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A Northern California Road Trip
My friend Tom and I recently drove from Los Angeles to Fort Bragg, California (roughly 550 miles or 900km each way -- though Tom did the driving and I did the navigating) to attend a beer dinner at North Coast Brewing. Two questions I am sure come to mind: First, Are we crazy? (the answer is yes when it comes to good beer) And second, this is the Franconia Beer Guide site, what does this have to do with Franconia? Well if you hang on a minute, I'll tie it all together...
Fort Bragg is a town of about 6000 people in Mendocino County (known primarily for its wines) about 3 hours drive north of San Francisco. North Coast Brewing started out as a brewpub in 1988 and has since grown into decent sized microbrewery. There beers are distributed across the US and have been well received when we've brought samples of their stronger beers (Old Rasputin Imperial Stout and Old Stock Ale in particular) to Belgium.
In the nearby town of Boonville (population 700) is Anderson Valley Brewing Company another highly respected and widely distributed microbrewery. In Hopland (also population 700) is the original Mendocino Brewing, which started out as a brewpub in 1983 and has grown into large microbrewery -- with one brewery in nearby Ukiah (population 15,000) and another in Saratoga Springs, NY. Ukiah also has a brewpub (Ukiah Brewing). Now comes the first tie in -- all these little towns in one area with breweries producing world class beer, it sort of reminded me of Franconia. The towns are more spread out (but after all, this is California -- we are a big state) and there are not as many breweries, but there are not as many people either To support these (and many other) good breweries is a something they can be proud of..
We had an afternoon free so we wandered down to Boonville and arranged a tour of Anderson Valley Brewing. The brewhouse is situated in a large new purpose built building. Inside are two beautiful copper clad brew systems -- one with an 85 barrel (120 hl) capacity and the other with 100 barrels (140 hl). Inquiring as to their origin we were told they were from German breweries that had closed. "Which ones?" I asked. Privatbrauerei Adam Düll of Kasendorf and Ambros Brütting-Bräu of Staffelstein we were told. Something in my brain went "ding" -- those towns are in Franconia! Kasendorf is near Kulmbach and Staffelstein is near Lichtenfels.
One of the formerly Franconian vessels
at Anderson Valley Brewing
Staffelstein had four breweries as recently as 1992. Ambros Brütting-Bräu was founded in 1848 as Dampfbierbrauerei zum grünen Baum ("Steam beer brewery at the Green Tree") by Johann Brütting. The "steam" refers to the fact it was steam powered and not releated to the "Steam Beer" of Anchor Brewing. Ambros Brütting-Bräu closed in 1994. The other three breweries in town have also closed. One of the closed breweries, Bärenbräu is slightly infamous. The owner/brewer, despondent over the state of the business, hanged himself in the brewhouse.
Label image courtesy of Klaus Ehm and his excellent website Das große Brauereiverzeichnis Deutschland (The Complete German Brewery Index)
Privatbrauerei Adam Düll was the only brewery in Kasendorf in recent times.It was founded in 1861 as the Maisel Brauerei by Eberhard Maisel (Maisel is a common Franconian name). It later changed its name to Magnus Bräu Adam Düll. It also closed in 1994.
Label image courtesy of Klaus Ehm and his excellent website Das große Brauereiverzeichnis Deutschland (The Complete German Brewery Index)
So when you kick back and enjoy one of the great Anderson Valley beers, remember there is just a little bit of Franonia in there.
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