We almost didn’t make it to Firestone Walker – we’d spent the morning at the fabulous Hearst Castle, built by billionaire newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, then popped to the nearby beach to marvel at the elephant seals lazing in the sun (spoiler, they’re huge!). Our kids were a bit grumpy and we almost pushed […]
On a day free of the sprogs, thanks to Disney, we headed off to the coast to visit Battleship Iowa and then on to Newport Beach for some whalewatching. To celebrate the many dolphins we saw, and the humpback whale which obliging swam under our tiny boat, we stopped in Newport Beach Brewing Co for […]
The Bruery. It’s the reason I was persuaded to come to California – literally; because when I looked at Disney I saw they were a mere ten minutes drive away. The Bruery are both prolific and excellent, and those two things don’t always go together. They are also really inventive and I always look forward […]
Vegas was so Vegas that there was a tv in the corner of our bathroom and a phone on the wall in the WC. To us Brits, this is the very height of decadence. Anyway, on our last morning there, the tv weather presenter delivered the news that temperatures that day would reach 110. Ho, […]
Ah Vegas! The city of conspicuous consumption of all things – water, neon, and of course money… A city where you can watch, astonished, as a man playing blackjack casually loses twenty chips to the dealer over a 90 second period. Then you realise each one is worth $1000. Still, we managed to tear ourselves away […]
You may or may not know that California law means drinking under 21 is illegal, and many bars, well, bar young people. Particularly annoying for us, with two teens in tow – esp one who is nearly 19 – we were usually on the look out for inclusive bars and taphouses. But often a nearby […]
There are many many breweries and fabulous bars in Los Angeles, and LA itself is absolutely massive. We decided to just be opportunistic and go to bars near to where we would be anyway, to try to maximise our time and not pretend we’d get everywhere we planned to go. Hence we ended up in […]
Cajoled by everyone else in to visiting Universal Studios, I had assumed this would be a ‘no beer blog’ kinda day. But I was wrong (unusual, I know – mark the date in your diaries folks…) For a start, I had reckoned without The Simpsons and the fabulously infamous Duff beer served For Real in […]
Leaving SF we drove down to Monterey; we had hoped to stop in Santa Cruz at Discretion Brewing but time wasn’t on our side as we wanted to make it to the famous aquarium in good time. Having coo-ed over the sea otters and seals in the harbour it was time to coo over some […]
We spent the morning at Alcatraz, with a quick stop at the USS Pampanito submarine, then wandered up to Lombard Street to marvel at the crazy zig zag hill. Walking from there to City Lights bookstore, we stopped to pay our respects to the burned down shell of Rogue’s SF outpost and cursed the arsonists. […]