Arts District Brewing is a brewery and beer hall on Traction Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, a 17,000-square-foot taproom that pairs about thirty craft beers with a full bar and a row of restored vintage skee-ball machines.
The taproom opened in December 2015 as part of the 213 Hospitality group's push into the Arts District, and Discover Los Angeles places it among the brewpubs that helped define the neighborhood's drinking scene. A decade on, it remains a fixture. Its scale set it apart from the start.
The space is built like a beer hall. A long bar runs the room, with high ceilings, communal tables, and an entertainment area that gives it the feel of a hall rather than a tasting room. There is space here that most breweries lack.
The beer is the core. The taps rotate through about thirty options spanning house brews and guests, from lagers and IPAs to seasonals, alongside cocktails and wine for the non-beer crowd. The range covers a mixed group without trouble.
The signature flourish is the skee-ball. Fifteen restored vintage lanes line one side of the room, turning a round of beers into a small arcade night, which is the detail reviewers cite first. It is the rare brewery with a built-in game.
The kitchen runs bar food built to drink alongside the beer rather than compete with it, which keeps the focus on the taps and the games. The plates are straightforward. They are there to keep a long session fed.
Hours run long, from late morning into the early hours on Fridays, which makes it workable for an afternoon flight or a late session. The early hours are the calmer window. By weekend night the hall fills.
The Traction Avenue location sits in the heart of the Arts District, walkable to the area's galleries, restaurants, and other bars, which makes it an easy anchor for a downtown night. Parking is the usual downtown scramble. Most visitors fold it into a neighborhood crawl.
Yelp logs well over a thousand reviews, and the steady notes are the beer range, the skee-ball, and the room's scale, with the usual caution that it gets loud and crowded on weekend nights. The consensus treats it as a dependable Arts District anchor. Arriving early is the calmer play.
The 213 Hospitality group, the team behind a string of downtown bars, opened the taproom as the Arts District shifted from warehouses to galleries and lofts. Discover Los Angeles credits it among the rooms that pulled drinkers east. A decade on, it has outlasted several neighbors.
The brewing happens on site, with the house lineup anchoring the rotating taps alongside seasonal and limited batches through the year. That mix gives a flight real variety rather than a single house style. The core beers hold the list together.
The skee-ball lanes set the room apart from a standard taproom, turning a round into a low-stakes tournament between pours. The games pull in groups and after-work crowds alike. They are the reason a quick beer so often becomes an evening.
Who would love it: beer drinkers who want range, space, and a game between rounds. Who should skip it: anyone after a quiet, intimate bar, since this is a large, loud hall built for groups.
The smart move is a flight across the rotating taps with a few rounds of skee-ball between pours. Arts District Brewing ranks among the most dependable rooms on our craft beer bars in Los Angeles list and earns a place in our craft beer bars in Los Angeles guide for a downtown beer night.
For more beer nearby, the full Los Angeles bar guide maps the rest of the Eastside taprooms, and many regulars pair a flight here with a round at Mohawk Bend across town.
