Birthday in Beertown (Santa Rosa)

Mike turned 39 over the weekend and we celebrated by drinking a large volume and variety of beer(s).

On Saturday morning, in keeping with Yom Kippur traditions, we flew to Oakland and picked up our rental car at Advantage. Did you know that Advantage car rental in Oakland is so far from the airport that you have to take two shuttles to get to their rental center, which is in an abandoned parking lot near a vacant field haunted by the ghost of John Wayne Gacy? Their office is in a trailer, and I had to wait a long time to pick up my vehicle because the woman in front of me in line didn’t have enough money in her bank account to pay for her car.

We had time for a quick stop at McDonalds (Mike got a breakfast meal, I got a 3 piece Chicken Selects) and then it was time for the North Bay Brewery Tour. We went to Lagunitas, The Beverage People, Bear Republic, and Third Street Aleworks. My favorite stop was Lagunitas, because I like their beer (esp. their pilsner and Lil’ Sumpin Sumpin) and all of their employees appear to be dropouts with criminal records, who are back on their feet thanks to the generosity of Tony Magee, founder and owner of Lagunitas. Lagunitas recently bought a ROLEC (huge German beer making system) that is so big it has to be brought to the US by ship and will be helicoptered into Petaluma.

Besides visiting Lagunitas and Bear Republic (Healdsburg is very pretty), my favorite part of the tour was when Mike almost strangled our bus driver so she would stop the bus so he could get out and relieve himself. He held out for a freeway offramp, near a Burger King.

On Sunday we went to Russian River and back to Third Street Aleworks. At Russian River, Mike had great wings and I had some good sour beers. Then I bubble-wrapped some bottles of beer, packed them in my luggage, and we flew home. This trip confirmed what we already knew: Mike likes IPAs and Belgians, I like pilsners, porters, stouts, and sours.