Pictures from Lagunitas Brewery & Russian River Brewpub

These pictures are from Tuesday, June 16th, when Doug and I drove up to Santa Rosa to visit what I believe is one of the best breweries in the world, Russian River Brewing Company. We were not disappointed! On the way there we saw signs for Petaluma, CA, which we recognized as the town where Lagunitas makes their fine creations. It only took a few seconds to decide that we needed to stop off for a few beers. Coincidentally, Ray just happened to be there at the same time with his uncle, his roommate Matt, and another friend. The above pic is from their tasting room. The pours were extremely generous, and there was a big crowd due to the large number of homebrewers in town for NHC.

Lagunitas is a pretty big production facility. We didn't stay for the tour because we needed to get to Santa Rosa before too late. We did take a peek in to see a very large, high end bottling line, and multiple fermenters of 60 barrels or larger, yeast propogation tanks, and a row of 1600 lb. "super sacks" of base grain. Dudes might be stoners, but they are pumping out a large amount of excellent and consistent beers. A little trivia for you: Hop Stupid, their double IPA, is brewed with 100% carbon dioxide-extracted hop extracts (although it's dry hopped with traditional hops). It's the same type of product that Northern Brewer sells as the "Hopshot", which we used in our double IPA homebrew.

Here's a view of the Russian River Brewpub bar. All beers are on a chalkboard with ABV and BU's listed. The left board is for American Ales, the right board is for Belgian and barrel-aged beers.

There are a few barrels in the Brewpub, but most of the barrel aging is done at the production brewery 1 mile away. Pictured are Beatification (an mostly brett beer with a dose of lacto and pedio towards the end) and Consecration, one of the newer sour ales that is barrel aged with dried currents. The Consecration was excellent, but I was not enthralled with the Beatification. Honestly I still have yet to taste an all-brettanomyces beer that I truly enjoy.

This is just a close-up of some coaster art that customers have left. I was really attracted to the diagonal monkey-looking face that had a spooky, otherworldly, almost schizophrenic quality to it. The colors are amazing, which you can't really see here.

All in all, we were able to try the 2 above beers, Perdition, a "Biere de Sonoma", Salvation, a strong dark Belgian ale, Mortification, a Quad, Blind Pig IPA, Russian River IPA, Pliny the Elder, and "Hop 2 It"with Sterling hops. This beer is brewed with a single hop that changes each batch. Vinnie started that beer to get to know hop varietals, and he says that it is a great way to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of each hop varietal, none of which he usually likes to brew with exclusively.

There were so many other beers to try, but we had a 2 hour drive back to Oakland ahead of us. We also had 4 days of serious drinking ahead of us, and as was stated on many occasions during the week, "It's a marathon, not a sprint".

San Francisco beer tour by bicycle

Things have been going well in NYC, but I have really needed a break from my office monkey job.  Since I was already blowing wads of cash to come out to Oakland for NHC, I figured why not make it a week's vacation, get some time to totally not think about work, and see some new sights.  So after a long 12+ hour double brewday at Sixpoint on Saturday (the groundwater is getting warmer this time of year which means knockout takes 90 minutes instead of 45), I threw some stuff in a bag in the most disorganized, last minute effort to prepare for the trip, and headed out Sunday morning.  I was pretty exhausted from a long week, so on Sunday I just hung out around North Beach and the Green Tortoise Hostel, ate a huge burrito picked up a 6 pack of Full Sail Amber (one of my favorite "gateway" craft beers), and turned in early.  

The Green Tortoise is snugly nestled between many family entertainment institutions like the one above, in the very touristy and very affluent area of San Francisco called North Beach.  It's an area where a lot of the famous Beat writers used to live, but now I doubt you could find a house here for less than 3 million.  That's just a guess though. I got a pretty early start on Monday and headed out to a bike rental shop where I picked up this speed demon.  Well, OK, it's a slow hybrid, but it was nice for touring the city and I wasn't in the mood for speed.  The helmet was a must, as I was on unfamiliar ground and planning on drinking.First I needed some coffee, so I took Clarissa's recommendation and headed down to the Mission District to Ritual Coffee.  Almost got hit by a taxi on the way down (my fault).  I was still un-caffeinated and suffering from some pretty bad allergies.  I considered it my warning for the day to be careful in my innebriated travels.  After some Sumatran French press and a cheese danish I was feeling pretty good and hopped back on the bike for my first stop:The 21st Ammendment is a big supporter of the BN, so I really wanted to check it out first hand.  I had a half pint of the Tasty pale ale (the Pro-Am recipe brewed by Mike McDole), and it was pretty awesome.  Tons of hop delivery, and a resiny body.  If you are looking for balance, you WILL NOT find it in this beer.I also tried everything else they had on draft.  Sadly, the Brew Free Or Die IPA was not on tap, but only available in a can.  I have a feeling I will get to check it off the list before I leave the bay area though.  

My favorite beers were the Dahm Kolsch and the Belgian pale ale called Primus.  I was not a big fan of the Watermelon Wheat at all.  From my tasting notes:  "Fresh melon aroma, but then again it had a slice of watermelon on the glass.  Flavor:  dry Jolly Rancher with bready wheat.  On second pass, smells strongly of seaweed and wet dog."  

I met Jesse, the head brewer, who was a really nice guy.  I kept looking for Sully, but I didn't see him.  I figure I'll see him at NHC at some point.

I couldn't help but stop and take a picture of this spa, and wonder if the offer a special on happy endings.   I was on a budget though, so I had to take a pass.

So instead I stopped a Vietnamese noodle joint for some nourishment.  This bowl of vermicelli, BBQ pork, beef, prawns, and an egg roll was delicious!  I could really eat this more often.

