russian river brew pub pilgrimage

So I made the pilgrimage to russian river today...

I had the full sampler, which was around 16-18 2oz samples of their California and Belgian beers. I'm sure there's a few other breweries like Russian River, but other than maybe New Belgium, I'm not that familiar with anyone like them. California hoppy beers, yum. Belgium styles, yum. Sour styles, yum! Good times.

Unfortunately, my experience pretty much echoes most of the yelp reviews of this place: the food is ok, and the service sucks. I was there at lunch, it was not busy, and our server screwed up 3 separate parts of the order (including the bottled beer we bought, which we didn't check until we got home).

The beer is amazing, but as a destination, it's disappointing. I probably won't be making the drive back there (or rather, getting someone to drive me there) any time soon, especially when I can get many of their quality beers at the store.

But I'm still happy to check this one off the to-do list!

absolutely agree. I'm a Santa Rosa native and would highly suggest going to Third Street Aleworks (about a block away) for dinner, meeting, etc. then run over to Russian River for your beers. The beer isn't spectacular at Third Street, but the service is good, the food is pretty damn good, and the atmosphere is awesome. I'm just disappointed that it looks like they've dropped the number of pools tables from when I used to go there back in the day.

Please tell me you didn't just mention Russian River and New Belgium in the same sentence...

I was not impressed when I was out there two years ago. I had a hipster dufus type that walked around like "our $hit don't stink", and that was the attitude he gave my wife and I when we ordered a few beers. I was MUCH happier up the road at Bear Republic!!