Making a Case on Katella for the Beer Necessities

Hooked on trout or stout? A visit to Katella Avenue in Orange can be a reel experience. Barbecued fish is another lure.

11 to noon: “When brewing is outlawed, only outlaws will brew beer,” reads a sign on the door at Fun Fermentations. In the meantime, it’s open season, and the store offers everything you need to make your own at home.

You can make like a mad scientist with floating thermometers and lots of clear plastic tubing, or depending on your inclinations, pick up Epsom salts, licorice or a slide rule-like apparatus called Brewers Buddy Ready Reference Calculator. Bottle labels include Old Froth and Slosh; Laid Back Beer, featuring a naked woman on the label; Black Death Beer, with a skull and crossbones, and more wholesome Upstream Beer, depicting a creek and mountains.

A beginning beer kit, about $50, includes a six-gallon fermenter, Fun Beer mix, yeast, a home beer-making book with recipes, air lock, rubber stop, siphon, bottle brush, caps and capper. According to “utility player” Dana Jordan, the kit makes a “good pale ale, nothing slicked up about it. First thing is to get the confidence going. If (people) feel comfortable with the process the first time through, next time we tell them to shoot for the moon.”

For those shooting for the moon, malt extracts cover some of the possibilities with unhopped dark, unhopped amber, light amber, light hopped, dark hopped and amber hopped varieties. Hops range from Styrian Goldings to Tettnang to Czech Saaz. Or you can throw in some fruit extracts.

Home brewing isn’t limited to beer: You can home-brew soda pop in a variety of fruit flavors. Bread lovers can take advantage of sourdough starter packages, and winemakers (kits also available) can use juice concentrates from Johannesburg Riesling, Chenin Blanc and Zinfandel grapes; oak chips will help make yours a show-stopping Chardonnay. Titles include “Making Vinegar at Home,” “Sweet and Hard Cider” and “Cheese Making Made Easy.”

Noon to 12:30: Beer and fishing go together like--well, like hooks and bait. Phenix Rod & Bait Co. doesn’t look like much from the outside; inside it’s a similarly unassuming combination office/showroom/mini-factory, where you can watch the staff pouring hooks with molten lead or making colorful lures as beautiful as any earrings.

The store offers a cornucopia of baits. Plastic baits alone come in 12 different shapes, including Saturn salt leech, weedless spider skirt and mighty tubes, and more than 80 colors such as firecracker, bubble gum, pumpkin, motor oil, june bug and oxblood, many with metal flakes and available in a bewildering array of combinations; 1,500 can be ordered by number.

To attract bass, for instance, you might try No. 629, an electric-blue salt lizard; salt is added to release flavor when fish bite. But precisely what shape and color to choose depends on weather, type of lake, condition of water and time of day. Phenix is not open on weekends. “Uh- uh, “ confirmed owner Larry Howard. Presumably they’re gone fishing.

12:30 to 1:30: Just the thought of fishing can work up an appetite. At the Asian Deli, specialties include pempek, fried egg in fish cake appetizer ($3.75), and ikan bakar pedes, whole barbecued fish ($5.50), both very spicy dishes.

The establishment bills itself as Chinese-Indonesian fast food, but the fare is far more Indonesian than Chinese, and the emphasis on takeout belittles the quality. Don’t let the limited atmosphere--a few Indonesian dolls and golden elephants for sale on the counter--fool you: It’s not only worth a sit-down meal, but as many visits as it takes to get through the 60-item menu.

1:30 to 2: If you want to make your mark in life, stop in next door at Stamp Fever, where “Under the Sea” is but one category of rubber stamps. There’s also “School Daze,” “Dinos and Dragons,” ’Abbott and Costello” and “Classic Winnie-the-Pooh Rubber Stamp Sets for Stationery, Parties and School.”

People use the stamps, colored ink pads and marking pens to design their own greeting cards, gift tags and invitations. Teachers make flash cards and stamp “needs help” on homework. Bring in a drawing, and the store will make a custom stamp for you in one day ($10.75, more for larger sizes). “Any design you want,” said owner Ed Van Eyke. “People even bring in photos of their kids.”

But stranger things have happened to Van Eyke, and he looked to partner Debbie Andrews for validation: “Believe it or not--she’s a witness--somebody came in and ordered a rubber stamp of an eyebrow. The woman explained that one of her relatives is losing all her hair, and she wants to stamp eyebrows on her face!”

1. Fun Fermentations, 640 E. Katella Ave. (714) 532-6831

Open Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 2. Phenix Rod & Bait Co., 540 W. Katella Ave. (714) 538-7637

Open Monday through Fraiday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. 3. Asian Deli, 320 E. Katella Ave., Suite J, (714) 532-4588

Open daily, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 4. Stamp Fever, 320 E. Katella Ave., Suites C and D, (714) 532-6530

Open Monday thraough Friday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Bus: OCTA bus 50 runs east and west along Katella Avenue and stops at Glassell Street. Parking: There is ample parking in lots at each location.