Is there a "Santa Cruz Brewing Style"? Observations on the Breweries of Santa Cruz County

Seabright Brewmaster Justin Chavez

The upcoming October-November issue of Adventure Sports Journal will include an article I've written on the Breweries of Santa Cruz County.  I've enjoyed many beers from "over the hill" from my home in South San Francisco Bay, and spent a recent Saturday visiting some of the county's breweries to do research for the article.  Yes, it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.  A few thoughts and observations of this quietly thriving brewing region.

If there is a brewery that's come a long way, it's Santa Cruz Ale Works.    About five years ago when their beers first started coming out, I found them marred by a one-note bitterness, and not a particularly interesting note, either.   That's clearly not the case any more and you'd have to figure brewmaster Marc Rosenbloom would figure things out given all his GABF medals from his days at Seabright Brewing.  The brewery sticks to traditional German and English style  and the flavors in the ones I tried clearly popped.   If I had to pick a favorite, it would be their Kolsch, with a light lemon note and refreshing mineral-like finish.  Their rich and smooth Dark Knight Oatmeal Stout is a close second.  They opened a tasting room at the brewery four months ago, serving up some pretty solid sandwiches to go with the beer.  Plenty of home brewing discussion was in the air when I stopped by the taproom.

If you want to know what's going on in Santa Cruz, talk to Seabright Brewing's Jason Chavez.  The guy's been brewing since he was seventeen and has been with Seabright since 1999, a long time in the craft beer world.  He seems quite eager to share a pint and talk beer with anyone.  A genuinely engaging guy, he provided a lot of good background information for the article.  I like his Blur IPA, a very flavorful, balanced and drinkable concoction with bright citrus and light floral notes.

Sante Adairius Lives Up to the Hype I've been dying to visit Sante Adairius after seeing plenty of internet raves like this.  The secret of Sante Adairius is definitely out as their small tap room was overflowing out of the parking lot, and everything I tried ranged from pretty good to excellent.  I caught a few words with Brewmaster Tim Clifford as he was working the sizeable crowd, his last words he to me were "I hope this works out, since I don't want to do anything else".  It seems unlikely he'll have that problem.

Is there a "Santa Cruz Brewing Style"?  I happen to think a brewing style distinct to the Santa Cruz region is emerging.  All of the counties breweries, save for Uncommon Brewers, follow rather traditional styles, but freely riff on those styles.  The region's beers fall towards the "sessionable" side of the beer/alcohol spectrum, which I think is a function of the considerable outdoor oriented community.  Who wants a barleywine after a long day on the beach or cycling in the mountains?  I'd also add that the IPA's from Santa Cruz are more balanced than one finds on the West Coast.  So if I had to describe the "Santa Cruz Beer Style", it would be traditionally driven, but undeniably creative beers of the more sessionable variety with restrained usage of hops.  Given the region's strong home brewing community and support for local breweries, it's a sure bet another brewery will pop up in Santa Cruz County within another year or two and I can't wait to see what it will be like.

The crowd at Sante Adairius

A Knock Out in Santa Cruz

Thanks to my right hip, I took this picture of the start of the Santa Cruz Half-Marathon. Of course, I was planning on running this race, not taking pictures of it. Don't know what exactly is wrong with the hip, but it's screwed up pretty good. Since it seems unrelated to any particular range of motion or muscle action and is aggravated mainly by putting weight on my right leg, I fear it's a stress fracture. Hopefully next week my doctor can tell me what's going on.

It's simply amazing how quickly training can turn from great to disastrous. Four weeks ago, I ran a 5 mile race hoping for a time in the 31:00-32:00 range, and popped a 30:27. Things kept rolling, and eleven days later on a cold, windy rainy morning, I covered four miles of tempo running on the track at sub-6:10 pace in these difficult conditions, well below my 6:20-6:30 target. But then three days later, feeling a little tired going into a 15 mile timed run where I was shooting for 6:50-6:55 pace, I completely ran out of gas at 9 1/2 miles before staggering to the end. That's when the right hip soreness started getting noticeable, so I took a couple days off, did a couple light runs, before taking one big final 12 mile tune-up before the half marathon. The hip felt fine, and I stopped at miles 1 and 4 to check for any soreness or stiffness, but it felt good and while it stiffened up a little around miles 8-9 before subsiding, I ended the 12 mile run strongly, enthusiastic I was ready for the half marathon and my hip problem licked.

Except for a couple hours later, all I could do was stand awkwardly on my left leg with my right leg helplessly dangling from my torso. It's gotten better, albeit very slowly, but running a half marathon on it was likely going to end up in disaster, and quite likely some really nasty long term injury. I don't regret the risks I took to get to the starting line in what I thought would be the best shape possible. They were calculated risks that just didn't work out. This, unfortunately, is part of running.

Running is not like a Rocky movie. Just because you work hard and want it really bad, that big bad mean dude can still clock you with a right uppercut in the first round, and it's all over. Such is life.

But sometimes the good guys still win. My wife Linda worked hard for weeks too, and ran her personal best that day for the the half-marathon. So see, if you just hang in there and keep swinging, you still have a chance to take the bad guy down.

