Food And Drink

Eat, Drink, and be merry!

Fogbelt Brewing, Santa Rosa CA

Fogbelt Brewing
305 Cleveland Ave.
Santa Rosa CA
707-978-3400

Fogbelt is a place I’ve had on my shortlist to visit since they opened nearly two and a half years ago, but particularly with new breweries opening seemingly every month in Sonoma County, and so many other things in life, Fogbelt remained unvisited.

But on a beautiful Saturday afternoon the stars aligned as I pulled into the parking lot on Cleveland Ave, not far from College Ave. The crowded marque for the “Vintners Square” complex lists Fogbelt fourth after three wineries, but despite the sign, Fogbelt’s building is front and center and a lovely place to spend some time.

Brewers Paul Hawley and Remy Martin grew up in Sonoma County, sons of winemakers and dabbled in homebrewing while themselves working in the wine industry. A few years ago they decided to turn their hobby into a business and FogBelt Brewing Company was founded.

Inside the central bar dominates the space, but very well-spaced tables and booths ring the outside and provide plenty of seating areas even on a bustling weekend afternoon. After ordering at the bar, my friend Lisa and I decided to sit outside in one of the tree-shaded booths.

Following the theme of their Fogbelt moniker, which represents the foggy region along the coast mountain range that is home to the tallest trees in the world, Fogbelt names their beers after significant redwood trees. First up I tried the “Sentinel” single hop pale ale (5.4% ABV) while Lisa opted for the wonderfully named “Screaming Titan” double IPA (8.2% ABV).) – the “Screaming Titan” is a towering coast redwood in the Grove of Titans in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in Del Norte County, while “Sentinel” is an enormous sequoia redwood in Sequoia National Park east of Visalia.

Personally, I’ve rarely found a well-balanced single hopped beer, and the Sentinel, though delicious, wasn’t an exception. But balance isn’t why I always gravitate to single-hopped offerings, but rather because they show off a particular hop. Sentinel is brewed to showcase a different, rotating hop varietal – currently the sole hop for Sentinel is Calypso. Despite being a pale ale, sharp notes of green apple with only undertones of citrus dominated, the citrus lingering on the finish.

By comparison, Lisa’s Screaming Titan was one of the best balanced double IPAs I’ve tasted. The blend of Chinook, Cascade, Mosaic, Citra, Centennial, Bravo, and El D hops evened out flavor profile with an easy citrus palate and gentle finish. Fogbelt’s menu describes the Screaming Titan as their “signature Double IPA,” and for good reason – it’s an extremely well-crafted beer.

Speaking of the menu, Fogbelt boasts a fairly full menu of food items from their kitchen. We opted to share the pretzel bites with a beer béchamel dipping sauce and meatloaf sliders (which we opted for the bacon add-on because, well, bacon). Both were delicious, with the tangy spicy ketchup of the meatloaf pairing nicely with the beers. The beer béchamel didn’t stand up to the beer nearly as well, but sea salt and parsley on the perfectly baked pretzels allowed that dish to shine as well.

For a second round, Lisa stayed with the Screaming Titan (who could blame her?) while I wanted to try the “Del Norte” IPA (7.0% ABV). The hearty blend of Centennial, Exp. 0727 and Chinook hops certainly places it in the West Coast IPA style, but it’s not aggressively hop-forward. The finish is short but leaves a note of caramel in its wake.

Overall, we had a great time and great beer. Even though Fogbelt Brewing Company has been open for two and a half years, they already feel like a well-established member of the Sonoma County brewing scene and well worth a visit.

Fogbelt Brewing Company is at 305 Cleveland Ave. in Santa Rosa (707-978-3400, fogbeltbrewing.com, @FogbeltBrewing on Twitter and Instagram, and Fogbeltbrewing on Facebook). The brewery and taproom are open Monday –Thursday from 12 – 10pm, Friday and Saturday 11am – 11pm, Sunday 12 – 8pm with the kitchen open until an hour before the taproom closes.

Creek Monkey Taproom, Martinez CA

Creek Monkey Taproom
611 Escobar Street
Martinez, CA 94553
925-228-8787

Two things went through my head as I crossed the Benicia bridge towards Martinez: first, “wow, the Benicia bridge has come a long way from when it was the second ugliest bridge in the greater Bay Area” [ed: top honors went to the Carquinez bridge, though even it has vaulted into a sort of beige level of mediocrity with its replacement span; the ugliest bridge in the Bay Area is now ably held by the Richmond-San Rafael bridge, an honor which it is in absolutely no danger of losing in my lifetime]. The second thought as I stared at the curving road ahead, which traced a line of bulbous and streaming oil refineries, “holy crap, this is my exit.”

