You’ve got to love two young brew masters who are committed to bringing small-batch beer to the market in the most sustainable way possible. Tony Yanow, formerly of the local beer-focused restaurants Tony’s Darts Away and Mohawk Bend, and Meg Gill, a Yale graduate and competitive swimmer who learned the craft at Oskar Blues Brewer, founded Golden Road Brewing in Atwater Village in 2011. Their mission: create new brews made from seasonal ingredients and blend to reflect the identity of distinct L.A. enclaves and the people who live there. Their Golden Road Hefeweizen gives a classic wheat beer a California twist, with flavorful notes of dried, locally grown organic citrus, along with hints of banana and clove. Their Either Side of the Hill brew blends a double India Pale Ale and a malty barley wine, resulting in a libation they hope appeals to patrons in both Northeast L.A. (where the brewery sits next to train tracks and factories) and the San Fernando Valley, on the other side of the hill.
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And after much-heated debate and research, the brewers decided on serving their gourmet beers in cans instead of glass bottles, realizing that because of the lighter weight and convenient shape of cans, the cans could fit on a shipping truck at one time and use less fuel. Meanwhile, Golden Road isn’t just a brewery and a shop where you can pick up an ice-cold six pack, it’s also a pub where even parents can feel comfortable hanging out with the kids and sampling the local but ambitiously world-class blends and delicious chef-made foods.