A good thing about drinking beer is that it requires very few functioning body parts. So a small consolation from being injured and not starting the Santa Cruz half marathon the next day was that I could have that extra beer without concern for any race day repercussions. So when Linda and I rolled into town, we first stopped at Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing for a pint and midday sandwich. The small tap room seemed a little spruced up from the last time we were there, and as always, a cross section of the diverse and slightly funky Santa Cruz population cruised through the place to get a growler fill or enjoy a pint for themselves. Hands down, our favorite for the afternoon was the Chile Chocolate Stout a special release available only from the tap room. While we both appreciated the dark chocolate flavors in the roasty malt, its rich character and slight sweetness, what really got us was it's mouth numbing tingly chile zip. The chile wasn't subtle, and for some people not particularly balanced, but for us, it was perfect. We also tried a sample of their barley wine aged 8 months in Chardonnay barrels. I thought the vanilla and Chardonnay flavors the barrel aging brought to the malty, toffee-like barleywine was rather interesting, but wasn't sure that the final product worked. Linda was sure it didn't.

Later that evening, we went with a friend for dinner at a place on Santa Cruz's West Side called burger. where oddly enough, you can order a burger from a wide ranging, eclectic menu supplemented by a tap list of no fewer than 48 beers. The Syd Barrett Burger I ordered was likely named for Barrett's legendary wide ranging and ultimately damaging experimentation with hallucinogenic substances, since it was topped with mushrooms. At least that's my guess, since I had to explain to the two twenty-something ladies behind the counter who Syd Barret was. There was a time explaining who Syd Barrett was made me feel cool, but now, it just makes me realize how old I'm starting to get. As for the beer, they have a few local favorites such as Santa Cruz Ale Works Red IPA complimented with the usual California craft beer suspects like Sierra Nevada, Anderson Valley, Green Flash, and Port Brewing was a few solid imports thrown in for good measure. If you want to get a good organically grown grass fed burger, yummy sweet potato fries, and a good beer, there's no better place to go than burger. But if you only have a half-hour to get a burger, you'll probably have better luck with the McDonald's across the street.

For Linda's Half-Marathon PR celebration, we headed over to Seabright Brewery where the outdoor patio that sunny day was filled with tired but jubilant runners adorned with their finisher's medal around their necks. Some of them were even limping around as badly as me. Linda and I started off with the The Freak Pale Ale, named in honor of San Francisco Giant ace Tim Lincecum. For a Pale Ale, both the malt and hop levels were as wispy as Lincecum's slender build, but for that late morning, light caramel flavors with a tea-like and slightly earthy hops made for a rather refreshing brew. Keeping with the San Francisco Giants theme, I also tried the Say Hey Wheat, their filtered wheat beer. Crisp and clear, with a nice wheat tartness and light citrus note, I could see why this was a popular post-race beer with many of finishers on the patio. And extra bonus points for Seabright not serving it with the standard lemon per my request. Linda finished with Seabright's Amber which had the requisite roasty malt and earthy finish one finds in a good amber.

As for you, Santa Cruz Half-Marathon, I am not finished with you yet!

A Blustery Day in Santa Cruz

The Santa Cruz Half-Marathon must be a picturesque course on good days. It starts by the Beach Boardwalk, heads out along the Pacific Coastline, traversing along roads and trails on high cliffs above the ocean. But these great vantage points also leave you exposed when a storm rolls in from the ocean. So when a late spring storm crept across the Santa Cruz coastline the same morning as the race, gusty winds and rain was thrown into the half-marathon mix.

It's one of the things I love about running. The very complexion of the course changes dramatically by uncontrollable whims of weather. You have to be prepared on race day for whatever is thrown at you, and you never quite know what will happen. While I don't like running in the wind and rain, there's a heightened sense of accomplishment at the end when you've overcome these additional barriers. When you think about it, life's personal and professional struggles are rarely carried out in pristine, clinical conditions. Many times, the things we deal with come are messy, complicated, and sometimes down right chaotic. Running isn't any different.

And so after Linda and I finished the race with two T-shirts, two finisher's medals, and a nice, plump and purple blood blister on my right index toe to show for it, we headed over to Seabright Brewing for some post-race recovery. It's located in a blocky, two-story, white retail building a short drive from the Beach Boardwalk. Plenty of other finishers had the same idea, and the place was pretty full of people in a celebratory mood, but at the same time too tired to get very boisterous. Linda and I were not eager to go back outside in the rain, or even get up once we sat down, so took our time checking out what Seabright had to offer.

Stouts are one of my favorite styles, so decided to start off with their Oatmeal Stout, while Linda, ever the hop-head, went for their Blur IPA. As stouts go, the Oatmeal Stout was rather smooth and light for the style, with a light milk chocolately-ness to the roasted malt. A stout is not the sort of beer one would usually call refreshing, but after a day at the beach, this might be something I'd reach for. Their Blur IPA was the classic West Coast IPA, with a whisper of light malt and lots of citrussy, grapefruity hop flavor, and give them credit for easing off the hop throttle a bit and delivering something flavorful, not assaulting.

The Salmon Fish and Chips I ordered was a nice Asian riff on the classic pub dish, complete with a couple spicy dipping sauces, and enjoyed a Loose Lucy Scotch Ale with it. If memory serves me right, no less than nine malts were used in this one, which gave it really easy sipping, bourbon and toffee character to it. Good that one of those malts was a peat malt, which added a nice little woodsy note to the whole thing. Linda had an enormous tuna melt with Uncommon Brewer's Serendipity Sour Ale, which has a great sour, lemony tang to go with a tingly carbonation. Come to think of it, a tuna melt with Belgian Sour Ale, or salmon and Scotch Ale are hardly ideal beer and food pairings, but when you're just tired and want to get out of the rain, good beer with anything is perfect.