Jesse, the brewer at 21A, recommended Magnolia Brewpub as a must-stop, which is located in the Haight-Ashbury.  First I had to make my way up some pretty steep hills though, which totally  kicked my ass!  What can I say, I'm not in that good of shape and not used to steep hills;  we just don't have them in NYC.   This photo really doesn't relate the steepness of the climb, since it was taken from the top where the hill levels out a bit more.

I had to go up a little higher to get some perspective, so I headed to the top of Buena Vista Park for a better view.  

OK, that was a legitimate climb!

After that is was off to Haight-Ashbury proper.  Haight street itself is pretty scary.  It's an over-commercialized parody of what it once aspired to be.  Just see below for a perfect example.  It pretty much sums up every storefront on the street.  I'm sure there are a few cool places, like Amoeba Records, and Magnolia was pretty cool, but mainly it's just fly-paper for tourists and crazy hippies.

Here is Magnolia Brewpub, where I tried a couple of beers.  The ambiance was great, and the 2 beers I had were pretty good, but not great. I've had (and sometimes brewed)  better homebrewed IPA's and Belgian wits than the ones I tried here.  The IPA wasn't bad, just not the west coast IPA I was expecting.  It's sessionable, clean,  and moderately hoppy.  The "Wit Rabbit"   tasted like it was brewed with an American ale yeast, with no Belgian esters for complexity.  The spicing levels of orange peel and coriander were just right though.  It was also clear as a bell, which again makes me think it was not brewed with a wit yeast, and probably used wheat malt as opposed to raw wheat.

I met a really nice guy wit his wife at Magnolia who reminded me that the legendary Toronado beer bar was right down the street, so I made that my next stop.  I ran right in to two friends from out east who were here for NHC:  Paul Kaye, and my friend Todd, below, from Philly.

Let's just say many treats were available.  I stuck with the Moonlight Brewery and Russian River beers though.  When in Rome, right?  

I was planning on hitting up some other stops, but after I got back to the hostel, ate some pasta, and laid down for a minute, jet-lag and the long day kicked in and I was sleeping like a small child.  

In a few minutes I should be heading out to Russian River with Doug.  I'm pretty psyched, and I wonder if we might get a chance to meet the legendary Vinnie Cilurzo. 

San Diego Day 1: Thursday April 9th

Pizza Port Carlsbad: Excellent brews by the pitcher tempered by stomach sating pies

This past weekend I finally made it out to the beer mecca that is San Diego. Clarissa and I went out to visit my internet friend and beer blogging buddy, Chillindamos. When you consider that we had never actually met in person, or even talked on the phone up till a month ago, it was extremely generous of him to let us come and stay with him. It would be kind of like ordering a mail order bride without actually seeing the goods, except that luckily for him we left after 4 days. It was great to meet Chillin' and his wife in person, and we really did hit it off with a great weekend of beer drinkin', chillin', and...more beer drinking. It was all highly intellectual of course.

We rolled in on Thursday and promptly searched out some food and beer at Gordon Biersch. In outward appearance, Gordon Biersch is a giant sports bar that you might find at any local mall. What sets it apart is some excellently crafted German style beers that are as fresh as can be. We tried their alt and their schwarzbier, both of which were fantastic. Clarissa and I also went back on a separate occasion and we had the maibock and the export, a Dortmunder style lager, which totally blew my mind! It was so malty but crisp, the product of a true decoction mash and judicous use of melanoidin-rich malts.

Next we stopped off for a trip to Ballast Point. The original, and smaller brewing location is attached to the local homebrew store, and samples of all the beers are available. The only beer I had tried previously was the Calico Amber, which placed really highly in a blind Amber tasting I helped out with for the Ale Street News. My favorite was their Yellowtail Pale Ale, which is actually a Kolsch. We also tried a smoked lager, a doppelbock aged in some kind of barrel, and a hoppy barleywine-ish beer (for some reason my memory gets a little foggy here).

Then we headed out for a little cruise of the local neighborhoods, and ended up in La Jolla for a walk along the beach. There were a bunch of seals who had apparently mastered the art of chillin'. They were just basking in what sun there was to be had, occasionally stretching out or flipping over on their rocks.

We continued our walk to Karl Strauss, another local brewpub. I am a lover of saisons, so I made sure to taste theirs. It was pretty good, but maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it, so I passed an opted for an excellent IPA. Chillin' had an amazing doppelbock. It was full of malty richness without being too sweet.

Gordon Biersch: A corporate vibe, but outstanding lagers!

After all this drinking, it was time for a real dinner, with beer of course. I was having a hard time keeping up after the extremely early 4 a.m. start we got on the east coast, but I faked it for a while longer and it ended up paying off. We picked up Chillin's wife, Michelle, and headed out to Pizza Port in Carlsbad to meet some of their friends.

Pizza Port was my single favorite brewery on this trip. It's a large, busy pizzaria with a surprisingly small brewery. All the beers are brewed on location, with their bottled beers being brewed at Lost Abbey (see following post). The combination of the atmosphere, the cheap pitchers of some of the best beer you can find, and solid pizza kept me happy (try the San Clemente pizza with black bean sauce & cilantro). We had 4 pitchers, the Pizza Port Wipeout IPA, the Abbey Ale, and "Twerp", a blonde abbey single at 4%ABV. They were all tasty, but I couldn't get enough of the Wipeout! We also had a Firestone Union Jack IPA, but my money was on the Wipeout.

Incredibly, we proceeded back to Chillin's place with another homebrewing friend, Dave or "Comrade" to drink some more beer! By this time we had switched to The Bruery's Saison Rue. I liked it, but I am a bigger fan of their Saison Lente. But if you like a lot of brett in your beers, you will probably like the Saison Rue. We finished the night bathing in a crowded hot tub, which I graciously begged out of after I caught myself passing out.

To Be Continued...