Wayfarer travel TV show: Series 02 Episode 12, the best of Los Angeles, California

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hi i'm james wilkinson and i've been a

travel editor for over 20 years on this

show we're gonna take you to some of the

world's most amazing destinations from

the big cities to the great regional

areas we'll go inside some of the

world's best hotels bars galleries

restaurants and much more right now

we're in downtown Los Angeles and this

is Wayfarer

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[Applause]

the arts district near downtown Los

Angeles has home to some great galleries

cafes and craft breweries right now

we're taking you inside Angel City one

of the best in California the Angel City

brewery here in the arts district of Los

Angeles right near downtown has over 20

beers and talking us through them today

is Dan Shapiro intent obviously the

breweries been around about six years

you're one of the first here in in Los

Angeles the brewery was built in 1915

the building itself it originally was a

cabel facility the Johnny roebling's

company was built here so we're kind of

you know turning that heavy

manufacturing into light manufacturing

doing some beer we were the first in

downtown six years ago when we started

and now there are 80 over 80 in LA

County so it's really kind of grown up

in the last few years

awesome and you've got over 20 beers at

the moment what kind of styles are you

producing it we try to be as diverse and

eclectic as the community around us we

kind of take any challenge and try to go

with it try to make something new well

let's try to be is this area so this is

the IPA this is the flagship here of

Angel City let's give it a go

not too intense on the on the hoppy

scale there is that kind of quite

characteristic of this beer yeah

absolutely I mean I think the growth of

IPAs over the last decade or two has

kind of gone way over bearing with the

hops and way overbearing with the

bitterness we try to have a lot of hot

flavor and not make it you know punch

you in the face better and what else we

got on the menu here but a funky wit I

can see which is more one of your

popular business yeah so we this was our

first sour beer that we made it's a

barrel aged it's sort of a take on a

Belgian style wit but we take that beer

and then we age it in South Tarin French

white wine barrels okay for about a year

and a half giving a lot of funky flavor

to it

nice and bright again it is it is it's

kind of you're kind of stretching it

towards down a saison territory without

going into that territory brewing is an

interesting profession to be in because

we've been brewing beer for over 10,000

years so you'd think there'd be nothing

new left and yet there's always

opportunity to get creative and have fun

brewers tend to be creative individuals

you know home this one's speculoos

cookie beer so oculus yeah have you ever

tried these cookies alright I've known

great they're perfect with coffee so the

challenge was to take that and put it

into a beer so the cookie flavor you get

from caramel malts and biscuit malt

liquor that comes all of that spice

comes through by just throwing a bunch

of spices in there smells amazing yeah

sites like cookies wonderful you've also

gotta be here that's almost like a kir

Royale better yeah exactly so last year

we tried this we wanted to do a kir

Royale style beer and we tried it and it

didn't work out it just ended up way too

sweet so instead of throwing it away we

actually put it in barrels and aged it

in red wine barrels for about a year and

that's what it came out as Brett y al

you can really smell the cassis on that

coach right away yeah that is a really

different beer that's it's in between

champagne and a beer and it's doesn't

even taste like a beer it hasn't really

got the heaviness or anything that's

what I always like to say I mean you

know beer can be everything it's made

out of bread and you can turn bread into

any meals so we turned this one into

more of a celebratory very bright and

fizzy and you know kind of pop some

bottles beer amazing that tell us

through the Mottola River this is

another even very special view from your

private collection absolutely so this is

this is more in a saison style it was

aged in Chardonnay barrels for about a

year using his Chardonnay grapes yeah

might be my favorite I think actually I

think it's that calm you can really

taste the Chardonnay coming through with

the oak and the perils that you've been

using what kind of barrels would you use

we use a lot of different types of

barrels this one we use Chardonnay back

here we have some Pinot Noir barrels

we've done him in Jameson barrels before

whiskey cherry kind of all over the map

anything we can get our hands on it's

always fun to play with you know very

cool okay and thanks for showing us

around thanks for having us and

excreting quite an experience glad to

hear it

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welcome to Union Station in Los Angeles

it's one of the last great train

stations in the United States and has

currently home to the coolest brewery in

America Imperial Western let's go inside

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we heard Imperial Weston one of the

hottest new breweries in America that's

at home in this beautiful railway

station and Brian what an amazing place

you have it thank you for coming I

appreciate you having us here there's

not too many railway stations like this

in America and let alone one to have a

micro brewery inside I can't think of

too many of hands la has been sitting on

this gym for quite a while and it so now

back to live in our company did a really

good job of doing the best we can to

bring it back to code to make it look

exactly or almost identical to what it

was here and just pay homage to the

designers who put the space together and

you've got some fresh beer on the

premises but also some great beer from

your Arts District growing as well

we've done some collaboration of the

Arts District especially starting off

sour beers take a little while so our

Berliner Weisse to some of our sour

beers if you have some food over there

so we did some collaborations with them

to start off a sour beer program here

which you know we have oysters sitting

in front of us so some people like

champagne with oysters and we prefer a

nice sour beer it's one of those things

but the crappie is saying here has

changed a lot in ten years it has it's

going from zero to almost a hundred in

ten years which is pretty amazing

drinking local and knowing the brewer

and knowing the product you're drinking

as people want to be in touch with that

once they started seeing the beers

coming in from other breweries at beer

bars a lot of people started thinking I

can build a brewery and so brewery

started popping up a little at a time

and it really focused on the idea of a

beer hall you know we don't want this a

pretentious style restaurant where you

know the server's coming to the table

and do it beer is about relaxing

enjoying the people you're with we want

to have great food like a restaurant and

but also have the vibe of a beer hall we

want people to come in and celebrate

together this is this is where you come

after work and you enjoy a happy hour

you enjoy your friends and co-workers

but you

come in with her good price have the

world-class beer go home to your wife

and family

this is Iron Triangle but only is got

one of the best tasting rooms in America

they also produce some of the best beer

in Los Angeles

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we're here at Iron Triangle one of the

