Crafty Types, Church Brews and Zoo Lights: Return Travels to Cincy (Pt. 2)

Signs of Christmas were everywhere in Cincinnati, including the Cincinnati Zoo

This second of three blog posts naturally contains one of our prize package receipts from the Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau, and it was perhaps the most anticipated one as will be explained later in this post. As noted in our last blog post, we were hardly going to stick strictly to  our prize winnings, so we added in one of the more unique brewery settings in Ohio for a nice combination of Christmas shopping as well as one of the first breweries in Buckeye State focusing on sour beers.

The blog/website Ohio Explored mission is a a basic one: to awaken people to the beauty of Ohio. One of their most popular methods of achieving that resides in their Ohio Maker Mart, which feature local artisans of food, arts and crafts creations. Due to a last minute from one of my blogger colleagues, we figured out the winter edition would be in Cincinnati that very weekend, at a location that worked out perfectly with our catching up with the area's brewing scene.

Going Back To Buellton: Firestone Walker/Barrelworks

The Hans Christian Anderson Museum, one of popular attractions that
brings visitors to Solvang and the Santa Ynez Valley yearly

Yes, the thought of leaving sun-drenched lands such as San Diego did give my spouse a tinge of sadness; this feeling was further enhanced as the skies grew more overcast and the a persistent mist to light drizzle met us as we traveled out of the greater Los Angeles metro northward.

Yet, we actually still had something to look forward to on the long trip back to the Bay Area, courtesy of a detour we knew we needed to make, to complete a journey over three years prior that had been derailed by an inadvertent early arrival to a prime destination on an otherwise excellent Christmas-time trip down to the Santa Ynez Valley some three years ago,

We were headed to Buellton, and if things went to plan, this would be a rather tart affair.

Berkeley Brew-seeking: Fieldwork Brewing/The Rare Barrel

A close up of the "non-protest" side of the "Berkeley Big People" sculpture tandem
from Scott Donahue, located (somewhat oddly) on a freeway pedestrian bridge

In craft beer terms, one generally thinks of the San Francisco side from a historical perspective: Fritz Maytag's efforts with Anchor Brewing provided the inspiration for numerous homebrewers of that era and the original wave of modern craft breweries. However, Berkeley, located on the opposite side of the bay and generally is better known for non-craft beer topics, has a little bit of its history here as well in Triple Rock, opened in 1986 and touted as the oldest original brewpub in the country.

These days, the craft beer scene is looking up: one of the companies spawned by Maytag's efforts, Sierra Nevada Brewing, opened up a hub for their beer along Fourth Street in the form of The Torpedo Room in November of 2013. Other newly established efforts such as Fieldwork and The Rare Barrel, both of which we visited during our time in town, have been earning their own acclaim.

Brews Cruising (California Edition): The Yogi Berra Conundrum

A decision between these two Russian River sours may not be as tough as
figuring out where else to go for craft beer in Santa Rosa

Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post on one of craft beer's long time stalwarts in Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, California. One thing I noted then is that the throng of locals and out-of-towners that make getting into the brewpub a bit of a challenge, and this was no different on a my return to the brewery to pick up a couple bottles of their sour brews.

Thankfully for someone in my position, a second line strictly dedicated for bottle sales on particularly busy days makes things go a lot faster. For those dining in on these days, however, even an arrival a half-hour before opening is no guarantee that you'll get inside in short order. From where the picture was taken below, the waiting time was close to an hour.

This phenomenon may be eased a bit with Russian River's planned 15-acre brewpub facility in nearby Windsor (the current schedule slates an opening of Summer 2018, per this craftbeer.com article.) But until then, one may ponder the old Yogi Berra conundrum when seeing this queue.  Berra, long-time Hall of Fame catcher for the New York Yankees and master of contorting the English language into a confusing understandability, is often credited with saying, ""Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

So where does one go for craft beer in Santa Rosa other than Russian River? My spouse and I had been to downtown neighbor Third Street Aleworks previously and found it a decent enough place, but I was itching to try something new. Based on a tip from a Cleveland area ex-pat now enjoying the Sonoma County life craft beer loving friend, Cooperage Brewing was the place I needed to visit.

