Hawthorne has been largely left out of the craft beer discussion in the South Bay, as places like Torrance continue to gobble up talent. Even Gardena has gotten in on the action lately, though the upcoming arrival of Los Angeles Ale Works should help to put Hawthorne on every imbiber's radar soon enough.

Setting up shop just around the corner from SpaceX, Hawthorne’s exciting craft beer brewery promises to be a big new option for locals to enjoy, complete with a taproom, outdoor space, and plenty of available parking. The whole thing is about 10,000 square feet in total, housed in a former woodworking shop with an attached parking lot that will soon become an ample patio.

LA Ale Works is the primary brainchild of Kip Barnes, a longtime local craft beer booster who’s much beloved in the industry. He’s been blogging about beer and home brewing himself since 2009, and even successfully completed a Kickstarter campaign back in 2013 to get his fledgeling operation off the ground.

Since then he and his team (partner Andrew Fowler will be handling operations and distribution, with Jeff Szafarski on finance) have been keeping a small profile at bars and bottle shops around town, but hope to really scale up with their 10 barrel brewhouse. They’re only targeting 1,000 barrels in their first year though, so expect most of their product to remain on site for their in-house customers to enjoy.

With the space only recently cleared out from the previous tenant, don’t expect to be drinking beer at the facility until November of this year at the earliest. It’ll beat the nearby Inglewood NFL stadium by more than a year though, making them a prime player for the inland South Bay market, particularly with places like SpaceX at the Hawthorne Airport. Outside of Three Weavers brewing, which sits to the north, among the only options for drinking craft beer in that stretch is Eureka Tasting Kitchen or the on-again-off-again Flights bar and grill. That is to say, there’s lots of room to grow.

LA Ale Works

12918 Cerise Ave.

Hawthorne, CA