The Bistro's 11th Annual 2 IPA Festival

Hayward California...the Bistro...Saturday February 12th 2011 was where and when I needed to be. I can think of no other place on earth....on that day...that I ever more assuredly belonged.

58 Double IPA's, a rare 70+ degree February summer like day, hanging out with my Mom and family and finishing with a spot-on Jimi Hendrix impersonator playing Stevie Ray Vaughn songs.

And oh ya...some mostly pale looking lavishly hoppy beer creations that at times carved out chunks of my palate, and left me masochistically searching for the next one on the menu.

The Beer of the day for me...well...beers of the day were ....uh....did I mention there was 58 Double IPA's listed on the program?

I can, I believe, narrow my favorites down by the amount of beer stains next to the little hand written stars next to the IBU listings.

I should start with Kern River Brewing Citra. Which coincidently was voted The Peoples Choice Award....unseating some little unhearalded triple IPA from Russian River Brewing called Pliny the Younger. The Younger has had a lock on that award for the past several years.

I see that I also have a star next to Lagunitas Fusion and Triple Rock IIMAXX....which doesn't surprise me because I am fans of both breweries.

Hopefully as you read through this you're not still searching and patiently waiting for some cleaver detailed beer descriptions because frankly I've given up trying to take those kinds of notes at this place years ago.

This yearly event just isn't about that for me anymore. I go for the inspirational collection of seasonal hop monsters and the absolute sensory in-your-face hop overload that this festival provides. If you've ever attended...well then you know what I mean.

One of the most important lessons to learn and always remember is to have a really good breakfast before even thinking of showing up. Good advice for any beer fest but doubly important on a day such as this.

OK, OK.... my grand hop memories started clouding my purpose here...which is...um...oh ya... my favorite selections.

Another couple of my personal podium finishers would have to be Drakes Brewing Hop Salad and Bear Republics Cafe Racer 15. According to my records I had multiple samples of these. I do remember going on and on about the Hop Salad during the event to most anyone that would listen. I think I remember at one point some dude that said he was from the midwest kept asking me if I was in the band so finally I said "Yes, ZZTop is going to play next" and he slurred out "No I thought you were Burl Ives".

After that I moved my chair away from the psycho ward and went and got some 21st Amendment Hop Crisis on my way to grab an Auburn Ale House PU240.

I had a lot of help sampling a wide variety of beers as Trog, Doctor Robert, Oralia and the rest of the crew continuely fetched full sampler glasses of whatever entries were catching their eye and sharing them with the group.

According to my list I still only managed to try 32 of the 58 entries.

I know...how pathetic. I will however continue at next years event to find the perfect balance of ...

well balancing... and walking... as well as trying as many of these spectacular hand crafted super Ales as I possibly can. I promise.

Oh..and the official winners were

Gold - Firestone Walker - Double Jack

Silver - Moylans - Moylander XX

Bronze - Drakes - Hopocalypse

Peoples Choice - Kern River Brewing - Citra

Beermen

It might be the byproduct of having a fairly odd and unusual last name myself but I've always been drawn to and amused by other weird, different and humorous names and titles. Especially sports team mascot names.

I mean who among us are not fans of the 'Farts'.... a Norwegian womans Soccer team that was established in 1934. Or the Belgian Soccer Club 'Beerschot', or closer to home for me the UC Santa Cruz 'Fighting Banana Slugs'. Oh...and I really like that legendary Hockey team from Georgia 'The Macon Whoopee'.

I got another one for the list.....The Philippine Basketball Association (Yes, there is such a thing) San Miguel sponsored 'Beermen'.

Check it out..... I can't wait for my new San Miguel Beermen hat to arrive.

1-1-11 Notes

It occurred to me this morning that it is only fitting that I start the year off right with a quick look at some on-line beer news. I didn't have to look far to find some interesting information.

Since we're pondering a trip to the San Luis Obispo area for our annual March anniversary brewery tour I figured I'd start with a detailed look at the beer mapping site. Before I even got to looking at any maps I noticed the Beer Mapping folks declared last month that December 17th was to be celebrated as National Growler Day!

Now, as anyone that knows me can attest, I'm all for having a day that promotes filling growlers with beer, but on this one occasion I had to wholeheartedly agree with the comment that was made by the good folks at Ladyface Alehouse & Brasserie in Agoura Hills CA.......that EVERY day is a great opportunity to go and fill growlers with the fresh local beer of your choice.

