The Oakshire Road show travelled to California last weekend

We decided to send beer down to the 14th annual Legendary Boonville Beer Festival this year and wow, was it a great time!! We found a lot of love from the people in Northern California and with the reaction we got about Oakshire Beer, it sure wants us to start sending beer farther south.

For those who don’t know, Anderson Valley Brewing in Boonville CA plays host to this awesome annual beer fest. It is held at the Mendicino Co. Fairgrounds in Boonville and the fest goers are allowed to camp on the fairgrounds while the brewers camp on the brewery property. It is a “one price to enter” festival organization with no individual beer ticketing. I had heard great things about the fest and always wanted to go. This year was our inaugural trip.

We set out early Friday morning, knowing we had to hustle for the quick side trip we hoped to make in Chico CA and Sierra Nevada Brewing. My friend Jeff Bagby of Pizza Port was able to set up a back stage tour with pilot brewer Scott Jennings. We didn’t want to miss this iconic brewery but knew we had to get to Boonville prior to nightfall to set up camp.

So we drove straight thru to Chico with one quick stop at the famed In-n-Out Buger, I wondered what all the hype was about, but after having this burger, now I know:

When we arrived in Chico and Sierra Nevada Brewery, we called Scott and started our tour. Scott was making a “Wash” for a rye whiskey distiller and was struggling to finish, so we tried to stay out of the way. Below are some photos from the tour, but let me just say that Sierra Nevada is the cleanest, organized, and professional brewery I have been to. What a beautiful place! Everything was in it’s place, it was clean, and it smelled very sanitary swimming pool like, save for the wiffs of whole cone hops or open topped fermenting vessels (for hefe only). I was impressed with every aspect of this second largest craft brewery in the country.

This is the 100 bbl kettle (they have main 200 bbl kettles as well)

200 bbl whirlpool (they make 12 200 batches per day here)

The immaculate cellar at SN. You walk under the 6200 gallon tanks.

All beer is centrifuged (yeast separation). They have five of these machines.

The prototype for their now famous Torpedo for dryhopping.

Sierra Nevada only uses whole leaf hops. A big job to manage.

SN bought a "small" bottler for special projects.

Hey, SN has the exact same bourbon barrels as us. Weird!

A definite new found respect was earned from Sierra Nevada from our trip last Saturday. Certainly a quality driven company around every corner. I’m glad I got to see it. Thanks for the tour Scott.

On to Boonville! We had about a three hour drive ahead of us, so we grabbed some fuel and were off. After curving back and forth up and over the hills, we arrived in Boonville at 7:30 Friday night. Upon finding our crew, we set up camp and began exploring the area. We found the guys from Point Blank, our Portland area distributor, and also the Ninkasi and Double Mountain Crew. I also ran into some old friends that I hadn’t seen in a while a did a quick beer trade with Phil from England. You’re the best Phil!

Due to the frivolity of the campground, the darkness, and the low battery, I didn’t get a lot of pics at the campground, but:

The camp set up. Coffee was an important part of the morning.

...as was bacon cooked in maple syrup and bourbon. Yum!

Certainly, fun was had by all the this weekend at the brewers camping event. I’ll let you fill in the blanks on this part of the journey.

The fest itself was fantastic. It is only four hours but they get 5000+ people I suppose. It was non stop action and we quickly drained three kegs and then the fest was over. Thanks to my friend DJ for helping (and driving all day)

DJ rockin' the draft box at our booth

The crowds were big on this sunny day.

Between all the great beer, some killer food booths, and the pleasant music wafting through the air all afternoon, this was a fest we’ll be back to, and if the crowds’ compliments were any indication, it seems we should sell some beer in NoCal as well. See you soon Boonvillians!

One last parting shot, the Giant Redwood that we HAD to drive through on our trip home.