My five year plan is to visit, and thereby sample the wares of, every microbrewery in the state of California. I include the ‘big boy” craft brewers since the goal is drinking beer not business profiling. That being said, if they have multiple breweries, I consider one stop at one brewery a fulfillment of my goal.*

These are my personal ramblings about beer and should, in no way, be construed as the last word on either the subject or locations mentioned. And, since we are in the disclaimer business, let me just say two things... one, it is a lot easier to start up a webpage than an actual brewery and, two, when you are going headfirst into Chapter 11 the last thing you worry about is closing out your website. Combine that with the general uncertainty of the information highway and you won’t be overly dismayed when you track down a brewery and find it either DOA or something completely different as they say.

All these dire warnings and disclaimers will, of course, fall by the wayside every time you find that cozy little brewpub in some out-of-the-way burg where the food is good and the beer is great…

*See the amendment to this plan at the bottom of the February 26,2012 blog post...

Friday, November 4, 2011

AT LAST, A REASON TO VISIT YUBA CITY

Well, finally, after an all too long hiatus I am back in the saddle again on my quest for beer (that would be the official quest for beer…).  If you stumble back through earlier postings you will see that I attempted to visit the Sutter Buttes Brewing Co. in Yuba City once before.  Well it appears that I was there about 30 days before their grand opening and, after last Tuesday’s visit, I can assure you that they are up and running and doing a good job of it to boot.  Although I try and make it a habit not to start blowing off the foam before lunchtime, there are moments of extenuating circumstances which call for a slight blurring of that line.  The gods acting as they do, I arrived in Yuba City at around 10 o’clock in the morning. I swung by the front door just to see what was what and discovered that they were in business and destined to open for the day at eleven.  That left me, at this point, with about 45 minutes to fritter away so I topped off the tank, looked for a pair of sunglasses for the lovely wife and had a mediocre breakfast at the Waffle Barn.  The old clock on the wall now said 10:57 so, with stale bacon on my breath, I rolled back around the corner just as they were unfolding the sidewalk sandwich board touting their lunch specials.  I took this as an invitation, even though nobody had pulled the chain on the OPEN sign, and plopped my fat butt down on a bar stool and began chatting up the bartender.  Nothing breaks the ice like sitting down at the bar with a binder covered in brewery stickers so in no time we were comparing notes and talking hops.  


I ordered up a Riley’s Irish Red to lubricate my vocal chords and was pleasantly pleased with it.  Good flavor with just the right amount of hop so that you tasted beer and not vegetables, as it were. She kept singing the praises of their newly tanked Light Stout so, even though I still had to drive Feather River Canyon, I asked for a taster glass to give it a try… just a swallow and I wished I had started with that one.  Less than 4% and not as “thick” as a regular stout but not a black lager, it never the less had  all the smoky, roasted malt flavors that my taste buds love to bathe in when I wrap my lips around a Guinness glass.  


Having regrettably already dined just moments before I passed on lunch, but I must say that the menu looked yummie and affordable and I would definitely stop in again when I find myself in transit betwixt and between Quincy and Insanity Cruz and you should to.
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