Sante Adairius Rustic Ales

If you were going to Sante today, which location would you choose, and why?

Assume you've been to the capitola location a few times but it's been 2+ years since.

 

I would pick the portal for the list of cellar beers that are available for on site drinking.

The real answer is always both though, plus a stop at beer thirty in between, the then Apto’s

 

I personally like the Capitola location more. Feels more homey and less ... I dunno... "corporate" or something. But they're like 10 minutes apart, so you should definitely check out the SC Portal if you haven't been. It has a larger taplist and guest taps/bottles. But there are Sante beers that are available at one but not the other location.

 

the unfortunate part is that 10 minutes by distance turns into 30 minutes with traffic! haha

i personally love the capitola spot more. I grab a bar seat and talk to the staff

 

I usually go to both.

 

i like to grab a growler fill so i usually stop by at portal, larger selection on fills

with 2 toddlers and an impatient wife, i rarely go to both. portal has more parking, another bonus

capitola has its perks to, only place they pour vanilla joe (when they have it ), also the location of sara’s cellar

 

What is afternoon traffic like driving down to Santa Cruz from Oakland? I'm flying in on a Tuesday and should have my rental car by 1-2pm. What "to-go" beer options could I expect on a random Tuesday afternoon (will be in several weeks)? Crowlers & bottles and cans? I won't have a growler.

 

No cans or crowlers. There will be at least
4-7 different bottles to go at either location. If you want local canned IPA’s you can stop at beer thirty and they have a ton of stuff.

 

As @Bum4ever stated, they don't do cans/crowlers, and only offer bottles of their Saisons/sours. For their hoppy/dark/lager beers, they are growler fill only - and even then not all beers are available. But as a plus, they do fill outside growlers as long as you block out the original branding, usually with painters tape. (Some CA breweries will only fill their own branded growlers, despite CA laws relaxing that through the tape covering.)

 

Sours and saison bottles are what I'm interested in mostly so if there will be several options on a weekday afternoon, I may make that drive down from the Oakland airport. Plus I hear Santa Cruz overall is a pretty cool beach town and would like to check it out for a few hours of site seeing and such.

 

Well, if it was West Ashley (Apricot BA Saison), those bottles would last two days.

And if it's a highly coveted release like the Side Project collab Matrices or Monkish collab A Visit in July or even their most recent gin barrel aged Saison Recency Effect, the bottles last about 7-8 days.

The rest of their lineup tends to last for a month+.

As of yesterday, SARA @ Capitola still had the following bottles to go:

Capitola Sunset ($18) - Industrial Park Saison
Nonna's Blend #15 ($20) - Blend of BA Saisons
Deaf Stewart ($15) - Wit w/Oranges and Grains of Paradise
Fumare ($18) - Smoked historical Saison
Lady in Grey ($20) - Oak fermented Grisette
Saison Bernice ($18) - Mixed fermentation Saison
Bright Sea Blond ($20) - BA Belgian Blonde w/Lemon zest and Grains of Paradise
Lucybelle ($18) - Brett Saison

 

Best part is all of those (except Fumare imo) are really spectacular beers. That's the same Saison Bernice that was available back in April, unless they're just seamlessly added new batches for the togo bottles.

 

dammit cask 200 is gone

i kept telling myself to grab more but every visit there was too many other options eating up my funds. owell till next time

 

Cask 200 was gone at Capitola as of Monday? last week, but it's still available to go in Santa Cruz.

 

The Monkish collab lasted a whole week??? Kinda shocked by that considering the amount of hype they get. Granted it wasn’t a hazy IPA. I just assumed it was gone after the first weekend so I didn’t even make the trek down there.

 

Excellent scouting report for me. Thank you! I'll probably grab 2-3 of those or whatever they have to-go. I'll be very happy.

 

It was released on a Friday. I wasn't able to make it that weekend, but the following week's Saturday (8 days after), I was high tailing it from San Luis Obispo to get a bottle since it was still on their IG. But they literally sold out an hour before I arrived.

Pretty annoying since I saw everyone sitting around with their 2 bottle allocation, and I took a special detour from going back home to SF, just to go to SARA for it.

 

I opened one last Saturday with @sethsticles, while it was good, honestly hard to say it beat or noticeably differentiated from the other SARA saison offerings.

 

I went to the brewery the Saturday it sold out, did not want the bottles baking in my car while I went to the beach so I left and came back a couple hours later. Of course, it was now in house only. I sat and drank for an hour upset at myself. Finally I got in line to at least have one in-house and after 10 minutes in line the in-house bottles sold out. I hate that beer.

 

To be honest though... I don't think Monkish's core competency is their sours. I know they started out as a Belgium shop, but while they're fine, I always find them a little underwhelming. Hell, I think similarly for their hoppy beers too, but don't let the SoCal crowd hear that. The one thing they do excel at is mouthfeel.