Boggle Goes West: Santa Rosa

After watching Man City win the FA Cup, and full of coffee jitters and beans on toast, Rap and I head out for a visit to Santa Rosa, home to my favourite US brewer, Russian River. There's a hint of rain as we head over the Richmond Bridge into Marin County. We aren't going the direct route up Highway 101, instead we've got a couple of stops to make, which is a good job given the condition of my bladder.

First stop is the spa resort town of Calistoga. Sitting at the top of the Napa Valley, this place is famous for its hot springs and mud baths, though it also has a history as a mining town. It has a long main street and walkable downtown, and we're heading into it for a pint at the Calistoga Inn, a hotel and restaurant with a brewery. I have their English Porter, a pleasant interpretation of a classic London porter with some liquorice detectable. Rap is on the seasonal Oatmeal Stout. There are some early diners and a few other people at the bar, but it feels nicely chilled out, and its a good way to start the trip.

Our next call is at Ridge Winery. I don't do wine. Culturally, socio-economically, I don't understand it. Coming from a country whose wine tradition was, until recently, Concorde 'British' wine (read all about it here), and whose earliest wine experiences were drinking something called EEC 'tafelwein', I've never felt it was 'my' drink. But, Rap is an oenophile, he knows these Sonoma County producers and can converse knowledgeably on all aspects of wine production, terroir, vintage development and all that.

That's all over my head, but I can see how much easier wine is to come to when you're surrounded by it. It's as if the wine culture which has grown in these valleys is absorbed by osmosis. Or maybe wine isn't seen as shorthand for some kind of lifestyle choice. Maybe these people don't drink wine to make a statement. Whatever.

Ridge Winery are having their Spring Release Celebration at their Lytton Springs Estate. There are half a dozen reds being tasted including their exclusive Monte Bello. As Monty Python once noted, "this is not a wine for drinking. This is a wine for laying down and avoiding." Or something like that. The 2007 will set you back $145. I'm into some Syrah, which is warming, a little spicy and full of plums.

Looking at rows of vines stretching out along the undulating landscape, a scene repeated all over Sonoma County as you drive about, sipping wine, is all too mellow. It's beautiful country, all right. And this a county full of producers - food, wine, beer - and they all talk and share. More on that later...

We make our way over to Bear Republic in Healdsburg, where I become Code Name: O'Boggle. I'm sipping the house pilsner while sitting next to a couple from Chicago on their 20th anniversary surprise trip and we get talking, like you do. As usual, I get the accent thing. The guy can't work it out so I tell him I'm Irish. He's delighted, as his background is also Irish. They're going to a big Irish pub in Santa Rosa, maybe we'll see them later...

We head over that way ourselves, and our first stop in a pub called the Toad In The Hole. Very US interpretation of English, very quirky. It's a quick pint and then on to Flavor.

The weather has turned and it's now raining, but the place is packed with family groups and people out for a good Saturday night. Flavor is a bistro whose proposition is local provenance. It's also where you can get half a dozen Moonlight beers on tap, so we settle in at the bar for a pint. Later, we come back to eat. I take on a pizza and lose. Half of it winds up being my breakfast on Sunday, thanks to a microwave oven in the hotel room.

In between Flavor, we hit Russian River. It's packed. A popular band is playing, it's been the Boonville Festival weekend. We find a space at the end of the bar and sup a couple of Eruditions. This is a saison fermented with a yeast strain from Thiriez in France. There's no herbiage added as an adjunct and the result is a clean-drinking golden ale. We put a couple of those away before heading back to Flavor for some dinner. On the morrow, we are to meet with Natalie and Vinnie Cilurzo...

Boggle Goes West: Oakland & The East Bay 2

As you'll have read earlier, Oakland has some very nice places to drink. This post deals with some other fine bars elsewhere in the East Bay, but first, I need to discuss food.

I'm no gourmand, much less a gourmet. I do like good food, and these days I'm usually much more aware of things like provenance and production, but my tastes are pretty basic. When I'm travelling, a decent breakfast and access to fresh fruit and milk, usually keeps me going. If I need to top up, the local pub grub or street food will do the trick.

Quite a lot of the street food in California is Hispanic. For some years, I've been interested in the idea of this, but trying to explain the UK experience to a local causes loud guffaws. We have to start somewhere with any new cuisine (anybody else remember Birds Eye frozen pizza in the 70's?), but try and describe an Old El Paso taco kit to somebody who has access to a dozen decent Mexican eateries 10 minutes from home and watch the disbelief give way to hysteria.

Last trip out, I'd shout excitedly as we passed a Taco Bell, until everybody was fed up. So, this trip was the one where I'd move on from the concept of the Taco and actually eat that mofo. First night in, Rap and I head up to Rockridge (cue Hedley Lamarr impressions off Blazing Saddles). Beer later, first we're going into the Cactus Taqueria. I had a couple of soft tacos carnitas (pork) with some mango juice to wash them down. These are a bit of challenge for somebody who grew up thinking a taco shell is basically a giant dorito. The food is simple but nourishing and, concept realised, it was time for a beer.

