The Session #29: Will Travel For Beer

For this months’ Session, the topic was chosen by Gail and Steve of Beer By BART. Those entusiastic urban rail rail fans chose the topic of travel for their topic, and I can’t say I’m surprised. BEfore tackling travel, let me just give their site a quick plug. For those lliving in the Bay Area, their site is a great tool to get around and drink beer without driving. Hopefully, when our North Bay rail gets going, someone will do a little Beer By SMART. 

The funny thing about this topic was I had just written about another trip to a brewery far from home when the Session was announced. Instead of recycling the same story about my trip to Mt. Shasta Brewing, I started to think about all of my trips over the last few months and years.

It’s a common story among beer geeks. “The wife wants to go to [insert place], which is fine with me as long as I can go to [insert brewery].” When we took a 5 day trip to Disneyland, I dragged friends and family out to Newport for lunch at the brewpub. The Mt Shasta Brewery trip conveniently coincided with a girls morning for the wife and her friends while the husbands were in charge of the kids. What better place to go than a brewery? (We did go to the park first…while we waited for the brewery to open.)

Sometimes, I get the feeling that my wife assumes I have alterior motives for any activity I plan when on vacation, especially when we do end up at or near a brewery. Sure, many times, I am planning to visit the brewery, but  I make it known. Most of the time though, when we just happen to end up at a brewery, it’s more along the lines of when some people eat at Chili’s or Applebees on vacation.  Before you jump all over me for comparing breweries to corporate food, give me a chance to explain myself.

The appeal of these franchise eateries is the familiarity. Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Seattle or the middle of nowhere, you know what you’ll find when you walk through these doors and sit down for a meal. For the most part, if you go to one of these restaurants, you like the experience. I’d hate to think people would keep going, and while on vacation no less, if they didn’t.

Going to a brewery, even one you’ve never heard of, can be a similar experience. Let’s use my recent trip as the example. While the towns of Weed and Mt Shasta are bustling communities with countless things to do for the visitor, the wife and I had been to Mt Shasta the day before and done thedowtown scene already. That left Weed which was I was far less familiar with. After visiting the grocery store to appease the children with snacks and seeing the totem pole in the parking lot, we shrugged our shoulders and figured we’d visit the one place in town we knew we would find entertainment (and beer). Don’t get the wrong idea, between two fully grown men, we split a sample tray of 6 beers over lunch.

On the West Coast, especially north of the Bay Area, it seems as if every little town has a brewpub of some sort. Thankfully, this means for travelers in this region, we know a place where we can go and get what we want, even if it might not be exactly the same from town to town. Best yet, no stupid decorations and flair all about.