bruery, TAPS and Eagle Rock Brewery aren't just making some of the best beer out there; they're doing it in our own backyard.

After a steady rise for the last two decades, craft beers have seen an exponential increase in the last five years. It is tempting to invoke terms like "critical mass" and "tipping point," but I believe those terms ignore the most important influence on the recent surge in craft beer: the economy.

Since 2008, even as our economy has struggled, craft beer has become far more pervasive in Los Angeles. During these tough economic times, people aren't drinking quality beer because it's beer. They are drinking it because it's quality. Craft beer represents a kind of egalitarian connoisseurship that is rare.