Up the block is Barclays Pub & Restaurant. This place is packed with Giants fans watching a game on TV. On the right of the bar, there's a dartboard and some kind of match on. The bar has a decent sized beer garden through which you walk to go in. We get seats at the bar and aim for Blind Pig. They serve beer in UK 20oz pints, and there's enough for one pint before the keg kicks. I sip it and start to zone out a bit as the day catches up with me so it's just the one pint and back home to bed. ZZZzzzzzzzzzz...

On Friday we're all meeting up - Rap, Mr & Mrs Snake, Tef and I - and aiming to hit a few places around Berkeley and Rockridge. Berkeley was a hotbed of student activism at the height of domestic opposition to the Vietnam War in the 60s but the campus these days is much more moderate. You know you're in a university town, though. We're heading to Triple Rock Brewing, a brewpub which has been operating since 1985. We plot up on the roof terrace and munch on some appetizers washed down by some house brew. They have a seasonal programme and support local homebrewers, and also host a cask fest. Mr Snake helped out at this year's, and told me that many US brewers don't 'get' cask. Overly yeasty or under-conditioned casks were not uncommon.

We have to meet Tef, so head back over to Rockridge. We end up getting there on the same BART train, so all head towards Barclays to drink some Blind Pig. Rockridge, though part of Oakland, has a pleasing township vibe, and tonight it's some kind of open house musical thing, so bars, cafes and restaurants all have some kind of live music on offer, and whole families are out dining and enjoying the early summer atmos. Most of the musicians are playing jazz, including a quartet of spotty high-school kids. Tragic really, to be playing this self-indulgent rubbish so young, I find myself hoping they grow out of it soon - maybe get some piercings and body art, raid their parents' record collections and find some Dead Kennedys or similar. Anyway, I try and tune the laid-back choons out.

Barclays are even busier tonight, so we hide by the dartboard. Worse, they still don't have any Pig, though there are two fresh kegs tantalisingly close to us. We hang about drinking draught Negro Modelo, the dark stablemate to Corona, but it's all a bit unsatisfying. Unable to get a table (Waitress: "table for 5, party name of Jackson?" Tef (for it is he): "Yes, we're the Jackson 5..."), we head off to a restaurant called Hudson's.

This place looks very swanky inside, and again, we can't get a table. There's seating outside though, so hardy souls that we are, we block the pavement as the air cools. They have local beers on, so I'm into Linden Street Burning Oak black lager. We spend an hour or so shooting the shit, eating and taking the piss out of the impending End Of The World (Harold Camping is based in Oakland, and his 'church' paid for huge electronic billboards with countdown timers on around the Bay Area). An excellent evening.

On Sunday, after Rap and I get back from Sonoma and a trip to Russian River, we meet with Mr & Mrs Snake and head off for more authentic Mexican food, at El Huarache Azteca in Fruitvale. The neighbourhood has a 'barrio' feel I've encountered in places like Echo Park in Los Angeles, and this restaurant has a good reputation. A huge mural covers all the internal walls, some locals are in watching the Mexican Primera Division, while one corner is given over to what looks like a small sweetshop.

We're drinking Negro Modelo out of the bottle, and it's a different beer to the one we had on Friday, lots more chocolate and roastiness. It's still served with a slice of lime in the neck, though. I get behind a huge plate of Alambres, three types of meat with peppers and onions, melted cheese on a bed of tortilla. Meat frenzy and it's excellent.

Heading back to Rap's, we drive by Lake Merritt, a huge man-made body of water which looks beautiful at night. Lake Chalet, a sister restaurant to the Beach Chalet on Ocean Beach in San Francisco, is all lit up, sitting right on the water. They don't brew here, so I didn't bother to check it out.

That's all from the East Bay. Coming up, the trip to Sonoma and Russian River...

Boggle Goes West: San Francisco

I love this city. Really, I do. It was the first place I headed when I started to visit the US. I loved the compactness, I loved the Bay, the green spaces and the buzz around the place. Heading to a bank one morning, I stood at an intersection as a tanned Californian couple passed me in a convertible and waved to me. Waved. Nobody waves at you while driving in London unless you're being pulled over for eating a kit-kat at traffic lights.

In 2008, I left regretting my all too brief time in the city. That year, we headed up to Sonoma County and I didn't have the days left to reacquaint myself with the place. This time, I promised myself, I'd do better...

Off the plane and out of the airport in record time, within an hour I'm meeting Mr & Mrs Snake at Rosamunde's in the Mission. If you've been to Toronado, chances are you've eaten sausage from the shop next door. That's the original shop. This place wasn't here last time I visited, but it's a fusion of both things, beer and sausage, and I wanted to see it.

