I had trouble sleeping Wednesday night and woke far too early for my late bedtime—gambling will do that to a person—so, naturally, I went to the hotel casino. I’d ended the night before up $20, so, figuring I was playing with house money, I played the crazy “Aliens” movie-themed video slot machine that had given me such luck the night before. The $20 evaporated fairly quickly and I was back to even. I thought about leaving, but the addict in me decided to go just one more time. Another $20 into the machine, and 15 minutes later, I found myself up $100, after a particularly fortuitous result. Discretion being the better part of valor, I cashed out and headed back to my room.
I’d considered sticking around Reno for another day to see Neko Case and Crooked Fingers, but I was put off by the $45+ ticket price, so I looked at the map and considered my route. My goal was to be in Portland by Friday to see my friend Sarah and her family, and to attend my friend Misa’s birthday party on Saturday night, but Reno to Portland is too far a drive to make in one day, so I decided Redding, California, would be my halfway mark. Fortunately for me, Sierra Nevada Brewery is in Chico, California, and their brewery tours begin at 2:30PM daily, so I knew where I’d stop for lunch.
The GPS is giving me fits, because when I entered the address of the brewery, it calculated a drive time of about three hours, but as soon as I started driving, it grew to more than four, which would have put me at Sierra Nevada 15 minutes after the start of the tour. Because I’m occasionally smarter than a machine, I noticed the sign pointing toward Chico that took me on a crazy, twisty drive through Lassen National Forest that gave me my best gas mileage of the trip (54MPG on that tank) and cut my time by more than an hour.
I arrived at the brewery a little after 1:30, to find I’d driven directly into a furnace—it was 108 degrees Fahrenheit, according to my car. Undaunted, I visited the restaurant and taproom for a bite before the tour began, and had a pint of SN’s Best Bitter, which, unbeknownst to me when I ordered it, is exactly the kind of beer I enjoy drinking most. It’s not too hoppy but still full of character, so it’s easier to have more than one without destroying one’s tastebuds.
The tour was brief, but I learned a lot of interesting facts, like that Sierra Nevada is now the sixth-largest brewery in the United States, and the largest privately held brewery in the country. They are almost completely self-sustaining, and recycle over 98% of waste in some very creative ways. After the tour, I returned to the taproom to try the sampler, which offered 2-oz. portions of the all the beers they have on tap. Some of the more aggressively hopped beers destroyed any chance I had to enjoy the remainder of the sampler, so I got back on the road (c’mon, it was the equivalent of a pint or so that I finished).
(Brewery tour video to come… stupid Vimeo.)
I pointed the Prius toward Redding, my stopping point for the day, in order to put in some more time on a freelance project I’ve taken on.
