California breweries road trip6/12/2023 The visit is impressive and with our knowledgeable guide Taylor, we go through all the brewing and fermentation process with a specific focus on the open fermenters which are enclosed in separate rooms. We are not far from Napa Valley here, just about over 20 km away. We first head to the original brew pub location in downtown Santa Rosa for lunch and sampling a few beers before taking a Lyft (same as Uber and widely used in California) to the new plant in the heart of Sonoma wine region in an area called Windsor. This was arranged by our friend who works for Allagash and has some serious connections in the industry (thanks Sean!). The next day we are off on a little adventure up north to Santa Rosa for a visit and tour of the new Russian River Brewing facility, a very large complex with 75bbl barrel brew house. Next is a bottle shop and extensive tap room, City Beer Store where we finish off the night with a 750 ml Yazoo Saison des Bois which was wonderful. Trimming Trees is a mixed culture collab with Highland Park Brewery from LA and Green Cheek Beer Co (Orange County). ![]() We then hit the Saison and the funky stuff. I chose a Simcoe Pale ale and Sean has a Pilsner. One thing we have noticed here is the ABV of most beers is often above 6% so it’s hard to find a sessionable beer. We realise later that there is a specific sour tap room downstairs for more choice.Ī short walk from there and we found ourselves in Cellarmaker Brewery, a typical SoMa (South Market) trendy tap room filling up with locals. We ramped things up with all things sour and I have Jolly Pumpkin La vida improvisation, an oak aged sour Saison, and Sean had Upright Expansions, a tart saison aged on gewurtztraminer grapes. I start with an Engine House #9 Operation haze and Sean chooses Russian River Dribble Belt. The choice not only covers Californian breweries, but you can also find some Allagash and so many other breweries.ĭay 2 and we find that one of the Mikkeller bars is very close to where we are staying in Union Square so we start our evening there and in true Mikkeller style, we found a sleek bar with state of the art temperature controlled taps and a great choice of beers. On the way, a little sign points out for Standard Deviant Brewery and we couldn’t resist the mellow tunes and edgy vibes in the tap room.įuelled by Mexican food, we hit The Monk’s kettle, coming in highly recommended on Beer Advocate, a small bar wit no less than 200 bottles on the menu and about 30 taps. We continue our walk and decide to head to the Mission district for some tacos. I indulge in a 12-month barrel aged sour ale on peaches while Sean went straight for his first ever pint of Pliny The Elder. As we walk around Market street, we stumble across the Fermentation Lab, a small bar and restaurant with a casual vibe. We arrive in San Francisco on a Wednesday afternoon and we couldn’t wait to drop our bags and head out for a look around the block in search of some food and a thirst quencher. This is where I get the scale of the craft beer movement in US and how well established it is. Good beer is a way of life in California, we didn’t come across any macro beers throughout the trip, even in the local 7/11 shop, the choice of craft beers was incredible. ![]() We did some planning ahead by researching some top spots we wanted to hit on Beer Advocate and the rest was based on recommendations, google maps and believe or not, Lonely Planet had also some good suggestions too. I thought I would share some highlights and good spots we found on this trip and how travel and breweries fitted in so well along the way. ![]() This road trip covered just over 1000 km across 5 cities, Big Sur iconic State Parks and Pacific coastline, 34 breweries, tap rooms and brew pubs. Little did we know we would be blown away by the diversity of landscape and cities California has to offer, not to mention the lifestyle and the array of top-class breweries we came across. Sean and I recently embarked on a 13-day Californian itinerary to get some inspiration and adventure after the Christmas break.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |