Humboldt Breweries Adventure – Part Two: Mad River Brewing
From Eureka, Ari and I headed back north, through Arcata, and inland to Blue Lake. After getting slightly lost, we eventually made our way through the sleepy town to the brewery. Inside we found the staff was examining new chairs for the tasting room. They called Tara, our guide to the brewery to come meet us. In the meantime, they poured me a Steelhead Double IPA (which I’d wanted to try since exporting it to Wisconsin) for the trip through the brewery.
The Double IPA had a fruity hop aroma and medium malt. On a warm day like this the beer easy drinking – this double IPA was overall very restrained, and lacked the punch I was expecting. I took my brew and headed into the brewery, where inside we found everyone hard at work. Unlike the confined gleaming spaces of Lost Cost, Mad River was spread through several rooms. Older equipment churned busily, and brewers we actively brewing, cleaning and bottling in every space. Everyone we met smiled welcomingly, then quickly got back to work. The bottling line was just finishing up as we entered, and they were disassembling the outer pieces and topping off the bottles. The bottler reminded me of the old printing presses - all gears and knobs of forged steel.
Finally we ended in storage and aging, where we got to see where Mad River was really stretching a bit – Tara pointed out the whiskey barrel that they were aging in, as well as the stacks of aging barley wine hiding in the corner. We asked really nicely if we could open a few bottles, but were told no.
Back in the tasting room, they poured me a few more samples in small plastic cups. We tried the barleywine, the red ale, and the porter. All were good solid beers. The barleywine was sweet and a hint spicy. I particularly liked the Jamaica Red - it had a great malty flavor with carmel finish, and got a six pack to go with dinner, which we still had to shop and cook. Overall, each of their beers was a good example of the style, and was well executed. But none of them jumped up and made me stop and really examine the beer, or screamed of a unique flavor. They simply tasted good.
Our sample glasses drained, Ari and I headed back towards the coast for dinner.
