Going to California.

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

neal32

Well-Known Member
Joined
8/9/10
Messages
187
Reaction score
83
Hey fellow Aussiehomebrewers, I have been travelling for 9-10 months around Central/South America and my trip is winding up but not before I spend 10 days in CA. My plan is to rent a car and visit all the breweries/brewpubs I have always wanted to. I'm starting in LA, then probably going north through San Fran, Santa Rosa and then Chico to the big one! Then all the way down south to San Diego, then back to LA to fly out. Now, a few questions. I want to do as many brewery/brewpub tours as possible, does anyone have experience with this? Should I book in advance? Also Sierra Nevada does a Beer Geek tour, needless to say, I'm pretty keen. Has anyone here done it or knows if it is worth waiting for (It's only on Fridays). I'm pretty excited, any of your recommendations/experiences/beer recommendations would be welcome.

Cheers,

Neal
 
Also I am going to bring beers back, probably just Russian River ones and Arrogant *******(I brewed the clone of this and it was really good, really unique though, will be good to compare, hopefully my memory isn't too hazy :drinks: ) because I couldn't get them anywhere in Australia. How many can I bring back legally?
 
Haven't done the beer tours myself but I do remember people on here saying bookings are a must for some places.
Sounds like a great way to spend 10 days, I'd love to do it myself & hopefully will. Let us know how it was and post some pics !

You can legally bring back 2.25L of alcohol without paying duty and can bring more but you may have to pay duty on it which gets expensive.
 
Here's a few in San Francisco


Good Pubs in SF to sample local brews:
21st Ammendment (brewery)
Magnolia GastroPub (brewery)
Thirsty Bear (Brewery)
Kate Obriens
Also, check out this site for a list of serious beer bars http://blog.zagat.com/2013/03/7-serious-craft-beer-bars-in-san.html. Monks Kettle is awesome but not in the best neighborhood…go for lunch ;-)

Breweries in San Francisco, but you can taste the beer in most bars selling good beer.:
Thirsty Bear http://thirstybear.com/
21st Ammendment http://21st-amendment.com/
Anchor Brewing http://www.anchorbrewing.com/
Magnolia http://www.magnoliapub.com/
Speakeasy http://goodbeer.com/wordpress/

Around the Bay
North Bay (heading towards NAPA)
Marin Brewing http://www.marinbrewing.com/
Moylans http://www.moylans.com/
Russian River http://russianriverbrewing.com/brew-pub/ (Pliny the Elder)
Lagunitas lagunitas.com

East Bay
Drakes, San Leandro http://drinkdrakes.com/
Altamont Beer Works, Livermore (wine country) http://altamontbeerworks.com/ (A Fair Trek. Good if you also like wine tasting as there are 40 wineries nearby)
Schubros, San Ramon http://www.schubrosbrewery.com/ (would give it a miss)
Heretic http://hereticbrewing.com/ (master brewer is Jamil Zainesheff of the homebrew network podcasts…great if you want to know about how to brew any style http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/The-Jamil-Show).
Trumer, Berkeley http://www.trumer-international.com/ (Pilsner)
 
I made the trip to Santa Rosa yesterday especially to visit Russian River Brewing. This is what I found when I got there....
1389228520485.jpg

Was totally devastated. Anyway, have convinced SWMBO that we absolutely must make our way back there on Sunday (she reckons I had a tear in my eye. It worked).

Really loving the craft beer bars around California, and even some of the supermarkets have some pretty awesome beers (just picked up some Alesmith, Arrogant ******* and Clown Shoes). They even sell hops, grain (by lb or bulk - weyermann for example), yeast and all grain equipment at wholesale foods... Awesome!
 
neal32 said:
Hey fellow Aussiehomebrewers, I have been travelling for 9-10 months around Central/South America and my trip is winding up but not before I spend 10 days in CA. My plan is to rent a car and visit all the breweries/brewpubs I have always wanted to. I'm starting in LA, then probably going north through San Fran, Santa Rosa and then Chico to the big one! Then all the way down south to San Diego, then back to LA to fly out. Now, a few questions. I want to do as many brewery/brewpub tours as possible, does anyone have experience with this? Should I book in advance? Also Sierra Nevada does a Beer Geek tour, needless to say, I'm pretty keen. Has anyone here done it or knows if it is worth waiting for (It's only on Fridays). I'm pretty excited, any of your recommendations/experiences/beer recommendations would be welcome.

Cheers,

Neal
Having done the SN Beer Camp, I can highly recommend going to SN and doing the tour. Zappa, if you are still in the area, head to Lagunitas just south of Santa Rosa, you won't be dissapointed, very similar beers to Russian River.
 
Russian River apparently has sour beers on par with the best in Belgium. I would be drinking those because good sours are hard to find, IPA's aka. Pliny the Elder can be found a dime a dozen in the US.
 
Yep, the sours are at the top of my list. I'll see if I can convince the missus to go to Lagunitas on the way back. I have found plenty of lagunitas on tap at various bars and every bottlo has at least their IPA. I haven't been able to find any Russian River though, in bars or bottlo's. Have asked for it.
 
