North Coast Brewery

The remains of my tasting flight.

About a month ago my wife and I traveled to Mendocino to experience all the wine they had to offer. Every year we try to go to a different region and taste as much wine as possible. We do this for purely scientific reasons and in no way enjoy drinking wine or buying cases of it to bring home with us.

Anyway, even though I was looking forward to trying lots of wine and olive oil the highlight for me was a visit to the North Coast Brewery. Before leaving I had only been able to try the Red Seal Ale, which is one of the best ales I have had from a bottle. Aside from being somewhat expensive their line of beer is hard to find in Arkansas anyway. So I was fairly psyched to try everything they made all at once and hopefully for the cost of a pint or two.

Located in beautiful Fort Bragg, the brewery is a block from the beach and for two blocks in every direction all you could smell was delicious brewery yeast and fermented mash. Across the street from the brewery, which you can tour if you want, is the tasting room (bar). There I was able to try all 12 beers at once for $15. Are they all awesome? Does the brewery live up to the hype as the best in America?

I will say that every beer was well-crafted and even the types I don’t usually like were pretty good. I have had beer that has been better but damn if their stuff wasn’t really good and I didn’t have to be sitting in the Hofbrauhaus. The best by far was the Old Stock Ale, but Brother Thelonius was awesome abbey ale. The No 38 Stout reminded me of Beamish but slightly smoother. The only disappointment was when I was finished and had to leave.

Hey he stole my beer!