And indeed it was.

I grew up in the South Bay, and this was the corridor to my family’s vacation wonderland: Lake Tahoe. This is still early in the trip, before Walkman batteries started to give out, or sibling annoyances had strained backseat relations, but between the ugly bridge, the formerly-sizable “Mothball Fleet” visible from the bridge, or the Mad Max-looking refineries, this stretch of road remained indelibly etched in my childhood memories.

I never thought I’d descend into the tangle of smokestacks and piping, but here I was. Akilah had fallen asleep about twenty minutes back, and she wouldn’t have appreciated the enormity of this descent, as she grew up in the North Bay. As I took the exit and dropped onto the surface streets I might as well have been that poor Alderaanian Corellian corvette getting tractor beamed into the enormous Imperial Star Destroyer; I was going into the belly of the beast.

Which reminded me of how I came across Creek Monkey in the first place. A friend, stuck in traffic up on 680 headed to Reno, called me to make being stopped in traffic a little more palatable. I, naturally, jumped onto my computer to see where the backup was and how long she’d be stuck in traffic (she was hosed – she’d barely made it to beginning of a long slog that stretched almost to Highway 80). As I zoomed in, dots on the map representing local businesses began to resolve and among them was – you guessed it – Creek Monkey Tap House.

From the name alone I knew I should seek this place out. Poring over the website, I became certain this was a place I had to visit. Housed in an old Victorian on the edge of downtown Martinez, Creek Monkey overlooks Alhambra Creek. Their website tells the tale of where the name comes from: a circus wintered in nearby Alhambra Valley had among its menagerie some clever squirrel monkeys that managed to escape their confines and hid along Alhambra creek, forming a feral squirrel monkey colony (“feral squirrel monkey colony” is totally going to be the name of my thrash-metal klezmer band). “Word around town is that people still hear strange cries in the middle of the night and a lucky few have even spotted them. Yeah, it sounds far-fetched,” the description goes on, “but this is Martinez, a town where stranger things have happened.”

Are you hooked yet? I totally was. But I don’t live in the South Bay anymore, so practically never come through the Benicia bridge corridor – in fact, this was only the second time I’d crossed the bridge since the “new” spans had opened… in 2007. So, despite a couple years passing since I starred Creek Monkey on my Google Map, it took a specific trip to this area to make it happen.

Akilah woke up just as we passed from the razor-wire-tipped chain link fencing of the industrial area and into the adorably cute, flower-lined sidewalks of Martinez; the juxtaposition was jarring. Despite Google Girl telling us the location was on the right behind the street-side orange trees, and statue made of kegs (yeah, that should have been the giveaway, right?). As we pulled into the public parking lot across the street from Creek Monkey we saw the sign for the restaurant there: Beaver Creek Smokehouse… oh, my that sounds good… maybe we will have to come back…

We climbed the steps in front and into the yellow Victorian. We elected to sit inside, although the patio was quite inviting as it overlooked the creek. The layout of the restaurant itself seemed very much like, well, setting a restaurant in a Victorian – collections of tables divided by rooms. The signage on the bar seemed a bit sparse, but I knew what I wanted to drink anyway. Creek Monkey brews their own beer under the Rocksteady Brewing Company name, and their beers are blessed with suitably musical monikers: Rude Boy Red, 54-46 IPA (after the Toots and the Maytals track, not the Sublime cover you heathen!). Akilah ordered the former and I ordered the latter as we looked over the menu… which was fine… it really was… but….

Okay, look, if we hadn’t seen Beaver Creek Smokehouse, I wouldn’t have likely found fault with anything on the menu. I appreciated the Utah-referencing “Funeral Balls” appetizer, I love a place that has an iceberg wedge salad, and the Ropa Vieja sandwich with Cuban style pulled pork looked inviting… but bbq across the street? Hmm… We did drive out here for Creek Monkey, though… Okay, Akilah and I decided we’d have the nachos with our beer and then afterwards we would check out the bbq place.

What we didn’t realize was that the nacho plate was enormous. Akilah took points off for the melted cheddar cheese instead of the liquid “cheese” sauce of “traditional” nachos – it’s a fair criticism in my book. But it really didn’t take away from our enjoyment of chips, guac, pico de gallo, black beans, and jalapenos. And it went great with the beer.

