USA
The last of our US-based articles takes us a lazy 900km from Ukiah to Redondo Beach in Los Angeles. First up was San Francisco, where we stayed in a dive of a motel, complete with a mulleted and moustached freak who spent much of his time peering into peoples’ rooms and carrying a circular saw around. We didn’t let this deter us however, venturing out of our room to check out what the city has to offer, including the view from Corona Heights Park and of course, The Golden Gate Bridge.
We drove on to Santa Barbara, calling in at The Brewhouse on our first night for an Elephant Seal XX IPA, which seemed more than appropriate after copping our first sighting of the creatures earlier in the day. The next night we hit up another brewpub, the Santa Barbara Brewing Company for a couple of beers with dinner. It ended up being a home-wrecker of a night, but if my memory serves me correctly, the Double IPA went down the best.
Our time in Los Angeles couldn’t have started any better – our friends Laura and Matt meeting us at Hermosa Beach and taking us for our first beer in LA at the Hermosa Beach Yacht Club, which is the only bar that I’ve come across that advertises its staff’s working hours to punters… Later it was on to Naja’s Place, where they have 88 beers on tap. We sampled nearby Strand Brewing Company’s Atticus IPA, before finally getting hold of the much sought-after Pliny the Elder from Russian River Brewing Company.
The next day saw a 50km round-trip on bicycle from Redondo Beach to Santa Monica Pier, a journey that made us question the bad rap that LA generally gets from other travellers. We also went to West Hollywood to visit some famous rock bars, including the Rainbow Bar and Grill, Viper Room and Whisky a Go Go. The Doors had been the house band at The Whisky in 1966 and the evening was made even more poignant with a minute’s silence for keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who had sadly passed away that day.
Luckily, there was still time for more craft beer after all of this and we caught up with Sarah Bennett on our last night in the US. Sarah writes about beer, music, art and local culture for various publications, such as the Long Beach Post and more recently, Beer Paper LA, co-founded by her boyfriend earlier this year.
Sarah picked us up in Redondo Beach and we drove to The Bruery Tasting Room in Orange County – a classy set up where you can try their wide variety of beers by the glass or by pre-set and custom flight sheets. We went with the Hop-Forward Flight, consisting of: Grant is Pale, Mischief, Loakal Red, Imperial Loakal Red and Humulus Lager. The Bruery offers three levels of membership, each of which give punters access to limited edition beers, discounts, merchandise and invitations to various events.
Next up was Sarah’s hometown of Long Beach and a trip to Beachwood Brewing & BBQ. Along with the tremendous pulled-pork sandwiches, we tried their Hops of Brixton ESB and The Falcon West Coast India Pale Ale. Sarah went with Noble Ale Works’ Naughty Sauce – a blonde coffee milk stout served on nitro-draught. I knew there were blonde stouts out there, but this was the first time I’d ever seen or tasted one.
The night was a great way to end our month in the US and Sarah’s willingness to drive two complete strangers well over 100km for the sake of craft beer was just another demonstration of how close-knit the community is. The fact that I saw this collaborative approach demonstrated in every country that I visited over the (almost) twelve month trip makes the lure of joining the craft beer industry even more attractive…
We severely underestimated how long it was going to take to drive from Seattle to Los Angeles and therefore decided to do the 450km stretch from Arcata to San Francisco without making any stops apart from coffee and lunch. Things were going to plan, until I spotted a sign on the side of Highway 101 for the Ukiah Brewing Company…
My mate held the driving responsibilities, but he agreed to call in for a look, even if it meant we’d lose a bit of time and he wouldn’t be able to consume as many beers as he would like to.
UBC was established in 2000 and holds the distinction of being the first certified organic brewpub and the second certified organic restaurant in the USA. We caught up with Head Brewer, and fellow metalhead, Scott Jones who told us that he learned his craft from the former Brew Master, who was with UBC until 2009. The brewpub is located in the Marks Building in the centre of Ukiah and footage of Scott’s band, Autonomist playing at the historic venue can be found here.
