End of the Year Run

Well...officially it wasn't the FINAL day of 2007 but hell....it was close enough for an end run....end of the year run anyway.
Terri and I headed out to San Ramon on Saturday December 29th with a Mini Cooper full of Russian River, (and other assorted growlers) with and an expectation of big hop fun on Sunday December 30th. Oralia, my wonderful new daughter-in-law (I have two don't cha know) had never been to Russian River so we figured it was the perfect opportunity to remove that ugly moniker from her resume'.
My son Zack, who is on a mission of bicycle fitness this time of year, naturally choose to ride his Wilier from San Francisco to Santa Rosa. He teamed up with his good buddy Dan, while Terri Oralia and I partnered up for our rides and drives to the hop promised land.
Truth be told The Hop Hunter would have loved to accompanied the lads of the 30 speeds from The City to the Grail but his oldness and beerness prevented such an excursion at this point in the year.
Zack head out to ride BART to SF just after 7am while Terri, Oralia and I loaded into her new Honda just prior to 11am and set our sites on getting across the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge. Due to the time in the morning and the season we literally flew across the bay and found ourselves running a bit early in our estimated arrival time to meet Zack at RR in Santa Rosa. Hmmmm....whatever should we do?
Of course The Hop Hunter had a back up plan that included a much overdue visit to Marin Brewing in Larkspur, which coincidentally just happened to be right on the way!!!!!
We cruised into the overgrown commercial center at Larkspur Center and quickly found the brewery for which we seeked. We were a couple minutes early but the door was open and the brewery was alive with activity.
We ordered some IPA and The Albian Amber and then filled a growler with the IPA which we found to be quite drinkable at 11am in the morning. The Amber, as Oralia reported, was excellent and she insisted (rightfully so) that it should be noted as such herein.
We knew Zack and Dan were probably flying along on the Marin County roads so we figured we better cut our excellent Marin Brewing visit short and make our way to Vinnies on 4th Street in Santa Rosa.
We pulled in the back just 15 minutes prior to my youngest sons arrival. Oralia ordered a Sanctification while Terri and I went straight for the bacon...the Blind Pig IPA. I must admit that I have a major love affair with this hop concoction.....I mean ...what's not to love...6% alcohol and 70 friggin IBU's!!. Holy crap (as Rick might say) that's just an outstanding ratio of drinkability, aroma and sessionality.
After several hours of growler filling (only 10 this time), Blind Pig and Pliny The Elder worshiping Zack rightfully figured we needed to move on (he already had visions of the Toronado).

We threw the bike on top of the car and headed down Highway 101. About 20 miles South of Santa Rosa is the town of Novato, home of Moylans Brewery and a splendid monster of a beer "Hopsickle". I grabbed a growler out of the trunk and took a place at the bar to sample the latest batch of what I consider one of the finest examples of California extreme hop brewing. Moylans, which is the brother of Marin Brewing offers a wide spectrum of fine beer styles and some really excellent food as well. But we were on a mission and quickly drained our Hopsickles, grabbed our growler and were headed South again. Our next stop was to be found in Fairfax...
We had a bit of trouble finding Iron Springs Brewery but once there found it to be a friendly and impressive small town brewery/pub. They offered a wide selection of house brews including a real nice "Czech" style pilsner that we enjoyed with a couple of appetisers. I had hopped to fill my growler (actually Ricks growler) with their Casey Jones double IPA that I had samples on a previous occasion somewhere...but alas after sipping on a pint I found it to be a bit off...suffering from a poor pouring line or perhaps some mysterious oxidation., oldness or indeed it could have been attributed to my ripped up taste buds. Whatever the case we went with a growler of the Pils instead.
By this point in the evening most of our discussions and focus was on the Toronado so we headed out towards The Golden Gate Bridge and a too rare visit to what has to be one of the most interesting tap houses on the entire West coast.
On the way we made one quick detour around the neighborhoods just North of the Gate so I could see what was in store for me on the last day of our Epic Redwood Bicycle tour down the California Coast this coming June that terminates just a couple hundred yards South of the toll booths. We crossed the bridge looking for Divisadero Street which would lead us to Haight St and a date with the ever present parking monster that is SF.
Finding a place to park ones vehicle near the Toronado generally has to be one of the most difficult things to pull off and that evening was no exception. Eventually we got lucky and managed to park merely a couple blocks away.
We spent a couple hours on stools near the doorway drinking Franzenkaner, Alaskan Smoked Porter, Blind Pig and El Toro Brewing Deuce. A half dozen Russian River employees, including Vinnie himself made their way through the crowd that evening as well. A very pleasant time was had by us all.
I noticed the next day we had collected 13 growlers from 4 breweries in our travels that day..a pretty decent haul for the Hop Hunter...not bad at all.