Gabe Gordon and Lena Perelman opened Beachwood BBQ in Seal Beach in 2006, with customers lined up out the door for amazing barbecue and rotating craft-beer selection. Then they teamed up with home brewer Julian Shrago to brew their own delicious suds and launched Beachwood BBQ and Brewing in Long Beach in July 2011. Beachwood Blendery followed in 2014, concentrating on small-batch and Lambic-style beers. And when Beach City Brewing closed in 2016, the husband-and-wife team took over the location, expanding production to keep up with the growing popularity of Beachwood’s award-winning craft beer.
Getting to the Huntington Beach tap room requires a GPS, but it’s worth it! Open Thursday through Sunday, this location of one of SoCal’s premier breweries hosts occasional food trucks in its industrial-park lot, but you’re also welcome to bring your own eats to this pooch-friendly spot.
With so many choices on the beer menu, we opted for a flight of tasters. The Kit & Canoodle Imperial Raspberry Chocolate Stout (10 percent ABV) caught my eye right away. It’s reminiscent of chocolate thumbprint cookies with raspberry jam, but with coffee notes and a brilliant clean finish. At 5.9 percent ABV, Udder Love Milk Stout is an award-winning masterpiece. British Maris Otter malt and three different roasted malts meld together to enhance bittersweet flavors of creamy chocolate. And the double-hopped Citraholic West Coast IPA (7.1 percent ABV) combines Citra, Warrior, Columbus and Simcoe hops with American 2-Row and light British caramel malts. Cheers!
Beachwood Brewing Tap Room, 7631 Woodwind Dr., Huntington Beach, (714) 375-0949; beachwoodbbq.com.
