ol' Republic Brewery

Recently, my visits to breweries have been a bit disappointing.
I guess my standards are a bit high.
ol' Republic was a welcome change.
Their beer is awesome!
Their IPA (in the photo) was great.  It was everything you want in an IPA - easy to drink, great taste that isn't too strong that it wears you out and isn't too weak to be boring.

Save this brewery to your To Go list!

ol' Republic Brewery 

124 Argall Way

Nevada City, CA 95959

Green Flash: West Coast IPA

This was just not very good.
I cannot say what it was.
Too much hops?
The wrong type of hops?
Dunno.
But I cannot recommend it.

Lagunitas Little Sumpin'

I got Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Ale right after a nice long bike ride.
Boy, it his the spot!
It was very light and refreshing!

Citrusy, if that's a word.

Jupiter's XHP (Xtra Hopped Pale Ale)

I am still pretty much of a newbie to the East Bay but one place that I have been to a number of times and always liked is Jupiter.  They have a great list of beers that they brew themselves and a nice outside patio.
Today I tired their XHP - Xtra Hopped Pale Ale.
It was very similar to the Citra Pale Ale that I brew myself with a clean citrusy flavor.
I highly recommend it.

Jupiter

2181 Shattuck Avenue

Berkeley, CA

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Dunsmuir Brewery Works

On the way back from a backpacking trip to the Trinity Alps we stopped by and enjoyed the Dunsmuir Brewery Works restaurant.
I'd first like to say that Dunsmuir is a very charming town.  We stopped on the way up as well and found another great place for brunch.
DBW has a nice selection of beer.
We tried their IPA (4/5), Red (5/5), Stout (4/5), Barley Wine (2/5), and their Wheat beer (3/5).
That's quite good considering that I am not a fan of either barley wines or wheat beers.

Dunsmuir Brewery Works
5701 Dunsmuir Ave.
Dunsmuir, CA

Big Eye Pale Ale

Very strong flavored IPA.
I liked the taste but feel that it was probably too strong to have with a meal.
That said, I was having a grilled ahi sandwich so the label was more than appropriate.

Samuel Adams Double Agent IPL

Many in the microbrew crowd diss Samuel Adams saying that is has gotten too big to be considered a microbrew.  I disagreed simply due to fond memories of when they first came out.
Double Agent IPL has changed my thoughts a bit.
It was one of the most boring beers I've had in a long time.
It really lacked character. 
It wasn't bad, but I expected much more character from a microbrew.
Maybe the skeptics are right.

Tripify's Best Breweries

Tripify has a great list of the Best Breweries in California.
Here are placemarks for each one of them so you can remember to go there:

Pizza Port Brewing Company
571 Carlsbad Village Dr.
Carlsbad, CA 92008


The Bruery
715 Dunn Way
Placentia, CA 92870


Half Moon Bay Brewery
390 Capistrano Rd.
Half Moon Bay, CA 94019


Sierra Nevada
1075 E 20th St.
Chico, CA 95928


Stone Brewing Company
1999 Citracado Pkwy
Escondido, CA

Review: Linden Street's Burning Oak Black Larger

This tasted very much like a porter but with little or no hop flavor.
It was just ok.  Not very exciting but drinkable with food.

The food here was also good but not great.
The presentation was nice but the flavor was nothing special.
Chop Bar.
247 4th Street #111
Oakland, CA 94607

Review: Hof Ten Dormaal Dark

My accomplice chose a much better beer.
She chose the Hof Ten Dormaal Dark.
Well, to be more precise, the bartender recommended it when she said that she liked St. Bernardus.
Very sweet, brown sugar-like taste.

The Trappist
460 8th Street
Oakland, CA 94607

Review: Omnipollo Nebuchadnezzar

Any beer with a name like Omnipollo Nebuchadnezzar is a must try!
That said, it was a bit of a disappointment.
It started out with a nice citrusy smell.
But, it followed with a not-so-pleasant bitter taste.

And the aftertaste left a lot to be desired.