best breweries in Los Angeles I'm

talking to Caleb out deer today and kale

tell us about this great establishment

yeah so Iron Triangle we were

established in 2015 we started

production in 2016 so we're just coming

up on our 3-year anniversary William

took this building built in 1903 that

was just a horse stable and we dumped a

lot of money and love and energy into it

to turn it into this beautiful ode to

that pre-prohibition era bars

Timmy B if you produce we have about 12

to 13 beers on tap at any given time but

we keep four beers on year-round okay

which of these ones we should try them

on show ya so first off is the Iron

Triangle lager its pre-prohibition

American Pilsner so it's a light beer

flavored beer surprisingly one of the

most difficult fear styles to produce I

like to say without the lager beers like

there's nothing to hide behind so if you

make any mistakes whatsoever it's

obvious oh listen what else you need for

our next probably most famous product is

our dark lager okay so there's a lot of

dark beers out there most people

consider when they think of dark beer

they think of porters and stouts and it

really surprises a lot of people to say

they don't like dark beer but when they

have a taste of that it like change the

tune it's not what I was expecting

actually in terms of from a heaviness

stamp one fruit

it's like an tasted when people say I

want the lightest beer you got I make

them try that here first

our next beer is our Iron Triangle IPA

it's a classic West Coast style IPA

Pacific Northwest hops its bitter herbal

piney a little citrus we're not trying

to jump the shark with weird hops or you

know weird techniques it's just you know

we think the classics never go out of

style

yeah and so that's a classic IPA that's

a very tasty IPA easy to drink and our

last of our Coors our is our one weird

beer

so this is our Bavarian style Pale Ale

which it's style doesn't exist we made

it up here and it's a Bavarian style

Hefeweizen that's been dry hopped like

an IPA so it's kind of like a fusion of

the Hef and the IPA categories it makes

this really unique sort of fruit salad a

product it's it's a little tough to sell

because most people have no idea what it

is but again once people try it it's

definitely this like eyes open moment

and they get really excited about wow

I've never had anything like that before

yeah and you've got a couple of uniques

for us as well so this is our llama corn

like a unicorn but a llama

and this is our venture into the hazy

IPA category that's been yeah of course

sweeping over America lots of hops low

bitterness very fruity it's almost like

juice a lot of people think it tastes

like a lot of pineapple a passion fruit

character and then last is our newest

product we just launched last week our

boots stooped oatmeal stout I'll be a

right throw so the nature is the real

kicker to that it's nice and creamy this

is not really it's it's more the weakest

I love the traditionally this is a piece

of great some of the earth

but our general consensus on all of our

products and I think you can kind of

taste it is we make beers you can have

two or three of like we don't want that

one that beer you sip in a tiny little

tulip and you have three sips and go

that's the best beer I've ever had and

that's all I want to be we want you to

sit down and just have some points

within the beer world there's a lot of

chasing what's new what's popular what's

your new beer what's your new beer but

people don't they often forget that beer

that I've made a hundred times I'm

really good at so don't skip the

flagships there are the ones that people

really put a lot of time and energy and

if you're staying in downtown you have

literally a hop skip and a jump from the

middle of you like yes absolutely

five minute drive or cab ride a short

walk from anywhere in downtown Oh

awesome well thank you so much for

having your cigarettes to the success

circle absolutely thank you for coming

over

let's now take a short drive to LA is

hottest new restaurant and retail

destination this is the road it's a few

minutes drive from downtown Los Angeles

that's a whole bunch of former

warehouses repurposed into shops

restaurants and cafes let's go and check

out a few spots the row expands across

32 acres formerly known as the la

terminal market and is situated at the

southwest end of LA's Arts District

built by the Southern Pacific Railroad

between 1917 and 1923 six iconic

structures have been repurposed into 1.5

million square feet of creative offices

retail and restaurants featuring 15

culturally diverse eateries and 100

curated retailers the row offers

Angelenos a single all-inclusive

destination the time between Trevor

chefs artists and taste makers

embodying la is enterprising spirit

Thoreau offers a hub for visionaries and

creators of all to further enhance the

downtown economy from cozy artist

studios to holiday pop-ups

road connects ambitious artisans with

residents and guests who appreciate

nuance style rule-breaking flavors and

fresh ideas

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before you leave the road make sure you

pop into Rappahannock for some freshly

shucked oysters Bon Appetit coming up on

the next episode of wayfarer this one's

open during the day this is definitely

one of two that are far and away the

best taco trucks in the city

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there are late-night drinks even though

we're better than Ritz

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we had great history with the hotel and

we were fortunate that we had all kinds

of photography