When it comes to beer, life has been good. The past few weeks have seen many a brewery, and an astonishing number of good beers have been purchased and consumed. I also completed my first trade in nearly seven months.
Weekend #1: Firestone Walker with none other than Maggie Mello. We hit up a SLO BevMo beforehand, picking up some goodies, including Ninkasi Total Domination IPA (review to follow), Lagunitas Wilco Tango Foxtrot (WTF), and others. Then we spent the rest of the day in the FW tasting room out in Paso. I sampled Unfiltered Double Barrel Ale, Double Jack, and Abacus. We also enjoyed a tour of the brewery while sipping proper (imperial) pints of Union Jack IPA, and we filled up some growlers of the same. I am also the proud new owner of a .5L stein, courtesy of the generous Maggie. If I add any more glasses to my collection, I’ll surely be banned from the kitchen cabinets. Sorry, mom. 
Maggie and her tasters
can i work here, please?
Weekend #2: A day at Russian River Brewing, followed by a day at various Lodi wineries. Basically, all you need to know about the latter is that there’s a ridiculous amount of money being made at some wineries. So ridiculous that ridiculous items are purchased to frighten visitors half to death. Items such as music machines that are reminiscent of common conceptions of HELL. But enough of that. The wine was great! Anyhow, Russian River was wonderful. I had a pint of Russian River IPA, a goblet of Temptation, and a taster of O.V.L. Stout on nitro. All were good, but my heart will always be sour. The Temptation ROCKED! And it went well with our pizza.
Thanks to Lindsay for the wonderful company up in Santa Rosa!
I also picked up a growler of the Elder for a trade, which brings me to …
…Weekend #3: This last weekend happened to include my birthday. The timing of the trade was perfect. I sent off the Elder growler with a few extra goodies, and in return, I received a 6er of Ithaca’s Flower Power IPA, a bottle of Wisconsin Belgian Red, and three different Short’s brews. My family and I also had lunch at Brewbaker’s, where my soon-to-be brother-in-law helped me with a pitcher of their unfiltered and very tasty IPA. We then filled up a growler and finished it within the hour. It was a very nice birthday!
a lovely box indeed!
I have plenty of good reviews to share. I’ll post them up sometime later this week. Cheers!