That said, we drank it at a great location.
The Trappist
460 8th Street
Oakland, CA 94607

Review: Drakes Black Robusto

I have to say that I was quite disappointed with this. 

I love a good porter and brew a mean one of my own (called St. Paul porter, named by the home brew place I first learned the recipe). 

This one was very plain and unexciting. 

It did not go down easy at all. 

Review: Weltenburger Dunkel

I am not much of a German beer fan, so when I went to Suppenkuche the other day, I had to ask for their recommendation.  And a great recommendation it was.
The Weltenburger Dunkel is a smooth, sweet darker beer.
It went perfectly with the sauteed porkloin and spatzle.
I strongly recommend this restaurant and this beer.
Suppenkuche
525 Laguna st.
San Francisco CA 94102

Review: MateVeza Beer

I've had this place on my To Go list for some months; so long I cannot remember where I first heard about it.
It's pretty much a take-out place and being located next to Dolores Park makes that quite an easy thing to do.
I sampled 2 beers of theirs: one a reddish, no-hop, Kriek-like beer, and their main MateVeza.
The former was a bit too fruity and bitter for me.  The latter was a good, somewhat normal tasting IPA.  I could not taste anything specially different considering it is made with mate.

Cervecería de MateVeza
3801 18th St
San Francisco, California

Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale

Delicious!
This is an awesome, sweet ale!

Consumed at:
The Mad Dog in the Fog
530 Haight St
San Francisco, CA 94117

Review: English Ales Brewery

I hate to trash a microbrew place but I have no choice with this place.
Their beer just isn't good.
I got the Dragon Slayer IPA and it was not to my liking.  It wasn't that it was bland; it had a flavor.  It just wasn't what I would call good.
My friend had a four beer taste flight of their porter, pale ale, and corkscrew ale beers as well as the Dragon Slayer.  All of them were a bit off. 
The one redeeming factor was the fun collection of beer mugs hanging from the ceiling.  Regulars buy mugs and are served from their mugs when they come.  Nice idea.

English Ales Brewery
223 Reindollar
Marina, California 93933 USA

Pyramid IPA @ roller derby

Alright, I admit that I am just writing this review so I can talk about the awesome time I had at the roller derby match last night. It was a sold out match, first of the season, between the San Francisco ShEvil Dead and the Richmond Wrecking Belles.  We were obviously good luck to the ShEvil Dead.  When we arrived, they were behind by 30 points.  At the end of the night they won 158-119!
My favorite player was tiny Trixie Pixie.  She just slipped past the defenders and scored over and over.
As for the beer, I was a bit disappointed.  I had Pyramid Ale's IPA.  It was far to sweet for my tastes. (BTW That is not my hand in the photo.)

The Craneway Pavilion
1414 Harbour Way South
Richmond, CA

Steelhead

We did the sampler here and, boy, that was the right decision.
Our favorite by far was the one the 3 seasonal beers they gave us.
Since these are not listed on their website, I'll have to go from memory.
It was a strong ale.  Very nice.  At first I thought I had a bit of an aftertaste from the excessively chocolatey-flavored stout, but I realized that was part of it's complex flavor.  (Just thinking of it makes me wish I wrote down it's name.) 
As I mentioned, the chocolate stout was a bit much.  Great, but we were very lucky to get just this small glass of it.  It was more like hot chocolate in flavor than beer. 
Of their standards, I liked their IPA the best. 
Although I am not really a big guy with blondes (not just the beers), I did like their blonde.
As expected, their Hefeweizen was not to my taste despite it's fun name: Hairy Weasel.

Steelhead Brewing Company
333 California Drive
Burlingame, CA 94010
 

Sweetgrass of Grand Teton Brewing

Sweetgrass is a very smooth and drinkable APA (American Pale Ale).
Good one to have with a meal; not too strong as to interfere with the taste of what you are eating.
For an APA it is not too hoppy, which makes me happy.

