Manderes

Early Sunday afternoon it quickly became obvious that our football team was in for yet another long day (and No it isn't the SF 40whiners or Oakland Faders) so we decided to take the short drive to Folsom to check out some new Beer place that was opening up. I recalled from one of Ricks email's earlier in the week that it was on East Bidwell so we showered up after our ride and headed that way in the Mini Cooper.
After driving up and down the area of Bidwell looking for where I thought Manderes was I received a very timely phone call from Mark The Beer Geek who was wondering where I might be on that nice Sunday Afternoon. I explained that I was having trouble finding the new beer place so he accessed his vast beer information network hooked me up with the address and we immediately u-turned right back to it. Turns out the Beer Geek was headed to the Auburn Ale House for some of Brian's tasty treats. If we weren't on the mission to find the new place we may well have joined him in Auburn.
On our drive to Manderes I told Terri "I sure wouldn't be surprised to see Rick and Tracy here today" and as we walked in the door Tracy's huge smile indicated that indeed they were in the house.
I spent the first 10 minutes or so trying to observe, ingest and catalogue all the beer taps and bottles on the shelves behind the bar but the task was fairly overwhelming. My first thought was that somebody affiliated with this place sure does have some clues about beer. It seemed that there were beers of most every type and generally speaking the selection that they stocked was typically a very good example of that style. I mean...they had Old Rasputin on tap for crying out loud. The last time I saw that I was in Fort Bragg at the North Coast brewery.
There were also a lot of Belgians as well as selections from quite a few countries including Italy, France, England , Germany and of course Ireland, Scotland and Canada. The beer menu is impressive. I highly recommend going to the Pacific Brew News Blog to see Rick's photo's and for a more in depth report. He and Tracy also tried a couple of their menu items.
I did manage to reset my trip meter before I left that house and discovered that Manderes is less than 15 miles from my home. This might be too dangerously close...too close indeed. I'm afraid some return trips will be in order fairly soon.
Afterwards, on the trip home, we made a stop at the Sacramento Brewings Oasis off Madison Avenue for some of their revamped IPA and Barleywine. Just a couple more beers that just don't suck.