The Scenic Route: #68.2 Rock Bottom Brewery, Long Beach

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Nick, clearly, isn’t the only slacker here. Have I really only posted on this blog once? Shoot… Well, in my defense I spent a lot of my time working on my food justice blog, but now that that class is over I suppose it's time I give our blog some love.

This past weekend Nick and I were in Long Beach and decided to avoid the Chocolate Festival on 2^nd Street, and instead, visit the Long Beach Museum of Art. It’s on Ocean Blvd., so as you can imagine, it has a phenomenal view. The current exhibit is called, “Influential Element- Exploring the Impact of Water”. My personal favorites were the color pencil and solvent works of Elizabeth Patterson, along with Claire Falkenstein’s sculptures. I definitely recommend visiting the LBMA if you are in town, where you will find magnificent works of art along with a gorgeous view of the ocean.

Anywho… once we were done at the museum, I remembered that Long Beach has two breweries, and since Nick is the beer connoisseur that he is, I figured that I should introduce him to my hometown’s brew. Since I failed at directing Nick to the Belmont Brewery (my 1^st choice), we ended up at the Rock Bottom Brewery. Located in the “Pike” and facing the ocean, is this restaurant and brewery that I haven’t been to since I ordered from a menu I could play tic-tac-toe on. Although it’s no Stone, we still had some tasty brews and a great time. Nick enjoyed two beers-the Oxidizer Double IPA and the Black Bull Imperial Russian Stout- in the amount of time it took me to drink my Cyclone (a really, really good white wheat beer for those who are intimidated by the idea of being responsible for consuming an entire "dark" beer on their own.)

I'm going to leave it to the brewers at Rock Bottom to tell you about their unique brewing process, which you can read all about HERE.

As we enjoyed our beers at the bar, we watched my SMC basketball team WHOOP LMU adding a + to our afternoon. Oh! And we were also invited to become members of the Rock Bottom Mug Club. :)

Art + locally made beer + Sgt. Pepper's dueling piano bar (my absolute favorite bar- where we went after the brewery and had a "sing-along clap-along drink-along good time"* with my parents) = one hell-of-a day in Long Beach.