Ladies and gentlemen, I’m excited to announce The West Coast Craft Beer Tour!
All of my friends know that I love good craft beers and enjoy trying out new varieties every chance I get. Combined with the fact that I’ve never been out to the west coast, I thought this would be a great idea. My goal is to search out all the best breweries in California, Oregon, and Washington. I’ll be tasting some of the best beers the U.S. has to offer, interviewing brewery owners to find out the real story behind some of these delicious brews, and meeting a lot of people along the way.
I began working on this idea a couple of months ago and got a lot of the details worked out during TBEX a couple of weeks ago. I’ll be starting the trip in San Francisco, up to Portland and a couple other towns in Oregon, and finally up to Seattle. I can already hear people saying, “What about San Diego? It has a lot of great breweries!” I’m completely aware of this and it was on the original itinerary, but SoCal is going to be it’s own trip at some point later this year.
You can follow along on my craft beer tour right here on the blog, but also by following hashtag #WestCoastBeerTour on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I’ll also be checking in some of my favorite beers and breweries using the Untappd app. You can download Untappd for iPhone or Android. If you’re going to be in the Bay Area, Portland, or Seattle over the next couple weeks, let me know and we can grab a pint. Also, if you have any good brewery recommendations, leave a note in the comments here.
I can’t wait to start the West Coast Craft Beer Tour!
Cheers!
13 Comments
Sounds great! I still haven’t acquired at taste for the stuff, but any old excuse for a trip works for me 😉
It’s definitely an acquired taste, but once you do, it’s like a whole new world of options!
Anchor Steam in SF and Alaskan in Alaska are my favorite west coast brews. Anchor Steam has a tour here in SF, you should look into it! Give me a shout when you are in the Bay Area, I would love to share my favorite bar(s) and grab a pint.
Russian River Brewing Company, Lagunitas, Speakeasy, Magnolia, to name a few… 😉
Thanks! I had Magnolia on my list, but I’ll have to add the others.
ps let me know when you’re doing the SD trip. i might want to schedule mine around the same time. 😉
Breweries In SF and environs: Anchor Steam, 21st Amendment, Lagunitas, Speakeasy.
Good places to drink beer in the city: Southern Pacific Brewing (good food, huge, outdoor seating), Toronado (famous beer-focused dive bar), Biergarten (communal outdoor seating), Monk’s Kettle (takes beer VERY seriously, have some crazy stuff).
Try not to drown. Let me know if you need any other advice.
-Fred
Thanks Fred! So many places to visit and so much good beer to drink!
Nice, I didn’t know you were on Untappd, I just friended you! We’ll go to our local favorite Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing Company on Monday and look elsewhere for beers from Sante Adairius, a new brewery down there that is doing a lot of rustic and sour beers. I just checked their site and their tasting room is only open Thursday and Friday. Excited to see you!
Sounds good to me. I’m looking forward to checking out Santa Cruz.
I’m assuming you already hit up Magnolias in San Fran? There are a lot of awesome places around there to enjoy some local beer: Speakeasy, Laguinitas, Anderson Valley Brewering… PASTE magazine did a bracket for some good craft breweries you should check out :
http://cdn.pastemagazine.com/www/articles/2013/04/05/TopOfTheHops_complete.jpg
But don’t miss out on some pisco sours… it’s not beer but they are the best in San Fran!
This sounds like such a fun thing to do! I love going on any sort of tour but this seems fitting for visiting any place- to get familiar with their drinks! Thanks so much for sharing your adventure with us!