Many beer drinkers have been looking ahead for some time now. Looking ahead to sitting inside taprooms, looking ahead to festivals, looking ahead to brewery tours. Basically looking away from the now.

Now, you may think I want Los Angeles beer fans to live each day as it comes or as professional athletes say, “one game at a time,” but now is the time to look at what new breweries may look like in the future from the standpoint of architectural design.

The big-ticket item that leaps to mind is larger outdoor spaces. Parking lots and streets have been re-purposed as dining areas, but maybe we will see more roll-up doors and retractable roofs in future taprooms.

Item number two for breweries in planning might be take-out windows. You see temporary versions of that with coffee shops and eateries that use their front doors as modified counters.

Drive-thru lanes might seem far-fetched, but creating a safe buffer and keeping people inside their cars’s bubbles might need to be an option. It could also be flipped into additional outdoor seating since breweries may already have extra chairs.

Perhaps bar seating will be sacrificed to create a better flow and as space for more table dining that waitstaff can service. You will probably see fewer TVs in use since those have been drawn into the regulatory crosshairs as well.

Fallout from the pandemic will mean that the building a brewery chooses to be in will need to not only be good for brewing, but also flexible for seating and customer flow.

Is there such a thing as too many wishes? Not if you are Smog City Brewing. They have Infinite Wishes. Today marks the halfway point of their Infinite Wishes barrel-aged Imperial Stout release. Special variants may not be available when you read this, but since Smog City has many locations across the Southland, you may find some outside of their Torrance home. Check Bixby Knolls or Glendora.

I have one more beer to talk about before closing up shop for March. The flagship beer of an early Los Angeles brewery is back. If you shouted Solidarity from Eagle Rock Brewery, give yourself a pat on the back. This is a perfect St. Patrick’s Day option. Luxurious maltiness is the best way to describe this iconic L.A. beer.