Excellent Bars/Microbreweries in OC

[TheEremite]

Good to see so many Beachwood fans on here. Keep an eye out for their new location too. They'll be brewing their own beer soon!

[ltcairborne]

Originally Posted by kevmo

IMHO Beachwood BBQ in Seal Beach is hands down the best beer bar in OC. The new Bruery provisions store is Orange is also great when you can't get to the Bruery on the weekend.

Someone mentioned Alcatraz - I agree that it's become better in recent months. Tustin Brewery is also doing much better than before.

I have been there and the atmosphere is great. The people are nice and it is within walking distance to the pier.

[TheQuaz]

San Clemente has four bars in crawling distance of each other. If that is your thing. Oles, Dukes, red fox, and another one, That I'm forgetting the name of at the moment. If you like to stay a little more up class( but not much) Try OC tavern. Great place to watch all the games from.

[ocluke]

SideDoor in Coronal Del Mar is a gastropub that has a constantly rotating tap list of some fairly eclectic beers. They also have a good bottle list. Yes, nothing beats Beachwood's tap list in Orange County, but this is a decent spot, and the best of its kind in this particular area.

They are located on the "side door" of Five Crowns Restaurant.

SideDoor
3801 East Coast Highway
Corona Del Mar, CA 92625-2501
(949) 717-4322

[ocluke]

Hollingshead's in Orange is sort a strange mix of a beer store and a beer bar. They get some very eclectic beers on tap there because of their long-standing relationships with distributors and microbreweries. They almost always have 1 or 2 Russian River beers on tap. They also have some snacks and food. Their bottle selection is good. It tends to run a little bit higher in terms of price than Hi-Time Wine Cellars in Costa Mesa, and not all of their bottle beers are refrigerated.

368 S. MAIN ST.
ORANGE, CA
(714) 978-9467

From their website:
Hollingshead’s Delicatessen is a family business open since 1963. We proudly offer more than 500 types of bottled beer. We also proudly feature 21 beers on tap each day.

[ocluke]

With all of the hype it has received, I'm sort of surprised nobody has posted about Haven Gastropub at the Orange Circle yet. I've only been there one time. The good: they were open late, and few gastropubs or beer bars are around these parts. The bad: they closed half an hour early because they didn't have enough business that particular night, and I find that to be bad business practice. Customers want to know they can go somewhere during their business hours, even if things are slow. I drove 20 minutes to get there and I wanted some time to enjoy my beer (which I brought myself) with some of their food.

In my experience the food was decent, but overpriced and the portion sizes were not much to speak of. I brought in some of my own eclectic beers to sample and share with the staff. Good thing, because I didn't find their tap list to be that impressive. I found a $15 corkage fee on my bill for the beer. That wouldn't normally bother me a normal restaurant, but being that it's a beer establishment and that several employees tried the beer, it was a little bothersome. Beachwood BBQ will not charge corkage, and any other restaurant in which the employees are sharing your beverage shouldn't charge a corkage, but that might just be my take on things. It also seems that, unlike wine establishments, beer bar culture seems to be more of a sharing environment and it is not as common to charge corkage fees.

Haven Gastropub
190 S. Glassell Street
Orange, CA 92866
(714) 221-0680