ColLAboration Comes to Hollywood

ColLAboration, the mobile craft beer garden from the folks behind Tony’s Darts Away, Verdugo Bar/Surly Goat, Blue Palms and 38 Degree Ale House, that I enjoyed so much last month in Burbank is coming back. This time the frothy and hoppy party is popping-up in Hollywood on Saturday, June 4th at the corner of Gower and Hollywood, from noon til 7 p.m.

Just like before you can purchase a glass, which is your admission ticket, for $10 online. If you attended the first event I hope you kept your glass, as it will get you in to the next one as well. The Hollywood ColLAboration beer garden will feature dozens of craft beers, including favorites from breweries such as Russian River, Craftsman, Green Flash, Moylan’s, Avery, Alesmith, New Belgium, Dogfish Head, Port/Los Abbey, Eagle Rock, Sierra Nevada, and more legit joints than I can fit in this blogpost. Each beer will be priced at $5-6 per glassful.

As if the June 4th event is not enough to quench your thirst for craft beer, for the entire month of July, COLLAB will be held every Friday (4 p.m. to 9 p.m) and Saturday (noon to 9 p.m.) on the Sunset Strip right across from the Roxy Theater. Just like the Hollywood edition, these Sunset Strip COLLABs will venture beyond California to include great craft brews from a broader area. Sometimes you just gotta cross state lines.

ColLAboration: 6124 Hollywood Blvd. at the corner of Gower and Hollywood. Saturday June 4th from 12 Noon – 7 pm. More information and glasses for purchase can be found at http://www.collaboration.la/

Coverage of the first ColLAboration here.

Note: Edited to reflect that beers are from California + other states at the Hollywood edition.

ColLAboration: A Pop Up Craft Beer Garden

Saturday's ColLAboration event combined two trends of the Los Angeles food and drink scene: pop-up restaurants and craft beer.  The event was a collaboration between four of the leading members of Los Angeles's craft beer scene: Ryan Sweeney of Eagle Rock's Verdugo Bar and West Hollywood's The Surly Goat, Brian Lenzo of Blue Palms Brewhouse in Hollywood, Clay Harding of Alhambra's 38 Degrees Ale House and Tony Yanow of Tony's Darts Away in Burbank and the soon to open Mohawk Bend in Echo Park.

The event celebrated the 1 Year Anniversary of Tony's Darts Away and was the first in a planned series of pop-up beer gardens.  The inaugural event was held in a parking lot in Burbank, a block away from Tony's.  Tickets were sold in advance online or at any of the participating bars.  Your ticket came in the form of a glass and cost $10 per person.  Beers were either $6 or 4 for $20, via an efficient token system.

ColLAboration was by far the smoothest run food or drink festival I have ever been to.  Tickets sold out in advance, although a limited number were available on-site the day of.  They deliberately avoided selling too many tickets, so that attendees could get beer with minimal lines.  If you had purchased your ticket in advance there was no line to get in and most of the afternoon the lines for beer were nonexistent to two minutes with the exception of when a rare beer was announced over the speakers and a ten minute queue developed.

They provided ample bathrooms (port a potties) and even had a fenced in "smokers pen" for the cigarette fiends in the crowd.  No lines, a genial crowd, fair prices - what's not to like?  They even arranged for several local restaurants to deliver to the event, so people could get food to wash down their beer.  Tony's was also selling food on-site in the form of folks wearing hot delivery cases, ballpark style, walking through the crowd selling their vegan treats.

Sweeney (above) had told me about a Sierra Nevada Dubbel, called Oliva, which he thought I would like.  A couple hours later I was the first person at the event to get a glass of the elixir, which was even better than I had hoped.  I didn't know that Sierra Nevada made any Belgian style beers.  Their stock went up a lot with me.  I ran into several of LA's beer aficionado crew, including Jimmy Han of the soon to open Beer Belly,  HC of L.A. and O.C. Foodventures, Chris Day of Sotto, Steve Armstrong of ShangriLA Food Blog and Brand X, among others.  Unfortunately I left before Josh of FoodGPS and Esther of E*StarLA arrived.

There will be several more pop-up ColLAboration beer gardens this summer and I am looking forward to attending as many as I can.  If you went this past weekend save your glass, as it is your admission ticket to the next event.   Unlike some beer events where you pay one price for all you can drink, ColLAboration was all about quality over quantity, although the pours were rather generous.  Good beer, a good vibe and good weather; this event hit the trifecta.  Stay tuned for news on the date and location of the next fest.

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