Let me start this week’s post with a disclaimer. Yes, it took me until September of 2017 to finally visit Smog City Brewing‘s second location at SteelCraft in Long Beach. I can offer no excuses, but I did make the most of my pre-Oktoberfest visit. Not only did I sample two widely divergent beers from the Torrance-based brewery, but I also had pizza, waffles and coffee.

For those who still have not made the journey south, SteelCraft Long Beach is a collection of shipping containers that have been re-purposed into food and drinks booths and artfully assembled with shaded seating. You can order pizza and have a Death by Hops Triple IPA or ramen and Little Bo Pils. Or perhaps have sour beer and the Sunshine Waffle with lemon curds and raspberry.

Parking and seating are ample and the space’s layout makes for opportunities to see what everyone else is ordering and the mix of restaurants will please those with adventurous palates and those that like things simple or just want dessert.

In Los Angeles, we are used to having a food truck parked at a brewery, but SteelCraft is the reverse. Food surrounds the beer and it makes for a great opportunity to see how different flavors mesh and intersect with the variety of beers that Smog City produces. You could even compare coffee with the coffee porter if you wanted to take a really deep dive.

If you need a little extra push to get you there, Oktoberfest celebrations will bring some new beers and a lederhosen vibe to the space.

Your BEER OF THE WEEK is against the law. Unjust Incarceration is at base a Baltic Porter, a rarely seen style that pops up here and there. This new MacLeod Ales beer has been aging for six months in Four Roses and Buffalo Trace bourbon barrels. They’ll release this beer on Saturday, September 30. Check out the LINK to see if any pre-order bottles are still available.

Your HOMEWORK is to keep track of the R&D beers coming from the Venice adjacent Firestone Walker – Propagator. If you visited the Washington & Lincoln location, you would have seen a beer named Pilot W-1. That beer was the starting point for the third in the Leo V Ursus series, Inferos. You also could have caught a Fresh Hop Ale, rare on draft in these parts since we are not near hop fields or a Single Hop Pale powered by the Ella hop varietal.

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