Crawling Through Santa Rosa
Downtown Santa Rosa is a wonderful place for a beer drinker. In a short quarter-mile walk you can find 4 local breweries represented by either brewpubs or unofficial tasting rooms, and this doesn’t include the restaurants and bars nearby which will feature an even wider selection. For the purpose of this article, I will focus on the previously mentioned quarter mile.
I started my walk at the Third Street Aleworks. Third Street is the oldest brewery in Santa Rosa and is current being headed by Randy Gremps. Denise Jones of Moylan’s in Novato started at Third Street and left behind a couple medal winning stouts which are still the highlight of a visit to Third Street. Third Street is good for bigger groups looking for traditional pub faire done well.
On this occasion I tried some of their Sleeperwave Wee Heavy, Blackberry Noir and cask Märzen. The blackberry Noir was notable as I thought it would be something other than a wheat beer base given the name, but that’s exactly what it was. The result was spritzy, fruit forward beer that was more in line with a flavored mineral water than a beer. I hate to admit it, but I really liked it.
The next stop was across the street on Courthouse Square at Flavor Bistro. Many beer drinkers pass by Flavor not knowing of the bounty that lies inside: six Moonlight Brewing taps. The selection sticks with the 5 year-round beers (Lunatic Lager, Reality Czeck, Twist of Fate, Bombay By Boat and Death & Taxes) as well as a seasonal offering. I was hoping to find the Winter Tipple given the time of year but the Harvest Ale was still on and very tasty. For my main course, I had a Lunatic Lager out in the front looking over Courthouse Square.
Continuing across Couthouse Square I found myself at the Sweet Spot Pub & Lounge. The Sweet Spot is an interesting little place that’s part pub, part American craft tap room and part Caribbean watering hole. While you can usually find sports and a selection of British imports on draft, I came today looking for Lagunitas. Typically you’ll find five taps of Lagunitas as well as bottle selections which cover just about all beers available from Lagunitas at the time. On this day I helped myself to a New Dogtown Pale Ale before continuing on my way.
The last stop of the day was probably the one you’ve been waiting for; Russian River Brewing Company. On a Saturday afternoon, the place is relative empty, but the beer is still flowing. On this day, I sat down with a Dead Leaf Green and some beer bites. The beer here is excellent, as many of you know, and you really can’t go wrong with any of the selections from Vinnie Cilurzo. Whether it’s a hop driven IPA, yeasty Belgian or a funky barrel aged sour, Russian River is renowned for their innovative and envelope pushing beers. If you’re in need of a snack, the Beer bites are the way to go. Pizza dough and cheese, what could be wrong with that?
In case you’re looking at my selections and wondering to yourself, “Where are the big IPAs and sours?” I consciously avoided those selections. These big wild styles may be what make the headlines, but Sonoma County is more than just “extreme” styles. The beer culture here is one that can appeal to beer drinkers of all sorts, not just the hardcore beer geeks.
Now that you have a route, I expect to see some of you in Santa Rosa taking on the crawl. In the meantime, enjoy a quick slideshow of my weekend trip.
7 Comments to “Crawling Through Santa Rosa”
Leave a Reply
Mmm… beer bites…
Glad you made the caveat about the IPAs at the end, since I’d consider Bodega Head IPA to be the highlight of a trip to 3rd St.
I have yet to step foot in the Sweet Spot. I’ll need to remedy that soon. (Though I do have a keg of Lagunitas IPA on tap at home right now.)
Very nice summary. I’ll be there on Saturday and will try to hit a few places here I did not know about – after RR, of course.
I will do this in February. So long as I get to Russian River and someone sits me on a bar stool with a fist-full of dollars then I’ll be as happy as can be!! I can’t wait!
(now can you do this for San Francisco as I’ll be there the few days before Santa Rosa!)
I wish those places had all been there back in the early 90′s when I lived in Rohnert Park, or that I had had the palate and taste for beer that I do now!
Brings back great memories of my trip to Sonoma and Napa last July, great stuff!
Good article. I didn’t know about Sweet Spot but I just discovered Flavors and Toad in the Hole. Next time you crawl, if you want company, let me know.