Lest you think I’ve slipped into a coma, I have managed to drag myself off the couch and explored a teeny, tiny bit of the my local beer world. Trust me, this only barely scratches the surface.
I recently treated myself to a Birthday trip to The City. These places are now knocked off the bucket list.
City Beer Store, San Francisco
It is what it says it is.
City Beer is a nondescript storefront on a nondescript stretch of Folsom, about a 10-minute walk from Civic Center BART. But step inside, descend the stairs into the bunker-like space, and welcome to beer-geek heaven.
The store is divided roughly in half — one side bottle-shop, other side bar. Their 15 taps had some great offerings, and after much internal debate I started with Alpine Beer Company’s Duet IPA. Alpine has gotten a lot of buzz (and awards) from their small brewery about 30 miles east of San Diego. It didn’t disappoint; clean, smooth, and hoppy.
Being the tequila-lover that I am, I of course could not pass up Golden Road’s El Hefe Añejo-barrel-aged Imperial Hefeweizen. It’s a much a mouthful as its name. Wow. Banana, peach, apricot, and a dash of pepper. The best (or worst) part? There’s no way you’d know it’s 11% ABV. Simply amazing.
I swung by the bottle shop on the way out and picked up a Rubicon Brewing Hopsauce DIPA, in honor of the microbrewery that started this Sac State student off on this journey some 25 years ago. So happy to see it’s still going strong.
Cellarmaker Brewing, San Francisco
Talk about a handy beer tour! Cellarmaker is all of a block away from City Beer. While that may be a very good thing, it also makes for a lot of very good beer consumed in a very short time. Especially considering their flights consist of everything they’re pouring (on my visit, that meant eight), and I had a BART train to catch.
Needless to say, my notes are nonexistent. So, from (hazy) memory…
Believe all the hype. The beers are incredible. Even though the list that day was very hop-heavy, with several pale ales, each beer still managed its own personality, with a purity of flavors I’ve rarely encountered. Outstanding, all of them.
Through it all, the brew the shone the brightest was the Sir Laga IPL (India Pale Lager). Hoppy, yes, but also bright, crisp, with a snappy, grainy finish only a lager can provide. Just wonderful, one of the best beers I’ve had from anyone in quite a long time.
Of course, there are many great beers to be consumed outside of The City as well.
Taps, Petaluma
After being booted out of its previous home, Petaluma Taps settled into a new location in a strip mall just across the river from downtown. What it might lack in prime location, it more than makes up for with a beautiful, expansive deck overlooking the Petaluma River.
The tap list is, of course, top notch, with a heavy local emphasis. I had a Stone 2Hop (their take on the recent 2-hop collaboration project), a Santa Clara Valley Peralta Porter, and a bison burger, which were all outstanding. The service was a bit lacking; the food took a while and it was hard to flag someone down. But, they hadn’t been open long when I visited, so I chalk that up to still working the bugs out.
Overall, kudos to the Taps team for surviving the closure and emerging, better than ever, in their new location.
Napa Smith Brewery, Napa
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beer in wine country. We’ve all heard it, and it’s old. With the myriad of great breweries in Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg and beyond, area wineries should start branding themselves as “Wine in Beer Country.”
Napa Smith’s taproom is in a business park south of Napa proper, not far from the airport. The place was bustling when I arrived, with mostly 20-somethings likely continuing the party after a day of wine tasting. Darts were thrown inside, and footballs outside on the lawn.
A contrast to what can be sky-high prices in area tasting rooms, the sampler here is a bargain — 10 beers for 10 bucks. Servings are not large, which is good for that many samples.
The standouts — a Guatemalan Pale Ale, served only at the taproom, which the server explained was a first attempt at a Coffee IPA. Apparently there wasn’t enough of a coffee infusion in this one for the brewers’ liking. I found it fascinating, with just enough bitter “coffeeness” to give a nice bite at the finish.
The Organic IPA is also a winner, and one of their most popular based on the orders flowing from the bar. Huge perfumey, citrusy, floral hops leap from the glass, a pungent, mouth-filling splash of an IPA that still manages to keep its balance. Very well done.
Art & Wine Festival, Walnut Creek
Hadn’t been to this festival in a while. New (to me) was a beer garden, with lots of great local (and not-so) breweries represented — Schubros, Drake’s, Black Diamond, Stone, and Calicraft, among others.
The one beer I wanted to try, in fact, was Calicraft’s Dub-C, a “session” IPA brewed just for the event. However, I wasn’t the only one with that idea.
There were so many other great beers there, why wait in line? I tried Eight Bridges Hoppy Salvation, a big, flavorful, slightly malt-forward IPA, similar to Anchor’s, which is one of my very favorites. This was my first from Eight Bridges, out of Livermore, and I’ll definitely need to make a trip out try the rest.
Staying with the Livermore theme, I also had a Woodstock West Pale Ale, clean, brisk, and snappy, from Altamont Beer Works. The name is a clever nod to the infamous 1969 Altamont Free Music festival at the nearby Altamont Speedway.
Extreme Pizza, Hercules
Come again? What’s the big deal about a pizza chain, you ask?
Well, smarty, it’s because IT’S WALKING DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE AND THEY HAVE PINT NIGHTS!!
Although, having said that, my first Thirsty Thursday experience at my local Extreme was, well, a bit uneven.
We got there early, cuz I’m old and I hate crowds. A decent amount of people were there, but the place looked not ready for prime time. For some reason, their menus were taken down, so we had to take one from the register. No biggie. We’ve gotten takeout many times previously, so we were fairly familiar with it.
However, if you’re going to have a pint night, at least feature the beers you’ve advertised.
Turns out, they didn’t place their keg orders until a week before the event, by which time they were out of the Little Sumpin’s (both of them), and the Maximus.
D’oh!
The silver lining in all this was that, as a substitute, they had the Nighttime on tap. Which was of course phenomenal. I’ve enjoyed it in bottle before, and actually, I think I kind of preferred it to the kegged version. The bottled version had a bit more coffee bitterness, while on tap I detected a bit more smoke and licorice. Quite interesting.
The bad news? The flight was only four instead of six, and the New Dog Town Pale wasn’t even on tap. They poured it out of bottles.
Despite the bumps, I was very thankful to attend a beer event and not worry about my intake. And if my biggest complaint is only having four beers instead of six to try with my pizza, life really isn’t all that bad, is it?