My Russian River Journey

Yesterday, as promised, I traveled with two friends to Russian River Brewing Company (RRBC) in Santa Rosa, CA (near Sonoma). I have made the trip several times before, but yesterday's journey may have been the best. For those of you with attention span issues, I'll quickly list some of the things that made my trip to Santa Rosa great: fantastic beers of all kinds, sleeping in public, excellent historical accounts of World War II, buffalo wings, pesto pizza, tipsy ambling through town, A&W root beer floats, folk covers of rock songs, and $0.75/hour parking.

To give some context, Saturday was the 4th anniversary of the RRBC brewpub, so my friends (I'll call them CM and AT, which will make them virtually anonymous to anybody who doesn't know me personally) decided that we should plan to get to the brewpub for its 11:00 AM opening in order to beat the crowd. Given our distance from Santa Rosa and anticipated difficulties finding parking, we were on the road heading north by 9:00 AM. As it turned out, we got into Santa Rosa, found parking easily, and made it to the brewpub right as it was opening. Instead of finding a line of people waiting to get in, however, we found the establishment almost empty. We took seats at the bar next to the only other patrons there, an older couple who seemed intent on carrying several gallons of beer home in growlers. Having no objections to the empty environment, CM, AT, and I sat down and began drinking shortly after 11:00 AM. I understand that the concept of drinking at 11:00 AM on a Saturday might be unsettling to some people, but I assure you that with the right beer in hand, those people would think differently.

For those of you who have never had a RRBC beer, RRBC brews are generally outstanding. RRBC India Pale Ales (IPAs) are fantastic, ranging from the relatively mellow Russian River IPA to the citrus-laden Blind Pig IPA to the bitter and hoppy powerhouse Pliny the Elder IPA. I started the day off right with a Pliny the Elder, which packs a punch at about 9% alcohol by volume (ABV). Then, I moved on to the Blind Pig, taking the intensity down a notch in order to prepare myself for the impending arrival of buffalo chicken wings, pizza, and beer bites. Once I completed my food consumption, I capped off the midday's drinking with an OVL Stout, a thick nitrogenated Irish stout that tasted like an alcoholic milkshake, another Pliny the Elder, and a dark, Belgian-style, limited-edition Rejection ale, which tasted like a drier version of Dogfish Head Brewing's Raison D'Etre (if you've never had a Dogfish Head beer, you should reexamine your commitment to living a fulfilling life, because based on the information available, you seem to be falling short).

By 2:30 PM, I had ingested a mere five beers. However, two factors conspired against my sobriety: each beer had between 6% and 9% ABV (crappy mass-distributed American beer tends to run in the 3%-4.5% ABV range), and I recently lost 41 pounds following my discovery late last year that I had become a big fat guy. As a result, by the early afternoon, I was hammered. CM, our driver, was faring only marginally better, so we decided to depart from the brewpub and kill some time while we sobered up.

The first stop was a Barnes & Noble bookstore, where I found myself a foot stool, sat down, and read about Nazi military organization in WWII for an hour or so. I know, I bet you read the same book in college after playing one-too-many drinking games. Or maybe alcohol-laden intellectualism isn't your bag, in which case, I encourage you to find another suitable drunken hobby. In this case, though, my ability to absorb Luftwaffe deployment strategies after the equivalent of 8-10 Bud Lites was slightly impaired, so my friends and I walked across the street to the 'Sober Park.' The 'Sober Park' isn't much of a park, but it has park basics like a fountain, a few benches, and tiny patches of grass just large enough for the smurfs to play a rousing game of football. Luckily, there was enough room for me to lay down in the grass and promptly take a 'rage nap,' leaving me feeling rested, considerably more sober, and extremely dehydrated.

CM had also recovered well during that time, and we all agreed that he was fit to drive. We retrieved CM's car from the garage, hit the road after paying a whopping $5 in parking fees, and made our way back toward Silicon Valley. We listened to CM's obscure artsy music in the car, blabbering about our professional and personal lives, and generally enjoying each other's company until we came to Marinwood, a city south of Vallejo. Two miles past Marinwood heading south from Santa Rosa, there is an A&W restaurant, one of the few in the Bay Area. When we got to the right exit, we pulled off the highway and into the A&W parking lot, turned off the car, and meandered inside to get root beer floats. The root beer floats were, in a word, heavenly. The frosty mugs, fresh and frothy A&W root beer, and thick vanilla ice cream combined to make for an outstanding experience. I swear I've never had a root beer float that good in my entire life. If A&W opened up a restaurant in the Valley, I'm quite confident that the place would rake in a fortune, particularly over the summer months. If anybody knows of an A&W establishment closer to the Valley than Marin County, please share in the comments section (and for that matter, if anybody knows of a Sonic or Chick-fil-a within driving distance of the Valley, I would be interested in hearing about that too, since I've never had the privilege of dining at either of those well-reputed establishments).

After indulging in our root beer and ice cream treats, CM, AT, and I got back into the car and continued south, getting back to the Valley by 6:30 or so. It was quite a day. In two weeks, we may be heading to Boonville to visit the Anderson Valley Brewery, where one can get the delicious Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout, among other tasty beers. It takes twice as long to drive there, but if I have even half as much fun as I did at RRBC, I'll go home a happy man.

For now, I'll leave it at that. Until next time, your very own Silicon Valley beer and dim sum nut is signing off.

Here I am/ blog you like a hurricane,

Valley J