The very next thing that entered my hollow skull was "Why in the hell have I not already stopped at Ladyface on one of my growler gathering trips to So-Cal?" Well...I really have no worthy excuse and to be honest find it rather useless to even think that I really need one. The best part is .... the next time that we head down The I-5 for San Diego I know where our first stop will be. Checking out their website I see they have a number of interesting hop offerings as well as a few nice guest taps and a bottle list.

OK back to beer mapping and planning for that Southern Coast run that I know will likely begin and end in Paso Robles for Firestone Walker visits.

So as far as I'm concerned 2011 is growler filling year....so get on out there and get ya some Pilgrim.

Terri's Holidaze cookies

Although I once heard from a fool (although he was not on a hill at the time) that it never rains in sunny California. Today and this week would certainly make that... uh... well... idiot seem even a bit more silly than usual. It's Nor-Cal monsoon... with no let up in sight.

Which of course is perfection in the making when it comes to baking. (Wow....food channel lyrics); or at least a great excuse for having the oven on all day in your kitchen.

Seasonal cookie master Terri choose a prime day to whip up her yearly doughy offerings.

Peanut Blossoms led off the show and when the dust finally settled there were in excess of 22 dozen (Top photo obviously).

A couple of Sierra Nevada Celebrations later the chocolate/butterscotch chip cookies started popping out of the oven at breakneck speeds followed by a healthy dose of something called Noodle Clusters At this point our focus has switched to a growler of Idiot double IPA from Coronado Brewing (How did that thing end up in my fridge?) But the damage is done. 300 cookies and who will sample them? Mine!!!! ha ha all mine!! In reality I'm sure my in house cookie monster will have more than a little to say about that distribution. Go Chiefs!

Epic II HopSoberFest gathering Part 1

Once again the Gods of beer gathering summoned me from a restless night of sleeping and commanded me to travel about the lands and gather the finest hoppy nectars to be found and share them with the faithful.

Well....actually it was Terri that woke me up one morning and said "Screw all this working....lets go to San Diego and do some brewery hopping" and so we did.

Hopping was the key word and catalyst. Well....that and driving.

With 4 days to spend in San Diego prior to Thanksgiving we waisted no time getting out of Roseville on a Sunday morning....packed and on the road by 5am. First stop was Fullerton and Bootleggers Brewing. After hours of mindless due South driving on I-5 (and a bunch of Joni Mitchell CD's) we finally arrived at Bootleggers front door 10 minutes prior to opening and were the first customers of the day. They had one of their seasonal doubles on called Knuckle Sandwich which was very growler worthy but they refused to sell us any of it. Apparently supplies were low. We grabbed a couple of samples and a growler of their Rye IPA to share on Thanksgiving and jumped back on the road. It was a very frustrating yet efficient stop ....18 minutes.

Our next stop was The Bruery in Placenta just about 5 miles South of Bootleggers. The Bruery is another interesting gem, in a little tucked away commercial zone they had almost a dozen Belgian style beers but only one hoppy beer to sell. It was lite pale called Humulus and was actually quite tasty...but at less than 5% abv wasn't going to hold up to the beers we were looking for. It became another Thanksgiving day treat.

After sharing a pint of the Humulus we were getting hungry and so immediately got back on I-5 and set our sights on San Clemente Pizza Port.

That particular PP (there are 4) is home to the GABF medal winning (or so the sign said) Pseudo IPA which we really enjoyed so we helped ourselves to three growlers of it. The pizza was excellent and we wanted more pints but we were on a mission and tore ourselves away and resumed our Southern traveling in search of the thriving community of Vista.

Vista is home to one of our favorite breweries ...Green Flash...makers of West Coast IPA, Imperial and hopefully a batch of their seasonal Pallete Wrecker. Boy were we disappointed.....they were out of all three. Three empty GF growlers destined to return North with no more than dust in them. Well two anyway....ever aware of Thanksgiving consumption we filled up one growler with their excellent Hop Head Red.

