If you have visited Simmzy’s Burbank location, you will have noticed a “Pardon Our Dust” sign and and a roped off area as you enter the restaurant. Soon that space will be filled with fermenters and brite tanks that will be connected to the brewhouse that sits one floor up when Simmzy’s begins brewing.

Greg Bechtel and Brian Herbertson have been preparing the stage for the first actual “house” beers to be brewed for the chain that stretches across the Southland. Plans are for five house beers to be brewed and distributed from Burbank to beach locations in Long Beach, Huntington Beach, Manhattan Beach and El Segundo from the studio adjacent brewery where Olive and Alameda cross.

And as opposed to a brewery that has free rein to brew, the focus at Simmzy’s will be more toward the sessionable with a heavy lean towards pairing with the already well-established menu that fans of the restaurant have come to enjoy.

The brewing set-up is quite unique as they have had to carve out space from both the upstairs and the downstairs to accommodate necessary equipment. A Premier Stainless brewing system and a new grist mill sit upstairs with a view of the mountains in the distance. The beer will then flow under foot via tube to where it will ferment and be prepped for kegs. Then it will be rolled a mere few feet and be tapped.

If you love the smell of brewing and love super fresh beer, then late April or early May, you will want to head over to Burbank to see what new beers are being presented.

The BEER OF THE WEEK is a little orange, chocolate and vanilla all in one. $1 from each bottle produced will be donated to Food Forward, a charity that rescues fruit that is in abundance and gets it to people in need. The beer is the third in the Share This series from The Bruery and it is dosed with orange zest, TCHO cacao nibs and vanilla beans on top of a simple base of an Imperial Stout to create a really luxurious beer. If you love vanilla and chocolate, this beer will hit the target without being overly sweet.

Your HOMEWORK is to visit local breweries and craft beer establishments when you travel throughout the Golden State. With the recent announcements that Golden Road will be building (with SABInBev cash) locations in both Oakland and Sacramento, it is even more imperative to open your wallets to those who truly call those cities home. For Sacramento a great resource is BeersInSac and to navigate Oakland, RateBeer has a nice map of the area to explore.

Find more of Sean Inman’s writing on his blog, Beer Search Party.