Another company visited during my travels, this time a brewery. It was more or less an accident we visited this one, since we took a wrong turn on Highway 1 and drove to Boonville instead of following the coastline towards San Francisco. Hard to believe maybe, but still true…

The Anderson Valley Brewing Company is one of those Craft brewers in the USA that has made it from someones shed to a full sized brewery. They are in a more wine focussed country not too far from Napa and Sonoma. The brewery is solar powered, which I find very cool. The only drawback is that they do a tour only once per day, and I missed that of course…

(The Bitch Creek will be reviewed later. The shampoo will not be reviewed)

I did buy a couple of bottles in the shop, where they had more or less everything available at very good prices. I already knew the ‘Hop Ottin IPA’, but I hadn’t reviewed it yet, which I’ll do here as well.

Anderson Valley Poleeka IPA
Light and fresh, a little fizzy even with a gentle touch of bitterness. Not too many hops added I guess. This is a nice beer, but it doesn’t send in me in one direction flavourwise.

Anderson Valley IPA
A bit hard to define at first. A bit crisp and fresh, with a sweet edge like hard candy. Quite a decent IPA with enough hops to be interesting, but that little sweetness does stand out. Barley, green malt, but the balance improves a bit when its in the glass for a couple of minutes.

Anderson Valley Hop Ottin’ IPA
The first scent I get is that of a rather malty whisky. Slightly sweet as well, with lots of malt and wheat, citrussy and still whisky like. The flavour has a hint of singed grains with lots of hops and is a bit dry.

Anderson Valley Brother David Triple Abbey Style Ale
That’s a mouth full. The beer is very yeasty, a bit more so than a real triple from Belgium. Lots of flavour with a slight sweetness and bitterness. Mostly though, a lot of yeast. I have to place a note here that I was drinking this one from the bottle and it wasn’t very cold either.

The Hop Ottin’ I highly recommend, and some of the others were very decent too. I have to admit that I didn’t try the Triple and the Poleeka in the right setting with a proper glass and a refrigerator, though. Some beers are just too flavoursome and complex to be drunk from a bottle, and these beers might just be that.