Beer Doucheing The LA Times

The LA Times ran an article last week on a week long beer road trip up the coast of California, an adventure any beer drinker would love. I knew something was amiss when the first stop was Anacapa Brewing in Ventura. Not so much that Anacapa was a bad choice (I have not been in several years and I remember Anacapa's beers as drinkable but not outstanding) but that the writer and his companion stumbled on Anacapa by accident. Why start a week long beer trip without any apparent research? A little research would have likely put the adventurers thirty minutes north in Santa Barbara for their first stop. Hopefully, they would have started the trip on a Friday or Saturday so they could have visited Telegraph Brewing and then had their late lunch at Hollister Brewing.

The next stop was Downtown Brewing in San Luis Obispo, located at the former SLO Brewing location. Again, why go somewhere pedestrian rather than making a stop somewhere good, like Firestone Walker's Tap Room in Buellton? The next day they went to Santa Cruz. Seabright Brewing sounds like a neat place.

The travellers' biggest faux pas of the trip occurred the next day when they went to Guerneville looking for Russian River Brewing. WTF! Just because a brewery is named for the Russian River does not mean its located on the freaking Russian River! A simple check of Russian River's website would have solved this problem, letting Laurel and Hardy know Russian River Brewing is in Santa Rosa. Lack of preparation caused the numbnuts to miss one of the best breweries in the world. (They also could have hit Lagunitas, Moonlight, and Bear Republic.)

At least these guys made it to North Coast. But all the author tried was Red Seal - readily available at any Trader Joe's. Why not Pranqster, Le Merle, Old Stock, Old Rasputin, or Scrimshaw, North Coast's excellent, but harder to find beers. Oy vey!

Finally, the dynamic duo made it to San Francisco as they headed back down the coast. Thumbs up on choosing Magnolia - great beer and even better food. They also hit San Francisco Brewing Company. I have seen this small brewery many times as it's on Columbus Avenue near North Beach, but have never visited it. There are other San Francisco breweries I'd try first like 21st Amendment or the Beach Chalet (mostly for its location). There are other good beer destinations in San Francisco that are not breweries, like The Monk's Table, La Trappe or even City Beer Store. But the final gaffe of the trip was no visit to Toronado. This is one of the best beer bars in the world. No beer journey up and down the coast of California would be complete without a stop at Toronado.

This article's premise was excellent - how could a week long journey looking for places to drink beer not be a great journalistic assignment? But it sounded like too much driving and not enough beer drinking. There were multiple missed opportunities - Telegraph, Russian River and the other breweries in Wine Country. California is a great beer state, and this article, while having a few successes, did not give the state's many craft brewers enough credit or exposure.