The Beer Chronicles, Day 10 - Amazing Beer, Hellish Traffic

All Good Things
There is an inevitability to returning home, the realization that adventure will soon turn back to mundane, that the unknown will transform to the familiar.  Of course, that return also means seeing loved ones- both human and canine- and so the upside becomes apparent once the realization that adventure is finite turns to acceptance.

And so my mood on the morning we left San Luis Obispo was one of resignation, knowing that in two days time, I would return to my old haunts in New Mexico, back to the heat, back from the amazingly creative beers of California.  They say that California is the cultural trendsetter for the rest of the nation and it seems that the world of beer is no exception.  From remarkable barrel-aged elixirs to sours that will curl your toes to high ABV bombshells that will set your head spinning, California is truly one of the great innovative spots for beer today.  This is not to say that New Mexico has bad beer... quite the contrary.  For example, the Scaletipper IPA from Bosque Brewing Company in Albuquerque is second to none as far as I'm concerned.  But I was still sad to leave so much amazing brews behind.

With that thought in mind, my sis and I were resolved to return to Coachella Valley Brewing Company again, hoping to making a quick brewpub stop in Buellton for lunch and flights, and then power through the LA area to make it out to the Coachella by closing time at 6:00 pm on a Sunday.  I thought our odds were good: most of the time I've driven through LA, Sunday seemed like a pretty good day to do it and avoid most of the traffic issues that are so pervasive in the area.

I was wrong.  Very very very wrong...

Buellton

Barrelworks Facility - Firestone Walker Buellton Taproom

The tiny little village of Buellton hasn't changed much since I lived there as a wee lad. It's population has remained pretty steady at around 5000 souls and Pea Soup Anderson's still sits right of the 101, serving up mediocre food to tourists who insist on coming to this little slice of faux Danish Americana.  What HAS changed Buellton is wine.  It sits at the beginning of the Santa Ynez wine trail that starts with Buellton on the 101, moves east to Solvang (or Danish Disneyland as I like to call it) and finally ends in the village of Santa Ynez itself.  From there are countless wineries, throughout the valley, specializing in Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays.  In fact, this has become the largest economic boast to northern Santa Barbara County since Sideways, the 2004 wine road trip buddy movie that really put the area on the map.  In fact, the Hitching Post II, a featured component of that film, sits right on Buellton's main drag CA246 which leads into Solvang, serving up expensive steaks and even more expensive bottles of wine to those willing to pay.

We were not and that's not why we stopped here anyway.  Our goal was beer and the newest place to open its doors on that front was a familiar face, a taproom to one of the Central Coasts boozy icons, Firestone Walker Brewery, who make their main home up in Paso Robles and who up until very recently also ran the Firestone Winery nearby.  But the taproom in Buellton is not just a facility of the larger business.

No, this is where they beer engineers work their magic at their remarkable Barrelworks warehouse, where barrel-aged delights take center stage. Approaching the doors just as they the business was opening at 11 am, it felt as if we were about to set foot straight into the Middle Ages, the wood & iron doors just a slightly intimidating reminder that we were not about to set foot into a typical taproom.

Where the magic happens at Barrelworks

The walk into the far more modern tasting room was a cavern of barrels, low lit and smelling deeply of oak, wine, and mold, an ancient room built for modern times.  We paused momentarily to take in the space, a place unlike any other we had experienced so far on this trip.  Of course, I remind myself as I write this that I've said that same thing a number of times during our journey, with uniqueness a quality that seems abundant in these halcyon days of craft beer experimentation and innovation. They say that times are getting worse, that the world is going to hell in a bucket, that we are losing our place in the world.  If the world of craft beer is any indicator, they couldn't be more wrong.

My understanding of the barrel aging process is pretty rudimentary but it works something like this: brewers create an ale in the traditional manner: mash mixed with liquor (aka hot water) in the mash thus resulting in wort, after which yeast is added to begin the fermentation process, after which you end up with ale.  Of course, hops and other flavorings are added either during the fermentation process or after as the beer is left to age, depending on what flavors the brewers wants to impart in their beer.  With barrel-aged beers, the process undergoes a secondary aging process in different barrels where the flavors of the wood are imparted to the ale a la wine barrels, with a secondary fermentation sometimes taking place.  In fact, barrel-aged beers are frequently aged in spent wine or hard liquor barrels like bourbon or tequila to give focus to the flavors of those libations.

Barrelworks Menu

Of course, none of this comes without a price so you can expect to pay considerably more for barrel-aged beers most of the time; the laborious nature of this brewing process necessarily requires an upcharge for the brews, a fact we were about to find out as we discovered the cost of tasting glasses of the barrel aged stuff were generally 50-75% higher than regular ales and divided into two major categories at Barrelworks, Wild Ales (ales that undergo a natural fermentation along with the one in the mash) as well as their strong ales (the barrel-aged big boys like stouts, porters and barleywines).  Since I was about to face LA traffic, we opted for mostly wild ales in our flight, largely because of their lower alcohol content.

