SoCal's 8 Best Breweries: Cismontane's Evan Weinberg Tells All

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Cismontane Brewing Co.'s Evan Weinberg harvests wild California buckwheat

Last month, we asked Stone Brewing Company's Greg Koch and Golden Road Brewing's Meg Gill to share some of their favorite beers. And this month, we contacted Cismontane Brewing Company's Evan Weinberg to do something similar. He agreed to participate, but not without first expressing some valid reservations.

"When you asked me to share five to ten beers I thought were essential to SoCal, I was
somewhere between uninspired and concerned," Weinberg said. "Uninspired because of all the Cosmo or Wired cast-to-the-side columns like '10 Ways to Know How Horny Your BF Is' or '7 BS Gadgets that Suck.' Concerned because I, like many others, am a business owner, and the last thing I want to do is piss off one of my accounts or brewing homies because I didn't mention their beer."

"Look, this may all seem like fun, food, and great beer," Weinberg continued. "But the reality is the small brewers of SoCal have relationships to maintain, and we work our asses off. People think that just because I'm an owner/brewer at Cismontane Brewing that I'm on easy street. If not getting paid and working around the clock is your life's aspiration, then your priorities are as ridiculous as mine or Craftsman's Mark Jilg, or Joel and Rich
from Strand, or Aaron from Bootleggers, or Jerry Kolbly from Noble Ale Works, etc. We do this for the love."

Once Weinberg had expressed his concerns, his mood brightened:

"After a bit of conceptual digestion, and few shorter (10-hour) work days where I had some energy left, I became pretty excited. Excited because I can make this article what I want: all about drinking beer in my home of Southern California. How would I recommend people drink in my home? Well!"

"First and foremost, anything local that is clean and delicious," Weinberg said. "You've heard that rhetoric about how your wallet decides the future of all. Well, it's true. If you buy craft beer, we will make more, find room for experimentation, get better at it, maybe get some new tools to brew with, and it will always be fresher to your lips. Not to mention it's good for your community and lowers the impact on the planet."

Then, without further ado, Weinberg dove into his favorite breweries.

Steven Armstrong

Owner/Brewmaster Jeremy Raub inside the brew room at Eagle Rock Brewery

8. Eagle Rock:
"We are on the Equinox of a Revolution with the Populist demanding a Manifesto
that is a Libertine granting us all Solidarity! How'd I do guys? Steve... Jeremy... anyone? What am I, some kind of Yearling?"