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.
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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.
![](http://www.thebeergeek.com/assets/images/sante3.jpg)
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.
![](http://www.thebeergeek.com/assets/images/sante1.jpg)
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…