ColLAboration, Not Competition 

Are You Ready for a Pop-Up Beer Garden?

It may be natural to assume that publicans from different bars or alehouses in a neighborhood, or even an entire city, would be rivals –– if not fierce competitors or downright enemies. After all, that’s the way a lot of owners of retail outlets and restaurants tend to behave. But this is L.A., and we do things differently here, especially in the craft beer community.

Granted, Los Angeles may have been late to the Good Beer Party, but we have finally arrived, thank you very much. And we’ve learned from our predecessors’ missteps and mistakes. As the old adage goes, the early bird may get the worm –– but it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.

So it should come as no surprise to learn that four of L.A.’s more prominent and proactive craft beer bar owners –– Clay Harding (38º Ale House), Brian Lenzo (Blue Palms Brew House) Ryan Sweeney (Surly Goat and Verdugo Bar) and Tony Yanow (Tony’s Darts Away and the forthcoming Mohawk Bend), who are all friends by the way –– decided to get together on a project to channel their shared passion by further nurturing the city’s beer scene.

ColLAboration coincides with the first anniversary of Tony’s Darts Away in Burbank. Pictured behind the bar at Tony’s are owner Tony Yanow, right, with TDA staffers Sandra Vasquez, left, general manager Paige Reilly and Anthony Pecos. Photo by Tomm Carroll

Dubbed “ColLAboration,” their brew-based brainchild is not another beer festival (L.A. now has no shortage of those), but a series of one-day outdoor beer gardens that will materialize at locations all over this sprawling megalopolis on roughly a monthly basis, and will serve the same fine, local Californian artisanal ales that you can find at each of their bistros –– only out in the (usually) sunny and warm Southland weather.

The inaugural beer garden is scheduled to pop up Saturday, April 9, from noon to 7:00 p.m. in the parking lot of the Burbank City Credit Union, at the intersection of Magnolia Boulevard and Parish Place in Burbank, a block from Tony’s Darts Away (fitting, as it also marks TDA’s first anniversary).

Saturday, April 9th, 2011 12pm – 7pm


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Admission is $10 for a large ColLAboration drinking glass that will get you into all subsequent events. The glasses will be available for purchase at the site, or from the affiliated bars. Generous pours of beers will then cost $5 to $6 each. Local restaurants will provide the food. As of press time, no other ColLAboration sites or dates were announced.

Tomm Carroll is the Los Angeles correspondent for the Celebrator, the country’s oldest “brewspaper,” and thinks the publication should now be spelled “CeLAbrator” to reflect the city’s exploding craft beer scene. He can be reached at beerscribe@earthlink.net.