There is also Bear Republic just north of Santa Rosa.
 
Do yourself a favour and download the a couple of episodes of Brew Dogs. They do San Diego, San Fran and they list the 5 top breweries and top 5 brew bars of the area, some of them look amazing...
 
SimoB said:
Do yourself a favour and download the a couple of episodes of Brew Dogs. They do San Diego, San Fran and they list the 5 top breweries and top 5 brew bars of the area, some of them look amazing...
Brew Dogs Facebook page with the top 5s and TV show link.

America's 100 Best Beer Bars 2014 and Zymurgy's 2013 Best in America lists.
 
Neal, visited CA early last year, and as far as breweries go saw San Diego, San Francisco and the surrounding area. Each of the brewery websites will mention if you need to book in advance. And it might be worth checking them out on facebook, a lot of them post info regularly. Green Flash was the only one we booked early based on availabilities on the website, and Stone was the only other one that had limited tour sizes. We turned up to find that the next available tour slot was in a few hours, but they have a really great bistro with a massive bottle list to keep you busy while you wait. Some have tours, some have taprooms/bistros, some have both. Often for $5 you get a tour and a few tasters at the end.

Lost Abbey in SD was one of my favourites. They don’t do tours, but their tasting room was one of the best. Alesmith, Green Flash, Stone, White Labs and Ballast Point are all worth a look in the greater SD area.
North of SF, Moylans, Lagunitas, Russian River and Bear Rebublic are all worth the trip. They all have bistros and taprooms(not sure about Lagunitas, we arrived on a public holiday, so they only had tours of the brewhouse, but that did include tasters). And yes Russian River is well worth the hype. Didn’t go to any of the breweries in SF city, but as jaypes says Monks Kettle is awesome. Massive bottle list and good food but very small and very crowded at peak times. City Beer is another bar/bottle shop worth a visit. There's bar in both SD and SF called Toronado. Didn't make it there, but it was frequently recommended.

You didn’t mention when exactly you’re going to be there. If you’re there in February, then there are a lot of good events at the SF beer week http://www.sfbeerweek.org/ and you would be there in time for the annual release of Pliny the Younger from RRBC http://russianriverbrewing.com/brews/pliny-the-younger/ As zappa mentions, a lot of supermarkets have good craft beer bottle selections. Especially somewhere like Wholefoods.
 
Off to Vegas next week for 3-nights (fun) and then L.A. for 4-nights (work).

Staying in Anaheim in L.A. (unfortunately).

This is my 5th visit, from memory, but any recommendations for these areas are always appreciated.
 
I opted to not stay in Anaheim despite going to Disney as there is next to nothing easy to get to craft bar wise there. I was 2 minutes from Hollywood Blvd and went to a great dive bar "Blue Palms Brewhouse" had a projector screen of the rotating tap list live and up to date all the time.

I think there may be a few bottle o's that are not too shabby in Anaheim area if you can drive at all...
 
SF - For beer bars Monks Kettle, Toronado, City Beer (also a bottlo) and Beer Revolution (in Oakland, about a 15 minute walk from the BART) are the best bars I've been to in the area.

Heading north Lagunitas, Russian River, Bear Republic and Anderson Valley (don't be put off if you've had the grey imports) are all well worth a visit. North Coast is a bit further on at Fort Bragg - a nice drive, an excellent RIS and a great gift shop. I wouldn't stay there though the town is a dump.

San Diego has a smorgasbord of breweries and beer bars. You will want to bring a designated driver though, public transport was not good and taxis have a habit of not showing up. Lost Abbey was my favourite. Alesmith, Ballast Point and the Pizza Ports were all great. For beer bars Hamiltons, Toronado SD, Churchill's and Neighborhood are all superb.

As for bringing back beer - check with your airline how many bags you can bring back and consider paying for an extra bag or two. One of my mates just came back from the USA and he hauled back 40 beers. Write a up a list of what the beer costs in case customs want to charge duty (they usually don't). If you like a beer that comes in cans bring cans back, they are lighter than glass so you can bring back more. Ballast Point's Sculpin IPA is a good example.
 
stillinrehab said:
I opted to not stay in Anaheim despite going to Disney as there is next to nothing easy to get to craft bar wise there. I was 2 minutes from Hollywood Blvd and went to a great dive bar "Blue Palms Brewhouse" had a projector screen of the rotating tap list live and up to date all the time.

I think there may be a few bottle o's that are not too shabby in Anaheim area if you can drive at all...
I have no choice as work puts us up in Anaheim, still - I'm looking forward to it.

My favourite beer hangout in Anaheim has recently closed, which really sucks (Alcatraz Brewery @ The Block), but we've been scouring the web for new places to hit up when in town…
 
Oh yeah and anyone that is going to LA needs to go here: http://ramirezliquor.com/store/
That store is beer Disneyland and has EVERYTHING you could want beer wise and then some. Only reason I missed out when we went was they were closed on a Sunday for delivery but I had a nice order lined up!

(again apologies to mods if linking is out of line)
 
Go to Societe and Thorn St in SD. Societes The Pupil IPA is breathtaking, Thorn St are good mates of mine.
 
Back
Top