Our mood was a little shaken but our resolve was merely stirred as we made our way East just a few miles to Port Brewing in San Marcos. Now then ...this was more like it....a bustling place (it's housed in the old Stone Brewing facility) full off numerous legends such as Hop 15 and Wipe Out IPA as well as lots of Hoppy and Belgian style seasonals. We grabbed a couple of stools and ordered pints of High Tide and Mongo 2IPA. We could have left with 6 growlers but decided to be a bit more conservative (room in the trunk was limited) and only left with two growlers of the Mongo Double IPA.

Finally our long day was starting to wear on our old bones but we still had one stop to go before heading to our sleeping quarters. That stop is the Disneyland of beer....Stone Brewing in Escondido. The place lived up to it's name and was packed with tourists...well beer tourists...so we fit right in. We sampled a couple of pints including Ruination and a beer from Temecula Brewing called Black Market Rye IPA. Very tasty.

We finally had to surf the crowd in the gift shop to get a couple of growlers of Ruination filled.

Back on the road South to Chula Vista and our home in a little log cabin at the Metro KOA.

DAY TWO:

Twas a bit chillier than usual for San Diego but the weather was fine for November so we set out on our long awaited bicycle ride around San Diego Bay after a breakfast of swine and chicken products. The ride was very interesting with Salt flats, ocean views and all manner of riding surfaces to keep our interest and maintain our motivation. Coronado was particularly interesting to ride through although half the time we just ignored the directions and more or less just aimed for the Coronado Bridge which we knew was near where the 'ferry boat docked'....sorry... all those Joni Mitchell lyrics are still bouncing around in my head. We made it to the Ferry launch just in time to wait for the next one an hour away. So we did just what beer cyclists would do in that situation...we rode off in search of Coronado Brewing to see if they were stocking their double IPA....Idiot...no not you...the beer.

Our hop radar did not let us down and we rode straight to it and verified that indeed they did have the beer we require in stock.

The final 10 miles of the 32 mile ride was the most hair raising...traveling the busy Harbor Blvd just as all the dock workers were getting off work and heading home. But luckily we rode over more of them than they ran into us and we ended the ride with a nice tailwind that had come up late in the day. Riding East when you are near The Specific Ocean is always good.

All that cycling is just what is needed to work up a proper beer thirst and that's just what I had as we headed North towards Ocean Beach. We found the Pizza Port and got lucky to nab a parking spot on the side street right near the entrance.

The Ocean Beach PP is typical of all the other PP's I've been in...lost of surf and ocean motif and a plethora of proper hoppy beers.

Although they didn't have their famed Cho Saiko Double IPA they did have copious amounts of their Jetty IPA which we put the screws to while watching the home town Chargers win their Monday Night NFL game. We walked out carrying 2 growlers of The Jetty IPA for our coffers.

One the way back to the cabin we took the Coronado Bridge exit and made our way to Coronado Brewing. The place was uber busy in the bar so we grabbed a table and ordered a pint of IPA and one pint of Idiot their tasty 2IPA. After sampling the Idiot I gave the beautiful wench my empty growler to fill and also ordered another. Epics require more than one growler.

After sharing a nice apple Cinnamon dessert thing we packed it in and headed 'back to the Cabin' (David Crosby lyrics this time) and found our bunks.

LAGUNITAS ROCKS the 101 CORRIDOR

Taking a day off work to go trolling for hoppy beers up the gut of Highway 101 is always a good thing but definitely not for the weak livered.

Farmer Bob, Rick, Sheila and myself decided that it would be a good idea to kick Friday work to the Curb and meet that Highway 101 challenge head on. We started in Healdsburg at Bear Republic Brewing Company (home of Racer 5) and found the beer that was in the process of winning a Gold Medal at the GABF. It's name is Ryevalry and it's officially an American-Belgo style double IPA. It drinks lighter than 8.2% abv and seems every bit full of the listed 70 IBU's. We grabbed a growler of it. They also had a single Hop beer called Rebellion that featured all glacier hops...very tasty.

We knew we had a long day ahead of us so we finished off our couple of pints and headed for lunch in Santa Rosa.

Our first stop in Santa Rosa was at the upscale, well upscale for me anyway, looking place called FLAVOR. We stopped in because we heard they served Moonlight Brewing Beers. They did, and we did and then we moved on. If you are looking for Moonlight beers that is definitely the destination for you. Looks like a great place for lunch but we had other aspirations....destinations and expectations .

