Inside Highland Park Brewery: a Visual Tour from La’s Chinatown to the San Juan Pop-Up
By Alexander Ross
Walk around the retail coolers in Chinatown, and the design aesthetic hits immediately. The brewery collaborates with local illustrators and graphic artists to create minimalist, vibrant 16-ounce can labels. Highland Park Brewery treats these limited can releases as episodic drops rather than perennial retail fixtures.
A fresh batch of a single-hop West Coast IPA or an experimental pale ale hits the refrigerated cases on Wednesday morning. Announcements drop on Instagram and Discord communities. By Saturday evening, the inventory is largely depleted, purchased directly by neighborhood walk-ins and regional hop enthusiasts. This direct-to-consumer pattern protects gross margins: selling a four-pack across the taproom counter for $18 to $22 yields significantly higher returns than wholesaling that same four-pack through regional distributors for $11. Cash flow stays within the walls of the brewery, allowing Kunz to buy high-cost hop lots like Nelson Sauvin from New Zealand or experimental varieties from Yakima Valley without cutting corners on grain bills.
Alexander Ross has covered the video game industry for a decade, writing deep dives on game design, esports tournaments, VR developments, and gaming culture.
