Craft Beer

It's all too easy to write off the bustling streets around Hollywood Boulevard and the Cahuenga Corridor as nothing but tourist traps and over-hyped clubs, but scattered among the head shops, dirty sidewalks and over-priced parking lots, there are some beacons of the craft beer scene. Here are five places to get a pint or some bottles of craft beer that are worth finding a parking spot for. Blue Palms Brewhouse Not only the best place for a beer in Hollywood, Blue Palms is one of L.A.'s best craft beer outposts.

There's more to Oktoberfest than sausages and suds. Stuff like couscous, rabbit tagine, and lamb mechoui , for example. Farid Zadi, chef and owner of Spanish Fly Gastropub is holding his second annual Couscousfest/Oktoberfest celebration Saturday and Sunday, featuring North African street food, Algerian cold drinks and craft beers. “The first annual Couscous Festival in Pasadena was a bit nerve-racking, since we didn't really know what to expect in terms of crowd turnout or appetite for more exotic North African dishes,” Zadi wrote in a press release.

While craft beer fans hedge their bets on whether Sunday's Super Bowl play-by-play is more suited to hopped-up IPAs or intensely flavored stouts, Greg Koch will be deliberating over a lot more than what to sip on game day. In the coming weeks, the co-owner of Escondido-based Stone Brewing Co. will finalize the location of the first American craft brewery on the European continent. After decades of taking hops advice from foreign brewers, American craft brewers are beginning to return the favor.

Hallie Beaune and Christina Perozzi   have several ambitions for Saturday's LA Craft Beer Crawl downtown. One is to improve upon the traditional drink order of heartbroken country stars: a shot and a beer, repeated as necessary. "A shot and a beer is a pretty well-known order, but the beer is always crappy," Beaune said. As professional beer sommeliers under the mantle of the Beer Chicks, this naturally wouldn't suffice. So at the crawl, they're hosting a panel on high-end beer and whiskey pairings to remedy that.

Are you not much of a beer fan, but have been intrigued by the blossoming popularity of craft beer? With an ever-expanding lineup of craft breweries producing so many different styles of beer it can be daunting to choose where to start. Here are three suggestions for "gateway" beer styles that are approachable and still full of the flavors that have hooked so many beer fans. Kolsch or Cream Ale These two closely related styles are a great choice for someone who likes traditional American light lagers.

Walking into Mohawk Bend in Echo Park at 9 p.m. on a weekend is like stepping off the L train in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, so thick is the abstract haze of pointy black boots, yarn-net tops and high-waisted stonewashed skinny jeans. The 10,000-square-foot bar and restaurant is a sprawling palace of chic austerity, with four seating areas hemmed in by walls of pebbled glass, plywood and red brick. An open kitchen cranks out seasonal vegan and meat dishes from separate stations, while across the room attractive young bartenders shake artisanal cocktails and serve up frothy glasses of draft beer from 72 taps.

Did you know that in heaven, there is a river of craft beer flowing through the celestial clouds, a coriander-spiced Belgian blond, to be exact? There are also several founts of crisply bitter IPA, positioned at clouds No. 48, 97 and 133, for quenching your thirst after clearing the pearly gates. OK, so none of us know for certain if any of this is true, but it's what Greg Koch, chief executive and co-founder of Stone Brewing Co., envisions when he brandishes his megaphone at various beer festivals and sermonizes about the ambrosia known as craft beer.

IT used to be that a sports bar was a sports bar -- where patrons were more particular about the beers and cheers than about the food. But lately, with the proliferation of neighborhood gastropubs, sushi sports bars and even beer-friendly wine bars, there are alternatives.

IF you're into craft beers, really into them, sooner or later you're going to have to get a big black book titled "The Essential Reference of Domestic Brewers and Their Bottled Brands, 2nd Edition" (MC Basset, $47.50). Beer lovers Michael S. Kuderka and Catherine A. Ench-Kuderka have packed a huge amount of information into its 341 pages.

Rob Tod had plenty of company when he decided to get into the beer business. He launched Allagash Brewing Co. in 1995 after a five-year period in which the number of craft breweries and brew pubs tripled and production grew sevenfold. Then in the late 1990s, the explosive growth slowed to a trickle--more than 400 pubs and breweries eventually closed their doors. But signs are looking better for small brewers like Tod who stuck it out. Sales grew slightly in 1999 and were stronger last year.