This Kind Of Brewery May Be Over

The sad news of a Bay Area staple closing, Marin Brewing Company, brings the feelings.

These kind of places may be over. The 80s 90s era. When brewpubs and breweries were a small underrated community.

Friend and Marinite, Paul has some words about it:

It’s bad enough that Iron Springs had to go down, but the ‘Brew Co’ – as all the locals referred to it – was iconic; one of California’s original pioneering brew pubs. I blame the haze craze more than anything. I’m sure the pandemic didn’t help, not to mention the a-hole landlord that kept jacking their rent. But ultimately I think it’s the fact that people’s taste in beer has changed, and it is getting harder and harder for these old school establishments to survive. I am in the minority. I am getting old and stodgy, and I long for dark and cozy brew pubs where you can get a stout and a side of mashed potatoes all for under 10 bucks on your lunch break. Sadly, those days are long gone. Please take a moment of silence to mourn this loss with me.

Thanks, Paul. It’s the ‘dark & cozy’ that gets me. There is not a lot of cozy left. Being a beer nerd used to be that: a small cozy community.

Find a malty pale (if you can) and pour one out for all the brewpubs and coziness we have lost.

Why Don’t Breweries Sell Bags Of Ice?

I was ranting about this yesterday on the Perfect Pour: Why don’t more taprooms carry bags of ice!?

When I make a run to a brewery I usually have an ice-chest with me. My fridge doesn’t crank out enough ice to make a relevant amount so after I pick up my beers from the brewery, I then have to stop at a store and buy ice.

One too many stops for me – I’m lazy.

Why don’t taprooms have bags of ice for sale? I supposet there must be some but I have not seen nor heard of this. Not even in bottle shops.

Matt on the show pointed out he would give you some ice from their machine at Tioga Sequoia Brewing if you asked but I don’t want to do that. I want to buy it right then and there with my beers.

Sure, I will totally forget to buy the bags of ice at a brewery that started carrying ice, just like how I walk out of a grocery store forgetting the ice. But it would be nice to know I could have gotten the ice at the taproom.

Normalize bags of ice at breweries!

ICY SIDE NOTE:

Bags of Ice from Sonic Burger
(Photo by: Hip2save.com)

There have been times (maybe now still) when you could buy the perfect-for-drinking, Sonic Ice, in bags from your local Sonic joint. It would feel like a misuse to put them in an ice-chest but it might work for the road trip with a brewery stop attached.

The New Yorker’s Spot On Spoof Of Brewery Tours and Bro Breweries

“Yeah, bro, I’m totally getting the IPA taste in the front”

Well done, Eddie Small, via the New Yorker.

This sendup of a brewery tour had me noding my head yes and laughing.

Highlights:

Hale Valley Brewery—one of just seventeen microbreweries in Litchfield County, Connecticut, that has the word “Valley” in its name.

….Adam & Phillip decided to open up their microbrewery in Litchfield County because, as soon as they saw how beautiful it was here, they knew it was the only place where they could make their beer taste as great as they had always imagined.

…Now we’re going to start the tour in what we call the “brewing room,” where you’ll have the opportunity to sample individual beer ingredients on their own, when they all still taste bad and nonalcoholic.

Go read it, anybody that’s noticed the occasional Business Bro Brewery or have been on one-too-many tours, will find it a fun read.

I Want To Go To There: Downed Lands Brewing in Warwick, NY

Drowned Lands Brewing

Every once in a while I’ll stumble onto (usually scrolling Instagram) a brewery I have never heard of but looks damn cool. Today that is Drowned Lands Brewing in New York.

I first saw their can art and overall design. For some reason I have been really into this kind of hand drawn Lo-Fi look lately.

Investigating further I saw this:

That is a pretty rad and unique to me beer garden/taproom.

Normally I’d say I’ll probably never see this place. But being as it’s not super far from Newark/NYC, an area I’m sure I’ll visit again someday.