It's a few steps from the 24th St & Mission BART station, opposite a taqueria called Chavo's (tee hee). My first beer on this trip is RRBC Blind Pig, washing down some lovely Nurnburger wurst. I meant to get back here for a proper exploration later in the trip. I didn't make it.

Next day, I was checking out Marin Brewing. The Giants were at home and the ballpark was emptying by the time I got back to the Ferry Building. I made my way to Toronado up on Haight St (& Fillmore), but so had a horde of fans, so I stopped in for a couple of beers (both Moonlight, one Death & Taxes, the other Twist Of Fate), but the crowd was being swelled by the after-work drinkers, so I made my way back towards Market St.

I was intending to visit 21st Amendment, a brewpub in SoMA not far from the ballpark. Local intelligence had warned me away, a new brewer of 6 months seemingly not having got to grips with the house beers so that it was a bit of a crapshoot drinking them. Instead, I headed for the Thirsty Bear on Howard St (between 2nd & 3rd) near SF MOMA.

Before I knew about good beer bars on my early trips to the US, I usually headed for brewpubs, and I spent quite a bit of time here in 2003. Back then, I quite enjoyed their ESB and Kozlov Stout, though the beers tended to be poured extremely cold. One of us has changed a lot in the intervening years - the beers were a bit underwhelming and the place was heaving with conventioneers from the Moscone Center across the street. I like the space a lot, that hadn't changed, but I guess I've moved on from brewpub house beers.

On Friday, a tweet informed me that Magnolia on Haight and Masonic was 'launching' Hanssens unblended lambic at 1pm. I like this place a lot, so thought I'd pop along, have some lunch and see how the launch went. Before that, I went to the Cartoon Art Museum on Mission between 2nd & 3rd. They had a Berkeley Breathed restrospective AND a behind-the-scenes look at Warner Bros' Looney Tunes, so I spent a happy hour wandering around chuckling at Bloom County and Outland, and laughing like a drain at the Daffy Duck cartoons on a loop.

So, lunch. The beers at Magnolia show a strong British influence, and there's usually a selection of cask-conditioned versions available. A beer called Landlady had been recommended, an interpretation of Timothy Taylors' Landlord. Sadly, the cask version only managed to remind me of how bad Landlord can be without proper care. This was loaded with diacetyl. I struggled manfully through 3/4 of my pint before admitting defeat. The house kolsch was just what I needed after that (pic, that's the buttery Landlady in the background). The food here is usually very good, and the bacon & eggs were spectacular. Belly pork slices on a bed of scrambled eggs, all set on top of an English muffin, in maple syrup.

Before I ate, the lambic was 'launched'. No fanfare, somebody poured a few tasters for the staff, pronounced it OK, and that was it. I wondered if the place would be besieged by local Hatebeerians or BAs, but there was no discernible geek presence (unless you count me). I had it in my mind that Hanssens were a lambic blender, not a brewer, but I could be wrong. This stuff was young, completely still, a deep amber and hazy, and very tart. A bloke next to me at the bar was curious, so I gave him a sip. He nodded and didn't pull a face, but steered clear of ordering one for himself. For me it had that same effect all lambics have on me, which is to mellow into the beer so it feels like time has stopped. I leaned back in my seat and savoured every drop. Even Lovibonds Sour Grapes can transport me. Lovely.

So, that was SF for me this trip. Despite best intentions and a quick visit back on my last day to buy souvenirs down on Pier 39, I'd managed just the best part of a day and a half in the city. Impressions? Market St between Powell and Civic Center looked much more rundown that I remembered, with lots of empty stores and a lot more street people around. Travelling around on public transport recently got joined up with the introduction of the Clipper Card, which can be used on all the MUNI services, BART, Golden Gate Transportation and in the East Bay. Tourists can use the cards if they buy them as 'cash', and you can get them and top them up at Walgreens or at stations.

Places I missed this time? For the benefit of Max at Pub Diaries:
Alembic along Haight St near the Panhandle between Cole & Shrader is a place you can go to admire mixology in action and also sip good beer;
Monk's Kettle (on 16th St in the Mission District) has a bit of a hipster vibe but they have a good selection of local beers;
City Beer (Folsom between 7th & 8th) for your retail needs and to kick back with something interesting;
Rogue Bar (on Union near Washington Sq) is a place I've never been. I crossed it off the list as the local talk was that beer condition is frequently poor;
Public House at AT&T Park (the ballpark) on Willie Mays Plaza. I had to choose between the East Bay and here on Friday evening, and wanted to check out more places in Berkeley and Rockridge. This place comes highly recommended, however.

I hope I don't have to wait another two and a half years before my next visit...