About the beer… That is, after all, why we journeyed out here. Did it live up to my lofty expectations? Was it worth the trip? No, no it did not. Don’t get me wrong, it was good beer – the IPA wasn’t over-hopped, instead managing a nice balance between hoppiness and bitterness, leaning towards bitter as one would expect from an IPA. The red was surprisingly more hop-forward than I’d expect with interesting dried fruit notes on the back end, which lent it an enjoyable complexity.

Had I been the one stuck in traffic and I pulled off and found Creek Monkey, these beers would be a godsend. But having driven all that way, they were just good beers. Nothing wrong with that. If I find myself in the area, I’d definitely stop again – probably hang out on the patio and keep an eye out for feral squirrel monkeys. Or beavers…

Speaking of which, by the time we finished our massive pile of nachos we were too full to even investigate Beaver Creek Smokehouse. Next time!

Oh, yeah: about those beavers – Alhambra creek has them. Or had… it’s not clear whether they’re still around, but until we saw the “Beaver Creek” in the name I’d forgotten that five or six years ago the beavers were a big deal here. They’d built a couple dams that were threatening flooding if the creek rose. The city had the damns destroyed and marked the beavers for extermination until the Martinezians (that’s a word, right?) rose up in defense of the furry wood chewers. And they won – the beavers were spared and there was some clever piping installed to circumvent the dam and prevent flooding. …At least until the feral spider monkeys emerge en masse and take their revenge. Strange things in Martinez, indeed…

Smoked Brisket

OMG, Smoked Brisket

There’s been plenty of times when Bookface puts up “Your Memories on Facebook” and I groan. But a couple weeks ago Bookface reminded me of this tasty, tasty dinner from last year. A little backstory: A was having a no good, very bad week, and I figured what better way to cheer someone up than a big hunk of meat?

Dinner was on Saturday, but let’s go back to Thursday of that week because you need to get the meat in order to smoke it:

Raw.

First up: the brine…

Nothing exotic for the brisket bath: salt, molasses, and water. Notably, this is a cold brine — no cooking involved. If I were using more aromatics or other spices, that’d be different, but this is about as simple as a brine can get. So, in goes the brisket

Take my word for it, the brisket is in there

And then into the fridge to chill:

Into the fridge. Don’t judge my fridge contents!

I love using that little cooler jug as my brining vessel. And that’s a wrap for Thursday.
Friday night started with pulling the brisket, patting it dry while we assemble the rub…

Naked and afraid.

I should take this moment to say this brisket was inspired by my friend, Mark, who made the greatest brisket I’ve ever tasted. This was my attempt to try to replicate it as best I could. His spice rub started with a Santa Maria spice mix for a base. I improvised with my best make-shift Santa Maria base: salt, peppercorns, garlic powder, dried parsley, and a little sugar all went into the spice grinder. In addition, some cumin, fennel, coriander, chili powder, cayenne, paprika, and onion powder. One of Mark’s additions is some corn meal to try to firm up the rub into something more resembling a crust.

I can smell it from here

Now let’s dress up that shivering cold brisket:

All dressed up…

Now it’s time to set up the barbeque — notice I didn’t say smoker. I don’t have a smoker. Instead I have a standard Weber 22 inch kettle barbeque. Mark introduced me to the “snake” method of “low and slow” smoking on the Weber. Around the perimeter of the kettle go a line of briquettes laid up against each other like so:

2-row “snake”

The white cubes at the head of the snake are paraffin lighter cubes. Onto the back of the snake(s) go the wood chips:

Chips on its, err, shoulder?

Last bit of preparation, pour hot water into the pie tin in the middle. You could use cold water, but the idea is to keep a steady temperature in the barbecue and why waste energy warming water? Finally, light the “head” of the snake(s), put the grill and meat on (and any thermometers you may use), close up the grill and go to sleep.

Wait, go to sleep?

Yep. That’s one of the wonderful aspects of the snake method — it’s going to burn through its briquettes one by one (and its chips along the way) keeping the kettle at a steady temperature for hours upon hours. How long? I haven’t figured out a briquette-to-time formula (yet), but I lit it off at 10pm Friday night and pulled it around 6am the next morning.

But that’s hardly the end.

Brisket is a tough piece of meat and can use all the help it can get. So after pulling the brisket, it went into a pan with apple juice and into the oven at 350 for a couple hours. By that point I’d finished the other dishes — iceberg wedge salad, chili roasted sweet potatoes, and corn bread. How’d the brisket turn out?