When I was in Bakersfield visiting my sibling group last May, my adopted brother Kim and I managed to get out together to visit a couple of the city's breweries. One visit happened accidentally, when we were driving around in search of a Bakersfield souvenir t-shirt that I could take back to Sheffield. Kim thought that the lobby and bar of Buck Owen's Crystal Palace was bound to offer some sort of souvenir items commemorating the Bakersfield sound, if not Bakersfield in general.

So it was just after noon that we drove across town to do a couple of errands. And then we turned north onto Buck Owens Boulevard. Unfortunately nothing in the Crystal Palace, including the ticket office, was open until later in the day. Oh well, we thought -- we needed to come up with some other idea. Meanwhile, as I was getting quite hungry, I suggested we first stop somewhere for lunch.

Kim drove further up the boulevard, and that’s when I spotted, across the boulevard from Zingo’s Diner, a large sign on the side of a building which said Temblor Brewing Company. This would kill three birds with one stone, I said excitedly: lunch, a pint, and hopefully a souvenir t-shirt. And Kim heartily agreed with that idea.

So we pulled into the expansive car park. When we entered the tasting room, we found ourselves in a large square room with a massive ceiling fan on one end that looked as if it could power a Chinook helicopter. We sat ourselves at a table and contentedly perused the beer and food menu. Kim decided on a pint of Cool Beans Coffee Stout (5.5% ABV). When I saw the pleasure on Kim’s face as he sipped his pint, I asked for a little taste, and my nose was instantly hit with a Wham! Bam! Coffee! aroma, with quite a bit of malt to follow. I went for a pint of Streets of Bakersfield IPA (7.0% ABV), which was nice and clear for a change (meaning it was probably not vegan). Brewed with Motueka, Mandarina Bavaria, and Citra hops, it offered a full, zizzy hoppiness, which made me very hoppy -- sorry, happy.

For lunch we both went for Classic Burgers, mine with a vegan patty but real cheese, the way I prefer it as I'm definitely not a vegan. Both our burgers came with fries and Ranch dressing. The food was really good, our burgers very sloppy with dressing and with proper dill pickle slices, and the fries had a spicy crust. What a wonderful find.

Founded in 2015, the 20,000-square-foot Temblor Brewing Company was inspired by one of Bakersfield’s very first breweries, the Bakersfield Brewing Company, which opened in 1912. There’s a lot of interesting history about the original brewery displayed around the room, so if you stop in, be sure to check it out. Along with serving beers and food, the taproom also features live music and comedy nights, special Sliders and Burgers nights, line dancing nights, and even yoga lessons.

Before we left, I bought not only a four-pack of Streets of Bakersfield IPA to take back to the house, but also a Streets of Bakersfield t-shirt to give to Andrew back in the UK. As we walked to our car, we passed another vehicle whose license plate holder read “Fuck All You Cowboy Haters”. This makes perfect sense in this city. If you really do have something against cowboys, I suggest you don’t visit Bakersfield.

A week earlier, Kim and I took off to catch the last half hour of the Kern County Museum before it closed. This is a really fascinating museum about the old-west history of Kern County, and in thirty minutes we managed to see some of the frontier-style buildings from the late 19th and early 20th century, the large room full of vintage vehicles, and working models of “nodding donkeys” and oil wells from the oil fields to the north of the city. Naturally, by the time we realised the place was closing and we needed to leave, we’d worked up quite a thirst. So we took a 1.7- mile drive south of the museum to the 2nd Phase Brewing Company.

Serving Bakersfield beer fans since 2019, this dog-friendly brewery specialises in experimental craft brews. As we stood at the bar, I had a taste of Black Out LIVE! Hazy Pale Ale (6.5% ABV), but I ended up going for a pint of one of their experimental brews. Hoagies 2nd Phase Haze (7.0% AVB) is a West Coast Hazy IPA described as suggesting fruity hops and West Coast pine bitterness, which sounded all right with me. Kim went for a 12-ounce glass of Deep Space Stout (8.0% AVB), which tastes like roasted chocolate, maple syrup, and brown sugar. But surprisingly, even to sweet-adverse Me, it was actually really delicious. “It’s sweet but not overly sweet,” commented Kim, “and it still has a bite.” “Now, that is a chocolate stout!” I replied. Considering both Kim and I liked it a lot, and he generally prefers dark beers whereas I usually go for the pale hoppy ones, you can’t go wrong with this. My pint of Hoagies was so hazy it looked like apricot nectar to me and homemade applejack to Kim. So I have to admit these are pretty interesting beers.