Brews Cruising (Pt. 4): Back Home to the Locals

Winter was pretty much a no-show this year in Ohio...or so we thought

Like the dog referenced in the Devo song "Freedom of Choice," the Ohio weather can't make up its mind. On an otherwise uneventful return from the Music City to end our vacation, the cold hand slap of a winter that was many days late and several dollars short was more than evident (an actual dusting of snow would arrive the next day.)

Despite the chill and the long hours in the car, we were intent on dropping by two more breweries to close out our trip, each being a unique example of how the Columbus craft beer has grown over the past year.

Not Enough Sours In The Day: The Rare Barrel (Berkeley, CA)

A style of beer that I have found to be somewhat uncommon among Ohio-based brewers is the sour beer. The excellent Jackie O's Pub and Brewery in Athens, Ohio, has produced some truly enjoyable beers along this line since their opening in 2005, but for the most part this is an under-explored style in the state as a whole.

In the Bay Area, I lived within fairly easy driving distance of Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa. While Russian River is perhaps best known for its West Coast-style IPA dynamic trio of Blind Pig, Pliny the Elder and the much-hyped Pliny the Younger (whose annual brew it and drink it while it's fresh release mayhem is due to start), its repertoire of sours are among the most amazing creations that both my spouse and I have had the chance to imbibe in our mutual beer pursuits.

The Rare Barrel in Berkeley is unique in that their sole focus is barrel-aged sour beer styles. I had been aware of their brewery since they announced their intent to open in 2012, and it was going to be a close call as to whether their tasting room opening just after Christmas of 2013 would work out with our plans to be in California at that time.

As it turned out, we wouldn't be able to drop by during that visit. 2014 would be a different story, however.

We had arrived about 20 minutes before opening at their facility in southwest Berkeley; we figured we would be a bit conspicuous being so early, but felt a little bit more at ease when we spied one other car in the parking lot waiting for the brewery's opening. As it turned out, we were just the first two of a dozen or so cars with Rare Barrel patrons who arrived prior to opening time. My spouse and I stared at each other and remarked that there must be something good going on around here.

Clockwise from left: Menu of deliciousness; the simple backsplash behind
the tap area; the gathering space; and racks full of oak-barrel-aging beer

Essentially, Rare Barrel's interior is a huge warehouse space with the front third of the area devoted to the tasting room and customer seating; a kitchen offers customers a selection of grilled organic grilled cheese sandwiches served with a quinoa side salad (as we were going to grab dinner after our visit, we decided not to indulge in these.) While Rare Barrel's offerings are the main focus of the taproom, other locally-based guest brews and other beverages are also available for taproom visitors.

The rest of the space is basically geared toward the conditioning of their beer: sightlines are dominated by racks of oak barrels. Each barrel contains a variety of Rare Barrel's fruit-based brewed creations and will be aged from anywhere from 6 months to three years, depending on the style of beer and brewers' whims. As described on their website, their overriding focus is to "concentrate on learning as much as possible about the reasons why those unique flavors are produced in sours" and use that knowledge to explore "flavors through both conventional and experimental methods to create exciting new beers."

Left: Mad Plum and Shades of Cool
Right: Forces Unseen and Apropos of Nothing

We found that the brewers of Rare Barrel are more than succeeding at their mission. Our first two pints brought us the crisp plum shadings of their Mad Plum to the black currant-laced blend of Shades of Cool. Our second pint pairing brought us two of their more complex brews: their Forces Unseen (Blend 2) is a blend of three golden sours which were brought under special fermentation, while the Apropos of Nothing brought a uniquely beguiling profile of elderberries and lavender to the forefront.

The proverbial cherry on top of the sour sundae came back in Ohio, where we opened up two bottles of Rare Barrel's beers that we had taken back from California. Both bottles of the Forces Unseen (Blend 1), which was basically the original three golden sour blend that was the base for Blend 2, and the apricot deliciousness of Map of the Sun were shared among friends and proved to be a highlight tasting for all gathered.

The Rare Barrel
940 Parker St
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 984-6585
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