Eel River Brewing, Fortuna CA

Summer Trip 2022, Day 13

I pulled in their parking lot at 4pm and it was jammed with vehicles! Fortunately, it was mostly guys who had gotten off work and were standing around one end of the bar; there was no problem getting a table.

The tap list had a dozen brews on it although the Organic California Blonde Ale (which I asked for in the flight) had been replaced with their Chillax Hazy IPA.

I was surprised to hear that they will gladly do a flight of all 12 of their beers! If I’d had a friend to share the flight with, that would have been great … but there was no way I’d be able to eat AND drink 12 5-ounce pours AND drive to the hotel. So I settled on a flight of 5:

Going clockwise from the 12-o’clock position, these are:

Organic Amber Ale – 5% – I couldn’t exactly put my finger on why, but this was rather unlike any other amber I can remember having. It was interesting, but I also can’t say I would ever order a pint of it.

Organic IPA – 7.2% – Again, this was an unexpected flavor but that was probably due to the English influence. It was good, though, but didn’t have quite enough character of its own to hit the mark; it seemed to be in search of a personality and not quite settling on one.

Emerald Triangle IPA – 6.7% – I would never have put this down as a West Coast IPA – it was more like a lager in my mind. I just didn’t pick up much in the way of bitterness or hop flavor in spite of all the varieties they added to it.

Blue Stone IPA – 6.9% – This was a better beer in my opinion than the Emerald, perhaps because it stuck to just two hops along with a light touch of fruit purees (blueberry and plum).

Chillax IPA – 6.3% – At first, I really liked this one. By the end of the flight glass, though, it wore thin and seemed to be just another NEIPA wanna-be with too little body.

The food was pretty good, an Italian Club sandwich with “The Works” fries. Ranch sauce on the side for dipping was the perfect complement to the sandwich; it’s too bad the fries weren’t more flavorful – they certainly should have been a taste explosion with all the garlic and cheeses. But as you can see, they had already coagulated by the time they were served and I suspect they would need to be eaten hot to be decent.

I closed out with a pint of their Climax 100 (low-cal, low-carb) ale at 4.5%. It’s tricky to get a really good beer at a low ABV point, and this one gets partway there but doesn’t quite hit the mark. It might have been the best of the day however so I can’t fault it too much!

On the whole, Eel River was a bit of a disappointment but there weren’t a lot of options on a Monday in this part of California.