Before I talk about my selfie, I want to address the elephant in my room. My DayOne journal has been nagging me to see the posts I wrote on this day in the past. I don’t want to right now. My mom died four years ago today, and these days that loss is terribly raw for whatever reason. So, that’s not what I’m writing about today.

No, I’m writing about getting this 2018 Santa Rosa Beer Passport medal today at the California Welcome Center in Santa Rosa. Fern got one, too, and afterwards we played Queen’s “We Are The Champions” at least three times on the way home. Also, if I look… off… in that picture it’s because I’m finally in the full bear-hug of a cold that’s been squeezing me since Friday.

But let’s back up a few weeks. While Lisa and I were waiting in line for Pliny the Younger at Russian River Brewing Company (RRBC), I took a walk down through the mall, down through Railroad Square to the California Welcome Center next to the stop for the new SMART train to get three Santa Rosa Beer Passports. I honestly don’t remember where I read about this, but it was a few days before we lined up for Pliny. The gist of it is this: pick up your free passport at the beginning of February. Over the course of the month, you have to get stamps at 9 out of the 12 participating breweries – though there are three “free stamps” as two of the breweries (Seismic Brewing Company and Shady Oak Barrel House don’t yet have tasting rooms, and the aforementioned RRBC was doing their Pliny event for half the month (Lisa and I got that stamp that day anyway!)). So six breweries during February. No problem, I think.

But what was Fern’s reaction? “We can crank that out in a weekend.”

Wait, what?

Sunday morning we picked up cat food at Costco in Rohnert Park (lest the meows mutiny and smother us in our sleep!) before starting our day at Bear Republic’s new(ish) Robert’s Lake location in Rohnert Park. I don’t think I’ve written about this place yet, which is silly because Fern and I have been frequent visitors since they opened in early fall. I was ready to start small, to pace myself – literally, as they have a lovely 4% Session IPA called “Pace Car Racer.” But that’s when I realized we might have timed this incorrectly. It’s San Francisco Beer Week, and most of our Santa Rosa breweries are sending their A-game down do SF. For Bear Republic, that meant a double IPA called “Hop Republic,” weighing in at 9.4% and 105 IBUs.

It’s the first stop, I should get the Pace Car Racer. But counting myself as both a hop-head and beer aficionado, I couldn’t not get the Hop Republic. And, let me tell you, it was hopalicious. But by the time we parked and made our way through the Santa Rosa Mall to the new 2 Tread Brewing Company, I was feeling every percentage. And my cold was exerting its influence as well.

2 Tread Brewing Company opened just a couple months ago. They took their time building out the space formerly occupied by a long-gone Fresh Choice. You’d never know it wasn’t a bespoke building. Bright and airy, the main room had plenty of room, and the roll-up doors facing the patio promise a wonderful summer space. As February was trying to establish itself in temperature at least, having given up on rain, the roll-up doors were firmly closed. They have three house-brewed beers on the menu and I went with their 2 Tread Brewing Experimental Hop IPA #2. If the name is a mouthful, the beer was delightfully less of one – a well-balanced IPA with appropriate hop and bitterness hitting mid-palette and falling away to pine on the finish. A really nice beer. Fern and I also split their “carnivore” pizza (sausage and peperoni) as well as their sweet potato tots with chipotle aioli. Everything was fantastic. Well, except for this sign and my choice of hat…

But, hell, if this marks me as being in my “late 30’s” I’ll take it!

The last time I was at Disneyland was during the Clinton Administration – the first term – but I remember we hit the park hard and fast, and then retreated to our hotel to recharge before returning the parade. We decided this strategy was prudent for our marathon, so we headed back to my house to recharge. By “recharge” I mean Fern chilled while I passed out in a cold-weary exhaustion for a three hour nap. With the sun down and Dayquil administered, we headed out to bag at least one more stamp and we set our sights on one of my favorite’s, Moonlight Brewing Company. We arrived only a half hour before their closing time, but we still got there. Fern went with her favorite Moonlight beer, Reality Czech. I went with their seasonal “Mounting Evidence” which uses flowers, herbs, and redwood tips instead of hops. As such, it had a more herbal quality to it but still managed to be crisp and delightful. Fern beat me in repeated rounds of Connect Four while we finished our pints and discussed out next move.

By and large Santa Rosa rolls up its streets at 8pm on a Sunday. Just about every other brewery on the list was closing, the exceptions being RRBC (which we didn’t need), and… Cooperage Brewing Company, practically around the block. Cooperage is similar to Moonlight in that they both reside in anonymous office parks. But if Moonlight is the attentive, good student with its carefully-crafted, miniscule-distribution, and blink-and-they’re-closed hours, Cooperage is, well, a shirt-off Bro who’s looking for a good time. But that really nice Bro who is friends with everyone and always says hi and asks how you’re doing when you pass. This analogy is getting weird…

Okay, Cooperage is open until midnight with plentiful seating, two TVs along with a giant projector, and a long list of beers on tap with names like “Curt Kobain Pale Ale” (Fern had that) and “Clear and Loathing DIPA” (yeah, that 8.4% one was mine – hey, with the hop-less “Mounting Evidence” at Moonlight, I had to make up my hop intake). Like Moonlight, they don’t have a kitchen, and if they had a food truck patron, they weren’t there at 8pm on Sunday. But patrons around us had take out from several different restaurants on nearby Piner Road. Next time – and there will be a next time – we’ll come with food.

But our Sunday was done. We’d bagged four stamps, and my cold had crushed my head.

Monday, Presidents Day, dawned bright and cold(ish – it’s California, after all). My cold had bloomed overnight into a sinus-crushing, nose-running mess. A hot, hot shower, followed by Dayquil made me feel mostly human as we drove down Westside Road. See, we’d planned to hit Henhouse Brewing Company, then Fogbelt Brewing Company. Unfortunately, it being Monday, Henhouse didn’t open until the afternoon. I really didn’t have until then. So we audibled to a location we had previously decided to skip: Sonoma Cider.

Sonoma Cider is on the outskirts of Healdsburg and is tucked in behind the Parish Café and the Elephant in the Room bar – you kind of have to know its there. They have a full menu, and it’s delicious. But you have to make it past the Parish Café’s beignets. Good luck on that. We did – we were on a mission – and decided to try a flight. You see, if you know Sonoma Cider from their popular farm-implement bottles (“The Hatchet” apple cider, or “The Pitchfork” pear cider), they have so much more on tap here. Even if the food wasn’t amazing (it is. It really is) the sheer number of options of cider on tap is worth the visit. I didn’t write down the farm-implements, but the “West Cider” (punily named after the small orchard on Westside road where all these apples came from) and Winter Banana (which is a type of apple!) were two of our favorites. We did find room to split a pint of the “Pitchfork” pear cider just to validate that their core ciders were solid (spoiler: oh yeah).

The Dayquil was starting to wear off as we rolled into Fogbelt Brewing Company. I’ve written about them before, and they’re still a great place. Their SF Beer Week entry was a massive triple IPA, “The Godwood.” You know, if the Dayquil was failing, maybe replacing it with a shit-ton of hops would do the trick? It almost worked. Almost. I nursed that 10.3% monster while we played Uno. Forgive me for neglecting my tasting notes at this point, I was done. We got our stamps and we headed down the street to the California Welcome Center to claim our medals.

So, we did it! And then we came home and I slept for another 3-hour nap. And I’m ready to go to sleep again, because this cold sucks. But for Presidents day this weekend, despite my cold, Fern and I medaled!