Now *that's* an aging barrel

I should remind my readers: these are NOT daily sipping beers.  Drinking a barrel-aged brew compared to a regular ale is analogous to drinking an exclusive estate wine versus a table wine.  They are both enjoyable but one is meant to be savored not slugged, tasted rather than consumed with abandon.  A reminder of this separation was present at Barrelworks itself, it's rather small tasting room separated from the main Firestone Walker taproom & restaurant by a glass wall & door.  Of course, they allow you to take your barrel-aged marvels into the main taproom to enjoy for lunch but you have to pay for them separately.  So we did, grabbing a flight and heading into the main tasting room for lunch.

Alongside a marvelous fresh greens salad with pecorino cheese and grilled chicken, we enjoyed both a regular and nitro tapped brew called Lil' Opal, a saison aged in both American & French oak barrels. If this sounds a bit more like a wine than a beer, you may be on to something; the oak imparts an almost Chardonnay like quality to this dry and crisp brew, crisper on regular tap but with stronger vanilla characteristics on nitro.  Next up was their version of a Berliner Weisse called Bretta Weisse, a slightly sour delight that gives off strong oat and other cereal subtly.  Unlike most Berliner Weisse's, this is NOT a session drink though, coming in at about 4.9% ABV.  We then moved on to another wine-like saison, the La Piccolo Virtuosa, a beer they make in collaboration with a winery in Italy. Using spent sangiovese barrels for aging, this one definitely tastes of red wine with a bit of raisin thrown in for good measure, the latter of which I believe is a result of the aging process.  Next up was perhaps my favorite, a strange wild ale called Krieky Bones, which apparently starts as a Belgian style red ale and then gets aged in oak with sour cherries, a match made in brewers heaven!  Finally, we finished off with a monster of a beer, the 13.1% ABV Parabola.  A Russian Imperial Oatmeal Stout, aged in various bourbon barrels and then blended, this crazy heavy behemoth just bursts with flavor, starting with heavy doses of vanilla, molasses, burnt sugar, and oak.  Paired with a salad for lunch, this was a bit of a heavy way to end our visit here but certainly a memorable one, one which I intend to revisit in the near future.

Light at the End

Ritual Brewing Company Menu

I will save you the misery of the details of the next 6+ hours.  Suffice to say this.  Starting in Santa Barbara proper and extending all the way past Ontario, we were stuck in start and stop traffic for 130+ miles, so much so that our goal of making it to Coachella for a second time on this trip would evaporated into dust.  Instead, we resolved to find an interesting brewery somewhere, anywhere after we got past the nasty gridlock (And the cause?  Looky loo idiots gawking at the remnants of an accident that must have happened hours beforehand). A quick google maps search revealed just what we were looking for, the interestingly named Ritual Brewing Company in Redlands, about an hour from where we were staying for the night in Palm Desert.  As we drove there, I was imagining naked druids dancing around a mash tun, sacrificing sacred hops to the ancient spirits so I was slightly disappointed when we came across the archetypical California industrial park brewery, 30 minutes from closing!  Despite the initial disappointment, we were quickly rewarded by a large, lively, and thoroughly friendly place, the fermentation vats enormous monstrosities reaching nearly to the top of the corrugated metal ceiling above.  Vast industrial fans provided airflow to a facility that I'm pretty sure was not air conditioned otherwise, especially in this massive place.

Ritual Brewing Company - The Process Unfolds

So Cheryl and I worked on figuring out which of the many beers we would try in our flight, setting to work methodically through their vast selection.  We went with two flights, one concentrating on Belgian style brews and the other IPAs.  A standout amongst the heavier, Belgian style beers was an amusingly named beer called Fat Hot High West, a Manhattan-aged (yes, like the cocktail) barleywine that tasted exactly like a Manhattan, sweet vermouth, bitters, bourbon, and all.  But the real winners here were the IPAs, one better than the next. As I've mentioned many times, I enjoy places that try new things, that experiment with their beers.  Well, that was definitely the case with Ritual's skunky IPA called Art of Dankness, a hop heavy brew with a heavy dose of Humboldt County hops. This beer reminded me of a very simple fact:  hops and cannabis are actually quite closely related, both coming from a family of plants called the Cannabinaceae order.

Clearly, the clever brewers at Ritual were well aware of this connection as well, releasing this beer on April 20th at 4:20 pm.  And it's no wonder: I thought I was wandering through a grow house the second I smelled the heady aroma of this brew, its herbaceous fragrance reminding me all too well of graduate school.  The flavor was the same, strong cannabis sweetness and bitterness shining through with every swallow. Needless to say, I had to buy a bottle of this one.  

And so it was, after another excellent beer experience, we hobbled into our Palm Desert haunt for the evening, feasting once again on carnitas, and sank into sleep after the turmoil of LA traffic, looking forward to our final day out and the drive through Phoenix and Tucson, where we would sample some of the greatest beers of the journey and from the most unlikely of places.  Stay tuned!