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...

Monday, December 17, 2012

GET THEE BEHIND ME CABIN FEVER


‘Tuther day we decided that Tama had just about enough of languishing around the house recovering from her surgery so we planned a little weekend run up around Petaluma.

Along with some casual antique gawking and visits to local bakeries and cheese makers, I managed to find a couple of breweries that needed my attention.

First stop was in Sebastopol at the HopMonk Tavern, one of three area branches. This is a spacious bar & restaurant with a steady line-up of local and national performers on weekends.  We hit there in the early afternoon and the bar was still well littered with straggling lunchers and such.  They offer a long line of taps with a strong variety of local micro guest beers, but, being on a mission as it were, I ordered their own Hopmonk Tavern Ale.  A lovely, well crafted beer with all those things your mouth asks for in ale. It was perfect for washing down those bar bite fries we also ordered.  I probably could have spent much of the afternoon working my way down the tap line but, hey, this was a road trip…

Well, we wandered many miles and sampled artesianal cheeses, went looking for Tippy Hedren at Bodega Bay, gobbled pastries from tiny bakeries and finally headed back toward the golden gate.  By the time we got back to Petaluma we realized that we weren’t quite ready to drive home so we got ourselves a room, rested up and went out looking for dinner and another notch on my brewery list.

A little research and a little reconnaissance got us to Dempsey’s Ale House.  Unfortunately having no plan left us on their doorstep at dinner time on a Saturday night in the big city.  The place was hopping, so we left our name with the hostess and went to try and find a place at the bar.  In no time at all someone already at the bar got the call that their table was ready so we parked our carcasses on the bar stools and I reviewed my options.  By name alone I settled on a pint of their seasonally offered 707 Wet Hop Ale… again with the pleasant surprise that hopping beer is no longer a blood sport.  It was a nice blend of fresh hops and lots of malt… livelier than a lot of beers and a joy to slurp down. 

By now our hostess was looking for us, but we had already eyeballed the menu and decided that we would move on for dinner.  Not that the food didn’t look and sound great, but after you have hit a hundred or more brewpubs you find that there is a little too much common denominator in their menus and the thought of another round of BBQ Ribs or Beer Battered Fish & Chips (two of my perennial favs…) just doesn’t make the grade anymore.  So it was back across the street from our motel for a hole in the wall Mexican place and a couple of bottles of Modelo Especial.
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