Yup; that's the Golden Gate, from about 4000 feet.
Our digs on Tomales Bay. WOW! (Thanks, Tony Magee!)
Lagunitas, Petaluma, CA, USA, Earth, Sol, Local Group, Virgo Super Cluster, Space.
Don't take my awesome beer! With Mark and Jack Alger at Lagunitas.
We think these guys will be ok. The brewery, and us.
Gnawin' dem bones at SMOKESTACK. I do look a tad dog-like here...
Magnetic Letters R Us, at Brewcade in the Castro.
Sometimes, as The Happy Hour Guys, we just get an opportunity to go where the wind takes us. And one of the directions we've always wanted the wind to blow? Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. We've been seriously lacking in our coverage there since the beginning; we've been around the country and around the world, but as far as the American West goes, we've always had a problem with getting very far north of LA. (I mean, we're Actors, can you blame us? Spielberg might call at any minute.)
Those of you who know our content know that we've spent a lot of time in Colorado, a ton of time in the East Coast (we're based in New York City), we been down south, Texas, the Midwest (tons of stuff in Michigan); but NorCal? Seriously lacking. Now if your show is about Craft Liquids and great places to drink them, that's leaving out all whole lot of material. A ton. Okay, several tons. So when the opportunity arose for us to get to San Francisco, we jumped on it. It went a little bit like this: Mark is on the National Tour of the Broadway musical Newsies, and they are 'sitting down' in San Francisco for the month. I got a cheap fare, the good folks at Lagunitas gave us the use of their guest house for couple of days (many, many thanks, Tony Magee!!), and WE WERE ON.
Truly, I'm not going to give it all away, because in a 52 hour period we shot lots and lots of footage - maybe days worth of footage - (damn, I have a lot of editing to do) and this stuff is going to translate into some pretty terrific episodes. But for your edification (and jealousy) let me give out the lineup of where we were:
We opened in San Francisco's Castro District at Brewcade, a Craft Beer Haven full of arcade games and flavor; that night made our way out to Tomales Bay about an hour and a half north of San Francisco near Marshall; the next day it was off to Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma California, and a day with some of the coolest damn people we've ever had the opportunity to spend the day with, in the brewery, the performance space, their FARM; then north to Santa Rosa and the Russian River Brewing Company (just north of Petaluma), where, because of the release of Pliny the Younger the week before, the staff had the 'thousand yard stare'... and they had every right to have. PTSD from Craft Beer. It happens.
We ended this epic trip back in San Francisco's Dogpatch District, at the Magnolia Brewing Company's Smokestack BBQ joint, with English style ales and some of the best brisket we've had in recent memory. Then I was back on a late plane and seemingly instantaneously, in New York with a cold wind cutting thru me and the snow melting around my boots, wishing I was back in Golden Gate country.
Man, is there a lot of fun content coming soon. As I said, we shot hours of footage - and here are some stills to hold you over until then we start rolling them out.
If you have a chance... get yourself to NorCal!
Cheers!