Category: Travel in North America

With much anticipation, we drove up to San Francisco Friday afternoon to kick off SF Beer Week. After months of talking about the massive beer event, the day was finally here.

First stop was City Beer for the tapping of some new beers. We were joined by our good friend Renee and her friend Michelle for the special occasion.

First up was the much anticipated release of Russian River’s Pliny the Younger, the Elder’s big little brother. A victim of the hop issue, Pliny the Younger was only released on draft and to select accounts on February 2nd. Craig and Beth waited until opening day of SF Beer Week to tap their keg. When the glorious moment came a 3pm, throngs were crowded around City Beer’s little bar waiting for their glass of the hoppy brew.

A triple IPA, the Younger is a stunner at 10.5%. Due to its limited release, it is going to be gone quick so find your pint sooner rather than later.

The second beer debuting was a recreation of craft beer history, New Albion Ale, the official beer of SF Beer Week. The short story is Don Barkely, brewery cat at New Albion, later the founder of Mendocino Brewing and currently the master brewer at Napa Smith, had the original recipe for the beer and was asked to recreate the beer for Beer Week. (For the longer version, check out Bill Brand’s  blog) On Friday, Don was going around to select pubs in the city to officially oversee the beers tapping.

I’ll admit that I made a mistake. Having a  Pliny the Younger first was not the wisest move. With my palette still bathed in hops, I don’t think I got the full flavor of New Albion Ale. I will definitely be looking to try it when we are back next weekend.

Then it was off to Anchor the official kickoff of SF Beer Week. If you have never done the Anchor tour, I would highly recommend it. The brewery is just plain beautiful and an apropos setting to kick off the celebration of “America’s Original Craft Beer-Drinking City”.

The crowd was a who’s who of the Bay Area beer scene (and then us) with Fritz Maytag playing the very gracious host. While enjoying a few Anchor Steam and Liberty Ales, we mingled around talking to friends and meeting new people.

On more than one occasion, the word “beer celebrity” was used to describe us. While we don’t think of ourselves that way, it was nice that people were interested in talking to us about the Year in Beer and our future travel plans.

For the occasion, Anchor debuted a new beer, Our Barrel Ale, a barrel aged beer. Anchor is fortunate in that they have a whiskey distillery and used their own barrels for the new beer whose origins remain a mystery. As one would expect from Anchor, OBA is a solid beer but not being  a whiskey guy, a little under appreciated by me. The crowd at Anchor last night loved it.

To finish off our first day of SF Beer Week, we went to 21st Amendment with some friends we met up with at Anchor. It’s Strong Beer Month at 21A (and Magnolia) so, as they say, when in Rome. We tried four of the six strong beers available, Monk’s Blood, Imperial Chocolate Porter, Double Tripel and Hop Crisis. Being the hop head I am, the latter two beers were the ones that stood out for me. Though, if I had a bowl of ice cream, the Imperial Chocolate Porter would have been the star of the evening.

Quite a first day. Now it’s off to home and our SF Beer Week event.

My birthday was yesterday but given the historic events of this January 20th, we decided to celebrate over this past three day weekend instead of my birth anniversary overshadowing Barack’s big day.

And to give an indication of who is the spoiled one in the relationship, while Merideth celebrated her birthday in Belgium, my birthday weekend was spent in our state capital, Sacramento. While Sacramento is no Belgium, it does boast a nice beer culture with an active beer community. Over the three-day weekend, we visited seven breweries in the Sacramento area, of which six were new to the list.

The first highlight of the trip was Merideth getting her 450th brewery, Placerville Brewery in Sierra foothill town of Placerville.

We were both supposed to join the 450 Club in Belgium. I was successful but two breweries that we wanted to visit were closed, thus denying Merideth of reaching the milestone by the end of 2008.

So, her moment had to wait for this trip. After trying their sampler set, the beer Merideth chose for the great occasion was their Golden Ale.

There are two brewpubs in the Sacramento area that I want to highlight in this post.

First off is Auburn Alehouse located 4o miles north of Sacramento in the historic Gold Rush town of the same name. I will admit that it takes a lot for a brewpub to ‘WOW’ us these days but Auburn Alehouse managed to do just that. Located in a beautiful, historic and haunted Gold Rush era building in the center of old town, Auburn Alehouse is the whole package.

We were lucky enough to be joined by some Sacramento area friends for the occasion. While waiting for them, we settled ourselves in the bar area and ordered the requisite taster set. All the beers were wonderful with the Batch 100 Old Town Brown, Gold Digger IPA, PU 240 Double IPA and Shanghai Stout being standouts.

After our friends arrived, we moved to a table and the food and beer were enjoyed amid  boisterous conversation. Pitchers of IPA, Brown, pints of the Double IPA made their way to the table and were emptied quickly.

The General Manager, Randy Revell, was very hospitable and brought us out some glasses of their Barleywine which wasn’t on the current beer list. Velvety smooth and delicious, one of us, probably inspired by the Stout float on the menu, came up with the idea of pouring it over vanilla ice cream. It must have been me because it was a brilliant dessert.

What a memorable evening! Thanks to Rick, Tracy, Chadd and Allison for joining us. And thanks again to Randy for sharing the cask DIPA!

The second brewpub I want to highlight is Sacramento Brewing. They have made news lately for closing their Citrus Heights location, but their Town and Country location is going strong.

Rather than talk about their recent struggles, I want to highlight Sacbrew being the best brewpub in Sacramento. Brewmaster Peter Hoey crafts one the most extensive and diverse beer menus that we have ever seen. German-style, Belgian-style, English-style, barrel-aged, hopped up beers, Sacbrew does them all. Our taster set of 12 beers were all solid and there were a number of standouts. Abbey Extra, their Belgian 4.5% single was the beer I enjoyed the most with the IPA, Red Horse Ale and Imperial Stout being tied for a close second.

If that wasn’t enough, Sacramento Brewing’s guest taps make it probably the best multitap in the Sacramento area. When we were there, the guest list was a top shelf  lineup. Racer 5, Pliny the Elder, The Dissident, Houblon Doubbelen IPA Tripel, Tripple Belgian Style Ale were among the guest choices.

To compliment the guest brews, Sacbrew also has frequent guest pint nights with the likes of Firestone Walker, 21st Amendment and Deschutes on tap in the coming weeks.

So, my birthday weekend wasn’t Belgium but was memorable nonetheless.