We were quite hungry so we headed over to this one place in Santa Rosa that has this great pizza...and my favorite one there is even sorta named like me...it's a Mikey and with added jalapeño's it's quite a thin crust delight. Although I am there primarily for the pizza I can never quite pass up a few pints of their pretty decent beers. If I remember right the place is called Russian River Brewing or something like that. Oh ya...we filled 11 growlers there of something called 'Blind Pig IPA' and Pliny the something or other. Anyway...hope that stuff is good....we sure seemed to need a lot of that medicine.

After a fairly lengthy lunch stay in Santa Rosa we finally got back on the road and headed South straight down the gut of 101 until we found the Petaluma offramp where Lagunitas brewing can be found.

One of the most interesting brewing companies in America, Lagunitas also boasts a really cool beer garden and an even cooler sorta private upstairs employee lounge/living room/bar kinda place that we were lucky enough to stumble into and not be thrown out of.

The bar was manned by none other than "Mr Nice Guy" himself Don Chartier a longtime Lagunitas employee who we quickly learned lives up to his nickname and then some. Don welcomed us and offered us spots at the nearly empty bar and asked us what we wanted to drink. We settled on some Hop Stoopid and Maximus and soon noticed that there wasn't even a cash register in the place. Don and his boss (I so wish I could remember the guy's name who was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and referred to himself as one of the 'suits') regaled us with stories of undercover Government types and rumors of lame never to be forgotten pot busts. Mr Nice Guy even sent us home with a 6-pack of assorted goodies. I've added Lagunitas to my Xmas list.

By now we were really happy to have our sorta designated driver, a noted beer phiosopher who shall remain nameless and blameless. That driver took us immediately to Novato where we were quick to grab stools at the Moylans Brewing Bar where we naturally ordered copious amounts of Hopsickle...because of course we needed more really big beers at that point in our evening and Hopsickle is one of the biggest. Two more growlers filled, a plate of their excellent spicy chicken appetizer and we were off down the road again with visions of hop cones dancing in our heads..... was that U2 I heard in my dream? At least one of us can remember the chicken and Hopsickle.....right Bob?

Hanger 24 Craft Brewery

On a trip down to my old stomping grounds over the Labor Day weekend I had the good fortune to hear about (Thanks CP)and visit a little gem of a brewery tucked away at the Redlands Municipal Airport.... not once but twice.

A mere 45 minute drive down the hill from the heart of the Cultural Wasteland this 2+year old brewery already boosts which could quite possibly be the entire Inland Empire's finest collection of craft brews.

It may be only a small, little, tiny coincidence that our visit coincided with the presence of one of their latest 2010 creations. The nearly 9% double IPA produced for this years American Craft Brew Week.

I suggest a visit to their website to see their full line of offerings for I can only tell you here about the Orange Wheat, The Pale Ale, IPA, Double IPA, Chocolate Porter. Oh wait... apparently I did try a few of their standards besides the Double IPA after all.

The Orange Wheat was as refreshing as anyone could dare expect with a big orange nostril bite and a clean unfiltered thirst quenching quality. The Pale Ale boasted a palate full of Amarillo hops and out did the IPA which was a bit too balanced for our weird tastes. Ours being myself and my old buddy Ralph who oddly was later in the weekend destined to embark on an unexpected sojourn into the murky realm of mixed gender martial arts body mass superiority demonstrations. Ya....you're right....don't ask.

But that's another story for some other blog because here we're all about the hops.....or in the case of the Porter.... chocolate.... and lots of it. A great beer for chicks if they'd get over the color of it....beautiful medium mouth feel with coffee and a slight vanilla presence.

So ya... a bunch of great beers.....uh..oh ya....and that West Coast style hop brute Double IPA that makes any trip to that airport well worth the occasional bumpy roads. All my favorite hops are in this baby...Columbus, Amarillo, Simco and Citra which just unleashes serious citrus and tropical fruit aromas. There is a lot going on in this beer.... apparently including some local honey.

The Hanger 24 growlers are unfortunately the expensive dumb kind that are difficult to haul and store but we bit the bullet and ended up walking out of there with four of them.

That was Saturday and on Monday we revisited with more of the Hop Hunter clan and refilled the empties with more excellent goodness for the long road home to Nor-Cal. A full growler rests quietly in my fridge at this very moment......

Now there is good reason to go to Redlands aside from the famous bicycle race.