Table Of Content
- Los Angeles Ale Works
- Fire scorches Huntington Park fire station, but no injuries are reported
- Oversight inspectors accuse Sheriff’s Department of retaliation after reports on jail fires
- Canteen Menu
- Location - The Canteen Tap House and Tavern
- Homage Brewing
- Buena Park police officers used excessive force in deadly shooting, jury finds
- The Best Breweries In LA

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. 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. Some lockups facing similar fire problems elsewhere have tried to tackle the issue by getting money for smoke detectors and more robust fire alarm systems.
Los Angeles Ale Works
Modern comfort food, Colorado beer, handcrafted cocktails, world-class wines and superior guest experience.
Fire scorches Huntington Park fire station, but no injuries are reported
When she alerted jailers to the problem, Veral said, they shrugged and told her the inmates were cooking their canteen food and there wasn’t much the guards could do about it. In the decades since Men’s Central Jail opened, inmates have regularly set fires for a variety of reasons. Several former inmates have told The Times that people use fires to cook their food, though sometimes they also use them to heat their water, stay warm or smoke cigarettes and drugs. When Men’s Central Jail opened in 1963, building codes still did not require automatic sprinklers or smoke detectors in any of the housing areas.
Oversight inspectors accuse Sheriff’s Department of retaliation after reports on jail fires
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.

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. 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.
Location - The Canteen Tap House and Tavern
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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. 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. 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. Expect a rotating roster of food trucks in the evening, and a large selection of cans available to-go.
Homage Brewing
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). 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. For years, inmates have been using batteries, razors, toilet paper and other items to set blazes when they want to cook food or heat water. But last summer, oversight inspectors — alarmed by three particularly large fires they’d witnessed — drew attention to the issue in commission reports and public meetings.

In 1921, the former county jail descended into an 18-hour riot after one man started a fire to heat his coffee and jailers responded by placing him in solitary confinement. That unrest helped prompt the construction of another jail; it was eventually condemned in part because the shortage of emergency exits made it a firetrap. Before joining the Los Angeles Times in 2023, she spent nearly seven years in Texas, first covering criminal justice for the Houston Chronicle and then covering prisons for the Marshall Project. Her work has appeared everywhere from the BBC to the New York Daily News, from Vice to the Washington Post Magazine, where her 2019 reporting on women in jail helped earn a National Magazine Award. She is the author of “Corrections in Ink,” a 2022 memoir about her time in prison. The report went on to question why department officials thought “prohibiting the purchase of batteries was the only possible response to the issue of fires,” instead suggesting that officials consider more frequent inspections to determine the source of the fires.
The Best Breweries In LA
Officials are now exploring radio alternatives that do not require batteries, the department said. Afterward, a Times investigation found the problem stretched back several decades and was possible in part because the inmate housing areas in the aging facility have no sprinklers to douse blazes or blaring smoke detectors to prompt jailers to respond. Officials also said the pilot program to allow inmates radio access — something that has been common in jails and prisons across the country for decades — started in 2017 and only expanded to the third floor this year.
Then, in a move Sybil Brand Commission members Eric Miller and Mary Veral told The Times last month was “retaliatory,” jail officials confiscated batteries that high-security inmates in isolation used to listen to their radios. 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. 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.
After that reporting, the prison system more than tripled its spending on fire alarms. Before those installations were completed, further reporting found that several prisoners died in cell fires. This week, a prison spokeswoman confirmed that the state has again bumped up its fire safety spending to more than $13 million in 2024.
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. During an inspection by members of the Sybil Brand Commission in June, Veral said she spotted three large blazes on the second floor of the downtown facility.
Instead, the facility relied on a manually triggered alarm system, trusting the jail staff to spot fires and alert people. Though there have been some upgrades, jail officials previously told The Times that is largely how the system still works today. If you think you took a wrong turn and ended up in a warehouse yard, you’re at the right place.
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. Don’t miss the top-selling Dog Ate My Homework—a purplish, juicy blackberry saison—or Popfuji, a malty, refreshing unfiltered pilsner.