The promise of live music and food specials with a robust selection of house beers in the north part of the county is tempting. Next to try: Lone Wolf Brewing in Yorba Linda. Harbor Blvd., Suite 100, Fullerton (with additional locations in Anaheim and Newport Beach) It often will be something hoppy, but one time he sent over a chocolate stout that cried out for his stuffed churros to dip into it. But if Martinez is around, surrender yourself to his beer recommendation. ![]() And he has a mouth-watering tequila selection with the requisite pretty bottles and, more important, the special ones with extra añejos you don’t dare mix or shoot. The pineapple skirt steak tacos and duck smashies are personal favorites. Sure, his tacos and everything else on the menu are creative and delicious. Pour Vida Tortillas & Taps (Fullerton): Chef/owner Jimmy Martinez is a beer guy. Main St., Orange Pineapple-marinated skirt steak taco at Pour Vida. But they’ve worked for a long time and aren’t likely to change. The only negative? Hollinghead’s limited hours. The staff seems to love the question: If I liked this, what should I try next? And the more adventurous you are, the more they enjoy pointing you toward something you’ve never heard of but won’t soon forget. But it’s too tempting to pick up a bottle or can of something new out of one of the great coolers in Southern California. It’s not that the sandwiches or the draft beers are outrageously priced. Hollingshead’s Delicatessen (Orange): No trip to Hollingshead’s ever is as inexpensive as planned. The rest of the summit was not as celebratory, as you might imagine from the first California Craft Brewers Association gathering since the pre-pandemic era.Michael Hollingshead of Hollingshead’s Deli in Orange carries an empty keg out from behind the bar that used to hold, Pliny the Younger. Other Bay Area breweries that picked up awards include San Jose’s Strike Brewing and its Clandestine Brewing, Santa Cruz’s Humble Sea, Soquel’s Discretion, San Francisco’s Laughing Monk and San Rafael’s Pond Farm. And Buck Wild Brewing brought home a hat trick, winning gold, silver and bronze medals for its gluten-free beer. Ghost Town Brewing won two golds, for itsYokai, a sake-yeast beer, and Pythia, a Belgian-style fruit beer. In Oakland, Original Pattern Brewing won gold for Can’t Win ’em All (which in this case proved untrue) among international-style pale ales. ![]() ![]() Vacaville’s Solano Brewing won in the hazy double IPA category for Hazy on the 80, and in San Francisco, Fort Point’s SHW, a Korean-style lager collaboration with San Ho Won, won in the international-style Pilsener category. Other Bay Area gold medal winners included Half Moon Bay Brewing for its Saison, Sunnyvale’s Faultline Brewing for its Oktoberfest and Danville Brewing for its Chocolate Raspberry Royale. Humble Sea Brewing now has taprooms in Santa Cruz, Pacifica and Felton. ![]() Named Brewery of the Year, Morgan Territory won eight medals, including two in a single category, a gold for Lubricator and a bronze for Big Bock Energy, both bocks. Let’s start with that rosy news, because out of 246 medals awarded in 83 categories at the festivities held in mid-March in Sacramento, the champion that emerged was Morgan Territory Brewing in Tracy - and soon in Pleasant Hill. But there was some very good news for the Bay Area breweries who triumphed at the summit’s 2023 Brewers Cup. The recent California Beer Summit offered plenty of news - ranging from cautious optimism to woeful doom - on the state of the craft beer world.
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