On Memorial Day weekend, Merideth and I took a break from our hectic book lives to celebrate the opening of a new local brewery, Sante Adairius Rustic Ales in Capitola.
Like it seems with most brewery openings these days, a myriad of delays pushed back a scheduled January opening to late spring. On a couple of occasions, their Facebook status announced an opening day only to be later cancelled. But the big day finally came Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.
Despite the delay of maps on the douchephone sending us to a nearby mobile home park, we arrived at Sante Adairius’ industrial park location a few minutes early to find the soft opening already in full swing. We joined our Grillin & Chillin friends in the tiny tasting room.
There were six beers to try on opening day and Merideth and I had four of them. I started with 831 IPA, a 7.2% ABV brew with really nice pine and citrus hop character. Merideth went with their Belgian-style Golden Ale, Golden Bell. We followed those up with Sara Loves Brett, a tart, pleasantly bretted brew with nice lemon notes. Merideth and I finished with Saison Bernice, a lightly bretted Farmhouse Ale that shined after it warmed up a bit.
Things are really looking up in our local beer scene. This event was the first of hopefully a string of brewery openings on the northern end of Monterey Bay. Congratulations to the folks at Sante Adairius! Not only did they survive starting a brewery but debuted with a excellent selection of beers.
View all the images from the Sante Adairius opening…