Today we’d like to introduce you to Billie and Joey Anderson.
Billie and Joey, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Joey and I got started in the craft beer industry back in 2006 with the opening of the first craft beer bar/restaurant in Hollywood called Lucky Devils. Lucky was bringing in interesting and unique craft beer from all over the world, and even though Joey and I had already been huge fans of craft beer already, this is when we started to become true enthusiast. From there, we joined Stout Burgers And Beers when they opened in 2009 and have been running and growing their beer program for the last ten years.
We started taking “beer trips”, visiting breweries all over the world and learning as much as we could about their passions, techniques, and traditions. With everything we were learning we became avid home brewers, brewing 1 to 2 batches of home-brew a week.
We had wanted to start our own craft beer bar ourselves for quite some time, and run it the way we wanted to, taking all the influences and everything we learned from our travels and experiences and offering it to all the craft beer lovers in Los Angeles.
We teamed up With Anita Curran, our third partner, and secured a beautiful location in the North Hollywood Arts District. We Spent six months from day 1 of taking over the building to day 1 of opening to the public, building out what we had envisioned the perfect craft beer bar/restaurant. The three of us, my wife, and a few friends built 80% of everything ourselves, from the walls, to the woodwork, to the floors, to the bathrooms, to the kitchen, and everything else except plumbing, electrical, and fire sprinklers. We worked seven days a week for six months straight, after working our day jobs, some nights till 4 or 5 in the morning.
But it all paid off as we now have something we are very proud of and hope everyone enjoys it as much as we do. Our slogan is seen right above our front entrance and reads “respect the passion, respect the craft”. And we believe in that to the fullest, not only in craft beer but in everything we do in life.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
There is always some hiccups along the way, which we definitely experienced, but I think since we were there everyday doing the work ourselves, we had a lot less struggles than a lot of people trying to open there own bar/restaurant. Permits and inspections is always one of the hardest struggles to deal with, but for the most part it went pretty smooth for us. I think a lot of inspectors realized how much time and passion we were putting into the project and wanted to help us along as much as they could, rather than hinder us or give us a hard time. But again there were definitely struggles.
Please tell us about Brews Brothers.
We strive to be one of the best craft beer bar/restaurants in LA or the world for that matter. We have 42 drafts, which gives us the ability to keep a very balanced list but also bring in a lot of very special and rare kegs. With the relations we have had the last 18 years with all the breweries and distributors, we have the access to some very limited beers. Just as an example, we always have 7 to 8 sours on draft, and they are always rotating. We don’t limit ourselves to any one region, or style, as we believe good beer is made all over the world and we want to be able to get all beer into the reach of craft beer lovers in LA.
Also, our food is inspired from our travels to Europe, and their use of fresh ingredients. We specialize in artisan sandwiches, small plates, ie, meat and cheese boards, sausage plates, pickled veggies etc…
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Everyday during construction we would run into problems and would think we should have done this a little different, but in the overall picture I don’t think we would have done anything differently.
Pricing:
- Beers range in price from $7 and up
- We offer 4oz pours of any beers from $3 and up
- Food ranges from $6 and up
Contact Info:
- Address: 5140 Lankershim BLVD
North Hollywood, CA 91601 - Website: brewsbrotherscraftbeer.com
- Phone: 818-308-6208
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: brewsbrotherscraftbeer
- Facebook: brewsbrotherscraftbeer
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