Maven
598 Haight St
San Francisco, CA 94117

Laguinitas Maximus

I was at a geo geek meetup last night held at Trulia's offices.  They offered stacks of pizzas and ice cold beer.  Nice spread!
I tried Laguanitas IPA Maximus Ale.  It was quite good.  It didn't have that acidic taste that I get with many high alcohol beer even though it was a good 8.2% alcohol.  But, thanks to this alcohol and the fact that I drank two bottles, I had a nice buzz going by the time the presentations started.

Racer 5 @ Alices

Ooops!  I meant to shoot a photo before drinking it but it went down so well after a hard mountain bike ride!  Bear Republic's Racer 5 is quite good on tap.  I have had it in the bottle before and it seemed pretty standard but on tap... let's just say it went down very quickly and was greatly enjoyed.
I did not know until I went to Bear Republic's own brewpub earlier this year that Racer 5 is a reference to Speed Racer (a.k.a. マッハGoGoGo).

I consumed this at the wonderful biker bar Alice's in the hills above Woodside.
I strongly recommend their Norton Burger with blue cheese and bacon.
Alice's
17288 Skyline Blvd
Woodside, CA 94062

Ale Arsenal

We tried two IPAs here.
101 North Heroine IPA
and
Palo Alto Brewing Nelson Rye IPA.
Both were pretty awesome. The Heroine IPA (on the left in the photo below) had a great first impression. She was attractive, sweet red head. I am looking forward to trying more beers from this new brewery. (101 North Brewing)
The Nelson Rye IPA did not create as strong of an immediate impression but really improved over time.  It had a very sweet, almost butterscotch flavor.  Similarly, I am looking forward to seeing more from Palo Alto Brewing Company.

Ale Arsenal
971 Laurel Street
San Carlos, CA
 

Refuge

Forget the beer for a second.  Their Reuben sandwiches rock!
Ok, back to beer.
I don't normally drink Belgian beers.  In fact, many of us homebrewers call our failed batches "Belgians" since they tend to have a similar taste...

For the first time in years I had a Kwak.
Compared to normal Belgian beers, it is pretty good.   It's still 8% alcohol but it still tastes like beer.

My companion had the Koningshoeven (10%).  This was just ok.

Location:
Refuge
963 Laurel Street
San Carlos, California 94070

Bear Republic

After our experience at Mendocino Brewing Company, it was good to be back at a true pub-like brewpub. I ordered their Columbus Rebellion IPA. It was pretty standard. Yes, it had a slight citrusy taste but nothing out of the ordinary.

Since I was not that excited by the Columbus Rebellion, the bar maid gave me a sampler of the 06300 Rebellion IPA. This was very unique and interesting. I cannot describe what it was that made it that way, but I liked it.

Bear Republic
345 Healdsburg Avenue Healdsburg, CA 95448

Mendocino Brewing Company

Finding Mendocino Brewing's tasting room was a bit of a challenge. We drove to their brewery but there were no signs showing where to enter. Finally, a man raking gravel in front said we had to go back towards where we came from; the tasting room is in a strip mall about half a mile off. The tasting room was set up like a bar with a pool table and all, but not that attractive. It is a challenge to make such a place attractive in a strip mall. Given the not-so-attractive atmosphere, we limited ourselves to trying 4 samplers. Here are my impressions: Black Hawk Stout - good, but standard stout White Hawk Select IPA - very average Butte Creek Porter - Sweet and tasty. The best of the four. Talon Double IPA - too strong

Mendocino Brewing Company
1252 Airport Park Blvd.
Ukiah, CA

Russian River Brewery

Their Happy Hops is more or less a standard pale ale. It had a good, sweet but had-that-before taste.

Their Row 2 Hill 56, like its name, is much more unique. It is almost a smokey pale ale. I could see this beer becoming a habit.

As for the restaurant and the pub itself, they served very good, thin crust pizza. I also have to give them credit for very professional marketing with nicely designed t-shirts, growlers, and fun beer names.

Russian River Brewery
725 4th Street
Santa Rosa, CA