Blue. Red. Yellow.

If you drive on San Fernando Road in Glendale, you may have wondered who works in those brightly painted buildings. Now we all know. It is the in-progress home of Golden Road Brewing. The triumvirate of Tony Yanow, Meg Gill and brewmaster Jon Carpenter will be transforming what is currently empty warehouse space into a brewery, barrel aging facility and eventual pub.

“We are all craft beer fanatics and we all are passionate about building a business that produces world class beer here in L.A.”, Yanow has noted in the press release. And this team seems tailor made to accomplish it. L.A. beer geeks have probably noticed Gill at many beer events in her past role at Speakeasy Ales and Lagers. She and Tony met while he was opening up Tony’s Darts Away. Carpenter brings a brewing pedigree that includes UC-Davis, Anheuser-Busch and Dogfish Head.

No styles or line-up of beers was announced other than perhaps a hoppy California style ale but it was telling that Carpenter said, “We don’t need to differentiate ourselves.” Yanow also said that Ninkasi and New Glarus are models for what they are trying to accomplish. That tells me to expect the unexpected as they dial in on recipes for their 15-barrel system because those two breweries do not make run of the mill beers. And speaking of unordinary, they already have a canning line on order too. And that still leaves room for growth in the space set aside for production, not to mention an R&D space as well.

The process of transforming the three buildings will be interesting to watch develop, as will how they make the interior of Yellow a welcoming pub atmosphere. The only downside, and it is tiny compared to the beery gains, is that the trains are close and not subtle sound wise. And the area does not scream tourist destination. But that does present opportunity, in the form of creative landscaping to dull the sound and enliven the area. And who knows maybe a beer named for the train whistle.

This is pretty big news for a city that already is seeing a binge of breweries in the planning stages. And I can see how the name Golden Road can be seen as craft beer drinker’s future here in Los Angeles.

For the craft Beer of the Week, I recommend my second beer from Pennsylvania’s Victory Brewing this year. Summer Love is a light but still substantial ale that has a mild citrus and wheat taste and some bright sparkly carbonation.

Your Homework is to take a good craft beer to the beach. You do not have to be stuck with “patriotic” cans of industrial water lager while enjoying the return of summer. Get some Anderson Valley or Maui Brewing instead. No need to lower yourself because of beach rules. And come next summer, we can have a Golden Road at the beach…and park…and wherever.

Find more of Sean Inman’s writing on his blog, Beer Search Party.