Scott also spent some time under the tutelage of Hubert Germain-Robin from nearby Germain-Robin Brandy and it’s easy to spot this influence when he talks about his preference for brewing traditional 1800s styles of beer. Scott also mentioned that he likes to challenge the palate of the loyal locals by making minor adjustments to each batch and is more than impressed by their ability to pick these changes up.
Scott mentioned that he has brewed eighteen styles at UBC and we were lucky enough to sample two of those while we were there – the Willits Wit, a wheat/ale hybrid brewed with orange peel and coriander, and the Lunar Harvest Ale.
All of UBC’s beers are bottled by hand, or hand-canned in an old 1980s single seamer. We took a six-pack of their Pilsner Ukiah away with us and Scott assured us that it is the only hand-canned organic beer in the USA.
UBC may not be distributing outside of Ukiah at the moment, but two full cans have made their way back to Australia with us. Collectors’ items in the future, no doubt…
We spent a couple of days in Vancouver, checking out the city and chilling out at Kitsilano Beach, literally a stone’s throw from our mate’s place. We also caught up with my mate Jay, another Taswegian that I went to high school with. We met at Steamworks Brew Pub and tried their Empress IPA, Nut Brown Ale and Mocha Porter, not to mention a cracking salmon burger…
Our very knowledgeable waiter told us that Steamworks was established in 1995 and is the only steam-generated brewery in Canada. They have recently started bottling their Pilsner and Pale Ale and these should be available throughout British Columbia shortly. They also have a range of 650mL seasonals, including a Saison, Hefeweizen, Oatmeal Stout and Wheat Ale.
The next day we took a bus to Seattle, finding out on the way that the fifth Seattle Beer Week was just kicking off. We went to the final venue for opening day, The Pine Box and got stuck into a couple of Breakaway Nitro IPAs by the American Brewing Company, who are based in Edmonds. We followed up with another local beer, this time Fremont Brewing’s Northwest Barley Wine, before heading off into the night.
Other highlights from Seattle included having our first pickleback (a shot of whiskey followed by a shot of pickle brine) and the EMP Museum, which houses brilliant Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana exhibitions, a 55-strong guitar gallery and a huge sculpture containing over 500 instruments. We also experienced the best atmosphere in the MLS, with the Seattle Sounders beating the San Jose Earthquakes 4-0.
We hired a car after the match and commenced our drive south to Portland, calling in at the Jimi Hendrix memorial on the way. I never imagined that I would visit the site, so it was great to get the chance to pay my respects to the great man.
Our arrival into Portland ended up being quite late, but luckily we walked into the Portland Hawthorne Hostel about thirty seconds before the phone rang and therefore managed to jag the last bed (and a mattress on the floor).
A short walk from the hostel placed us on SE Stark Street with a handful of bars to choose from. The pick of the night was Bonfire Lounge and the Sweet Heat from local Burnside Brewing Company. This Wheat Ale contains apricot puree and Jamaican Scotch Bonnet peppers, giving it a nice kick.
We set off reasonably early the next morning, calling in at Voodoo Doughnut as we left Portland. Almost everyone we met had insisted that we go there, so we had to see what all the fuss was about. I have to admit that I’m not usually a fan of these sickly creations and the Bacon Maple Bar doughnut was pretty hard to stomach at that time of day, but the Diablos Rex (complete with vanilla pentagram) and the Old Dirty Bastard were pretty handy!
Crater Lake was our next stop and even though it took a lot longer to get there than we expected, it was well worth the wait. We spent a good hour and a half there before driving another 40km to a campsite near Union Creek Resort. We stopped at the resort to grab dinner before setting up our tent and thought we’d walked onto a movie set – the ambulances and inconsolable people rushing about didn’t exactly set our minds at ease before a night camping in the woods…
The next morning started off on a much brighter note – scoring a couple of free coffees from Dutch Bros. Coffee, just metres from where the company had started in Grants Pass, due to having weird accents. Buoyed by this stroke of luck, we continued south into California, before finally hitting Highway 101 just outside Crecent City. Naturally, we had Social Distortion’s song of the same name blaring at the time.
