Long Beach resident Carlos Parache often goes to local breweries to hang out with friends and maybe take part in a trivia night or other organized events while sipping some brews. But recently Parache did something he never quite expected to do at a brewery: He learned about the ancient Japanese art of growing and shaping tiny trees — all while drinking craft beers with his friends.

Parache acquired these new skills during a Bonsai Bar event at Long Beach Beer Lab, where he learned all he needed to know about caring for his very first bonsai tree from a local expert who has recently started teaching classes at several breweries around the Southland.

“I really enjoy breweries and I really liked the combination of an event in a very social environment where I could learn the craft of bonsai,” Parache said. “It was cool that there was this merging of a garden activity with the brewery social life,” he added.

Bonsai is the practice of taking plants like ordinary trees or shrubs, limiting their growth by planting them in small containers, then pruning and guiding them into artistic shapes with wires to create a miniature but realistic looking-tree. If it’s well tended, a bonsai tree can live for hundreds of years.

For those who have no idea how to do this, that’s where Bonsai Bar — the events started in Boston in 2021 — comes in. The local Bonsai Bar gatherings were launched about four months ago by Dana Point resident Ben Kegel, who got into bonsai while living in Boston after he attended an early Bonsai Bar class.

“I was immediately hooked,” he said. “It was super fun to come to a casual venue and see someone who has more knowledge about bonsai talking to a large group and everyone getting their first tree and seeing the spark of bonsai in a lot of people and people getting hooked on it,” Kegel said.

The classes begin with Kegel giving some instructions about the trees before he goes around to each participant for more personal interactions.

For the current $85 cost of admission (beer and food are separate) students get a plant and a container so they can follow Kegel’s instructions on planting, pruning, stylizing and feeding, plus all the other knowledge needed to keep it alive. At the end of the night people go home with new skills, a new tiny tree and perhaps even a slight buzz.

“We’re taking this really kind of refined art form of bonsai, which you usually do in a greenhouse or a formal studio, and we bring it to a brewery, a really casual and inclusive space, and learn the beginnings of this hobby,” Kegel said.

The original Bonsai Bar events were started by longtime bonsai enthusiast Tim Arsenault as breweries were beginning to open back up after the pandemic in 2021.

Before he started Bonsai Bar, Arsenault taught classes and workshops at gardens and nurseries, but he found it could be difficult to get people not already interested in bonsai to take the more traditional classes.

“So it occurred to me: What if we did bonsai but we did it like a sip and paint class where you could have it at a brewery and it was like a social event that people could go out to and really kind of lower the barrier to entry?,” Arsenault said.

The combination of tiny trees and beer was a hit, and since its launch in 2021, Bonsai Bar has spread to 12 states, with about 150 classes a month. Arsenault said Bonsai Bar as a whole taught more than 30,000 people how to care for their little trees last year alone.

“We teach people how to be good bonsai parents and make sure they can keep their tree alive and try to get them into the hobby,” Arsenault said.

It’s been a local hit, too, after Kegel decided to move back to California from the East Coast and started the classes in September, becoming Bonsai Bar’s California regional director.

He teaches about three two-hour classes a week, which often attract around 30 people. So far he estimates that he’s taught about 1,500 local people the basics of bonsai.

“It’s super social,” Kegel said. “Very often I see people making friends at the class with the people sitting next to them,” he said.

While most of the events have taken place in and around Orange County, Kegel is looking at expanding and hiring more instructors in order to hold classes in Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire as well.

“We’re going to send bonsai all over the place,” Kegel said.

And while Kegel is looking to expand Bonsai Bar, Parache now often finds himself looking directly at his coffee table because that’s where he proudly displays his new bonsai tree, which he has managed to keep healthy thanks to what he learned at the brewery.

“My tree is doing good. It’s pretty lively. I’ve been keeping up with the maintenance and pushing it in the direction that I want it to grow. It looks pretty nice as a centerpiece and I’ve been able to showcase it as a conversation starter at my home,” Parache said.

For information about upcoming events go to bonsaibar.com