My wife and I have a 5 day trip to San Fran/Napa in late May early June - flying in to SFO and staying in Napa. Unlike my wife, I don't want to drink wine all day for 5 days, I'd like to mix in some beer. To split it up I thought it would be fun to visit Russian River. Are there any other breweries we should check out? What about hard to find brews that you can only find on the west coast? What about releases that time of year?
If you're hitting Russian River, swing by Lagunitas in Petaluma. Not that far from SR and they always have some sort of firkin going on, a few one off's and a pretty cool brewery tour. Bear Republic is another good option.
Agree with all of that but skip the Lagunitas tour. Short...you don't learn much(if anything) and some of the guides are kinda rude.
Healdsburg is definitely a good option if you end up in that area since there are a whole variety of winery tasting rooms right in the main plaza. Then hit Bear Republic (at one corner of the same plaza) for lunch or dinner. Depending on where in Napa you're staying, you could actually make a pretty good single day trip in Sonoma by starting in Healdsburg for lunch and wine tasting, head over to the Dry Creek area for some of the wineries there in the afternoon, then go down to Santa Rosa for dinner at Russian River. Or reverse to Santa Rosa -> Dry Creek -> Healdsburg.
I had the complete opposite experience. Tour explained the beginnings of the brewery, how beers like Sucks started, the Beer Circus, etc. and the guide was pretty funny. Probably the best brewery tour I've been on. The only downside was that they don't give you beer samples on the weekend.
Seconded...and a variety of Moonlight beers can be found at Flavor right by RR. I think the za at RR is pretty decent, but I like to swing by Ike's for food when up in SR. I'd hit Bear Republic or Lagunitas (or both!) in the same day, but RR is in the middle so you'd probably want to start at one of the others. In Napa, there's Napa Smith and Napa Point...too lazy to look it up right now, but I was told they're both really close to each other. I haven't had anything from either yet, but plan to check them out soonish.