The rest of the day consisted of checking out the biggest trees we’ve ever come across in the various Redwood State and National Parks of northern California, scoping out some wild elk and driving along some great coastal roads. We also drove through a tree around eight times to make the $5 entrance fee worthwhile, although we did get to see some emus for free, which must count for something…
We decided to stay just outside Arcata for the night and our now refined craft beer research methods uncovered the Redwood Curtain Brewing Company not far from the centre of town. It would have been rude to not head there for an after-dinner beer and we made it just in time to sample their Cascadian Dark Ale before last call. Unfortunately, our accents didn’t work this time and we had to pay for the beers – still, it was a pretty good way to finish off a decent day…
There has been plenty going on since the last post in mid-April, so much so that unfortunately there hasn’t been any time to document it.
From Medellin we took the 16-hour bus to Santa Marta – my last overnight journey in South America. A quick cab ride transferred us to Taganga, where we stayed for close to a week, including spending a night in a hammock at Cabo San Juan in Parque Tayrona – definitely worth visiting if you’re ever in the area.
Another (shorter) bus ride took us to Cartagena and similarly, our six nights there included a night in a hammock – this time on Playa Blanca. This popular beach on Isla Baru can be reached by boat, but we took the cheaper option of local bus > ferry > motorbike. It probably took twice as long, but was around a quarter of the cost and the local bus passes through a market in quite a poor part of Cartagena that you wouldn’t normally see.
I’d travelled 24,000km in South America by road, train and boat, so taking my first flight in 6 months was quite a strange experience. I flew from Cartagena to Fort Lauderdale and then onto Dallas/Fort Worth, spending a night in nearby Irving before taking a $1 Megabus to Austin the next day. If taking the plane was weird enough, being surrounded by freeways and fast food joints definitely took a few days to get used to.
A mate from back home (and Crafty Ramblings co-creator) joined me in Austin in order to travel together for the last five weeks of my trip – possibly why the posts have dried up of late…
We spent a couple of days checking out the city’s nightlife before hitting up Austin Psych Fest. We spent three days camping at the Carson Creek Ranch and met people from all walks of life who love psychedelic rock, some who’d travelled three days to be there.
We managed to get hold of some great craft beer either side of the festival, generally heading to the bars to the east of Interstate 35 to get away from the (mostly) trashy bars downtown. Included in the local brews we sampled were beers from Austin Beerworks (served in a can), Hops & Grain Brewing and Live Oak Brewing Company. We also tried three year round beers from Real Ale Brewing Company out of Blanco, Texas and a Black IPA by the Alaskan Brewing Company, who are based in Juneau.
Next up was our first trip to New York and plenty of decisions to be made on what to see over six days. Highlights include the High Line in the lower west side of Manhattan, the Top of the Rock Observation Deck (for great views of Central Park and the Empire State Building) and the (free) Staten Island Ferry. I also caught the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club gig at Terminal 5 on the Saturday night. They’d played at Psych Fest a week earlier, but my memory was a little hazy.
From a craft beer perspective, I can’t go past the Blind Tiger Ale House in the West Village, where they have approximately 30 different beers on tap and (according to their website) over 50 bottled beers – to be honest, I didn’t even consider any of these due to the options available on draught. Standout brews were the Founders Brewing Porter (well-needed after aimlessly wandering the streets at 2am) and the Anderson Valley Wild Turkey Bourbon Barrel Stout.
From NYC, it was on to Vancouver to catch up with another mate from Tasmania. Our first full day started off with grand plans of checking out the main sights around the city, however as is so often the case, these plans were scratched around 40 minutes later when we walked on to Granville Island and saw Granville Island Brewing. We promptly signed up for the next tour, where we found out that the brewery opened in 1984 and that their regular beers can be found across Canada.
We were also told that whilst the company was bought out around three years ago, they still brew 1,000L batches of their limited releases on site. These small batches can only be found in British Columbia and we were lucky enough to try the Cloak & Dagger Cascadian Dark Ale at the end of the tour. We also sampled two of their seasonals – the False Creek Raspberry Ale and the Ginja Ninja Ginger Beer. Not a bad way to start a day of sightseeing…