During the California gold rush, prospectors would yell “Eureka” when they found the first glimpse of gold. Today, the people of Southern California yell Eureka when they find amazing burgers and local craft beer paired together – because that’s the name of the restaurant that serves them.

When my wife and I were in Redlands, CA, we got a recommendation from our good friends at Hangar 24 to go to Eureka! Gourmet Burgers and Craft Beer. It was one of the best recommendations I’ve received since I was told not to buy my son that Mogwai from an antique store merchant in Chinatown.

Eureka has 18 taps – all crafts from the good ol’ US of A – and they feature a delicious array of burgers. I’m normally a burrito man, but if there is craft beer involved, then I’ll pass up the fiesta rolled in a tortilla and grab a juicy grease burger any day. There are several high-end burger places in LA that serve amazing beer (Stout, Father’s Office, Umami to name a few), but Eureka’s beer ambitions are solely dedicated to the American Craft Beer culture and to supporting local craft beers. I met with the General Manager of the Redlands branch, Amy Hundley, and she gave me some insight on Eureka.

The burger and brew restaurant chain was opened by a small group of investors in July 2009. The general manager of each location is a Certified Cicerone (in case you don’t know, a Cicerone is like a beer sommelier, and a sommelier is a snooty wine know-it-all). Each manager is in charge of making their restaurants their own and they choose craft beers that best represent their location. Amy focuses on local crafts, such as Hangar 24’s Alt Bier, Orange Wheat, Hullabaloo, and the Winter Local Field Series Warmer, as well as other fine crafts from California, Oregon, and Colorado (I had the Warmer and it definitely made my soul a tad bit warmer). She also brings in beer that has very limited availability, such as Russian River Brewing Company from Santa Rosa, CA. Amy provided that a restaurant needs to be lucky or very important to serve Russian River’s limited-release beer. (It’s easy to imagine the people at Russian River having top hats, ascots, and monocles to have such a select clientele, but they actually have an amazing lineup of carefully handcrafted brews that are only worthy of the finest establishments.)

Eureka currently has restaurants in Claremont, La Jolla, Santa Barbara, Bakersfield, San Louis Obispo, and Fresno. You might be thinking to yourself, “whoa Dave, these places are nowhere near the city of Los Angeles and only the Claremont location is actually in LA County. What’s the deal Dave?” Calm your deal-making antics down there Wayne Brady. It seems that Eureka is making a perimeter around LA like a Risk game board, loading up infantry pieces around a territory preparing for a takeover. Amy assured me that Eureka will be opening a location in Hawthorne near the airport in 2013, and they have goals to open a restaurant in Orange County (and also in Seattle for you people up north).

The selection of beer at Eureka is amazing and their food is just as incredible. Their bison burger is probably the best I’ve ever had. My wife had a “When Harry Met Sally” moment over their jalapeno egg burger. Their food was so good that we savored every belch on the car ride home. Other Eureka locations have thirty handles and hopefully the Hawthorne location will continue to grow as well. I’m also crossing my fingers that they’ll serve LA and OC crafts and that they’ll open soon.