On this particular afternoon it was a bit too noisy in the taproom for Kim’s new app-controlled hearing aid system, so we took our pints out into the enclosed patio. The patio is small enough to be comfy at the same time as being big enough to be roomy, and there are heaters for cold weather, which we were definitely not experiencing on this May day. The two of us were eventually joined by Ashley, the young barmaid who was on her break, as I suppose she was curious to talk to us. Or perhaps she was just one of those young people with good taste who recognises interesting people when she sees them, no matter how old they may be. This is one of the many ways that good beer brings people of all types together.

2nd Phase hosts live music nights, trivia quizzes, line dancing, and beer yoga sessions, whatever that is. Besides craft beers they also offer cocktails and homemade seltzers, so there’s definitely something for everyone. I didn’t think to ask if they offer any special beers catering to the canine visitors, but I suppose most dogs would be happy with some water. After all, you wouldn’t really want your Chocolate Lab and your English Mastiff to drink so much that they started to make fools of themselves.

There are more breweries in Bakersfield I just didn’t have the time to explore, but they’ll just have to wait for future visits.

A couple of weeks later, on the day I finally flew back to the UK after my Central Coast and Bay Area brewery exploration with my friend Rick, we made one last tasting stop before he dropped me off at San Francisco Airport. We took a scenic drive across the Oakland Bay Bridge to have lunch in the San Francisco neighbourhood of Dogpatch. Located between the Bay and Potrero Hill, this dockside area had been a shipping centre since the 1800s. In recent years the now-empty industrial warehouses have become populated with galleries, residential lofts, shops, and the Museum of Craft and Design, and the neighbourhood also offers plenty of restaurants and trendy watering holes.

We parked the car and stopped into a venue called Daily Driver, where we sat upstairs at one of the balconies overlooking the activities below and lunched on freshly-baked bagel sandwiches. When we left to go back to the bar, we spotted the Dogpatch Saloon just up and across the street, so we decided to walk over and give it a try. And when we walked in, we instantly felt as if we were in a good old-fashioned California tavern. We took a seat at the bar in order to chat with the barmaid, Tabitha, who impressed us as being a strong woman who definitely knew her beers. We had a choice of nine taps, one featuring Old Speckled Hen on nitro, and three from California’s Barebottle Brewing. I decided on a pint of Fresh Squeezed IPA (6.4% ABV, Deschutes Brewing Company, Bend, Oregon). This was an amber-coloured brew that made a good zippy hops announcement inside my mouth. Rick went for a pint of Royal Hazy IPA (6.4% ABV, Barebottle Brewing, Santa Clara, California). This was quite a gorgeous pint, and the Nelson hops imparted a real Galaxy-style mmph! to the experience.

Dating from 1912, the Dogpatch Saloon features a working gas fire, and the bar was recently upgraded. There’s nice old wood everywhere as well as a real live Western-style swinging saloon door in the back. Was a mysterious stranger about to come swaggering through that door any minute, cigarette dangling from mouth and cowboy hat tipped forward? Would a hush suddenly fall over the bar? I suppose that wouldn't have been too difficult on our early-afternoon visit, as we were so far the only customers.

To go with the Old West feel, an upright grand piano stands in an alcove just waiting to have its ivories tinkled, and against the windows are a couple of long booths furnished with old church pews. And of course there’s the obligatory L-shaped bar, and the three long shelves behind the bar are stocked with plenty of spirits. On the weekends the Dogpatch Saloon features jazz sessions, and if you don't fancy a pint they specialise in cocktails. To one side of the bar is a portrait of a dog, which isn’t surprising.

Rick and I had a good chat with Tabitha, who ended up buying my pint for me when she learned that I was about to go back to England. What a nice bon voyage gift. We'll have to stop in again the next time we're in the neighbourhood and need to water our horses.