Day 9 Thursday, August 13 - Salem, OR to Chico, CA
We leave Salem to begin the rest of the drive home with stops for food and sleep, with plans to work in beer at both places. We leave Salem at about 8:45 am which puts us perfectly in Ashland, OR for lunch at...
Standing Stone Brewing Company
We sit outside on the back patio since it's a nice day. The place is a beautiful restaurant with the brewery prominently displayed at the entrance, bar and front seating. As you enter the mash tun and kettle are on the right a few steps up from the floor. The bar is on the left with seating inbetween. Above the seating area is a mezzanine where the fermentation tanks are. Standing Stone is about as green as it comes, even by hippie standards. Wherever possible they source organic and local. The to-go containers are compostable, even the drink cup. The hand soap in the bathroom is even made next door from olive oil at a soap shop.
Not being able to decide on which beer to order, I get the
sampler.
It comes, but as you can see from the photo, it is bright and sunny. In just a couple minutes all of the pale beers have a slight skunk to them. They are all good, the Cream Ale, Seasonal Rye Pale Ale, Amber, IPA, Double IPA, and Stout. The Cream Ale is dry and grainy, very little sweetness, but still malty. Like a good German pilsner with less hop bitterness and aroma. The Rye Pale Ale is good with a noticeable rye flavor that works well with the hop profile. The Amber is straight forward with some caramel, toast and a slight roasty flavor. The IPA and Double IPA are similar, bitter and hoppy with the hop character from the Pacific NW you would expect with neither of them being over-the-top. I prefer the double. The stout is like a Dry Irish Stout, only a little bigger. Any bigger and it wouldn't work on such a hot day. One of the better American examples of Dry Irish Stout that I've tried.
I decide to order a full pint, and again, knowing I'm driving, I go for the IPA and not the double. This one I keep in the shade and it is free from the skunk. Much better than the sample.
As for the food, it was all fantastic. I had the burger special or the day with the red lentil soup (with handmade pasta!) yum. My wife had a chicken wrap that ranked high on her trip meal list. My son had the hot dogs (they come bunless with homemade ketchup). He then noted that food at breweries is better because he can taste the spices in the hot dog. He is 5 years old!
We load up again and hit the road climbing up the big hill and out of the state, into California.
Mt. Shasta
By my estimate we can arrive at our rest destination in plenty of time for relaxation and dinner. We pull into Chico at 5:45 with plenty of time to check in, hit the pool and get to dinner at 7 at...
Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
It is a Thursday night and the place is packed. The restaurant reminds me of a Claim Jumper style place, only attached to the second largest craft brewery in the country. The tours and gift shop closed at 6, so dinner is all that we get. As we wait for our table I take a stroll around, inside and out. The restaurant has a view into the brewhouse with giant copper kettles visible. The outside parking is underneath solar panels, and is adjacent to the Estate Hop Yard. Is has recently been harvested because no hops are growing. Visible from the brewery are massive fermentation vessels sticking up out of the roof, and over near the dining facilities, hydrogen fuel cells.
While I would classify Standing Stone in Ashland as a bunch of hippies, the folks at Sierra Nevada are just plain smart business people. They generate 80% of their power needs themselves through the solar panels and fuel cells. Even the treatment of waste water produces methane which is captured and used in the fuel cells. CO2 from fermentation is retrieved and used in the brewing and carbonation of their beers that aren't bottle conditioned. I can only imagine the amount of cost savings that they have in power and fuel.
We are seated and I immediately order the sampler on it's reputation alone. The beer list is huge anyways. No way I'm narrowing down this one. It comes and it is the Mother Of All Samplers - 15 different beers!
Here's the top view
From left to right, top to bottom:
Draft Pale Ale
Pale Ale (bottle version, but only place it is on tap)
Porter
Stout
Bigfoot Barleywine
Torpedo Extra IPA
Anniversary Ale
Blonde Ale
Crystal Wheat
Vienna Lager
Brown Ale
Brown Saison
Best Bitter
Kellerweiss
Kolsch
While going into description of every single one would be a bit tedious and fairly difficult, let me give a few generals and then some highlights.
All of the beers have a unique, "Sierra Nevada" quality. They are almost all clean, dry, and fairly bitter. They are hoppy, but not over done, with more emphasis on clean malt, firm bitterness, and unique hop flavors without overpowering one or the other. They use and blend several varieties of hops, so almost none of the hop flavors and aromas come out as "citrusy", "west coast" or even picking out single hops like "cascade", yet they are well done. It was very interesting to try them all side-by-side.
Differences between Draft and Bottle Pale Ale - The draft version is very similar but is less bitter and has a more "round" character to it. Think of turning the dial down from 10 to 8.5.
Torpedo and Anniversary IPAs - More different than you would think. The Anniversary beer is an IPA like if you took the Pale Ale and made it bigger, with a crisp, dry, citrus hop finish, while the Torpedo is a west coast style IPA, full of big hop flavor and aroma with lots of citrus and tropical fruity flavors and aromas.
Vienna Lager - What Sierra Nevada would be if Ken Grossman started in Germany. Dry, grainy, crackers with a full maltiness, and a hop bitterness on the top end of the style.
Brown Ale - A darker, nuttier version of the Pale Ale
Brown Saison - One of the few beers that doesn't scream "Sierra Nevada", yet it is well made and quite good. The yeast character comes out while the malt is clean without sweetness to muddy up the fruity, bubblegum yeast flavors.
Kellerweiss - Another not-your-typical Sierra Nevada brew. Very traditional with a clean, bready malt with the traditional balance of banana fruityness and clove spiciness you want in a real German Hefeweizen.
The food was good. Both my wife and I agreed it wasn't our absolute favorite meal on the entire trip, but it was very well done. I had the Thai Chicken Pizza while she had Capelini with Jumbo Prawns. A few items on the daily menu, such as the salmon looked great, but were all out. A few other items on the menu and that we saw go by on other trays looked great as well.
In all I was not disappointed in Sierra Nevada, although I'd love to come back for a tour of the place. Even at the minimum it was a great pilgrimage to one of the pioneers of the craft brew revolution that we drink the benefits from today.