Lunch at Lagunitus Brewing Company

Great day trip to Lagunitus Brewing Company when Jessie came in for a visit.   Unlike Coach Toby who advocates doing intervals and using a power meter--Coach Andy has said I need to drink more during training, so I am going with his program.  My wife and I also trying to do an intervention--Jessie stuck on drinking Bud Lite swill, so going on a brew pub seemed like a great idea--and it was.  Luckily I checked where it was as I wrongly assumed that Brewery was in downtown Petaluma but it is in a semi industrial park on the outskirts of town--but their taproom and facilities are real nice.

I like portraits in black and white but wanted to leave the colors of the beer alone.

A toast to Jessie who DIDN'T add water to the beer to get it to be like Bud Lite.

We got to Petaluma at 11:30-just when brewery opens, after we thought about going to downtown Petaluma first.  After all, who goes to a brewpub at 11:30.  But we decided to go to the brewery first, so after taking City streets so we'd get there closer to noon, going there first was a great move as already lots of people at the brewery and it was jammed packed at 1:00.

We could see why Lagunitus was crowded--good selection of food and very good beer.  Jessie and I went for the beer sampler selection.  In my book Stout won but their Wild beer was also very good.

Short tour of brewery facilities was OK--but informal talk about the history of the brewery was interesting.  Brewery started out in Lagunitus in West Marin--but in the absence of sewers their yeast filled waste byproduct keep blowing up septic tanks.   Owner is a lover of Frank Zappa and to honor Zappa they  intended to release a beer for each of Frank's albums, but Frank's widow eventually put a stop to this. 

After a couple of hours we headed to downtown Petaluma, where two majestic bank buildings at each end of downtown now converted to a antique mart and a seed bank.   Downtown four blocks of mostly bars and nail joints, a good kitchen store and a few unique home furnishing stores.   Bike shop in town used to be unique but has converted to the typical Trek corporate shop.