Hops and Sessions, 2339 First Street, Livermore, California
Dust Bowl Brewing Company, 3034 West Jack London Boulevard, Livermore, California
Before I start my review, my Bay Area friend Mistah Rick is currently on a multi-week campervan adventure with Vicky through Alaska. And since I'll probably never make it to any Alaska breweries at this point in my life, you can check out Rick's beer-tasting highlights in the Last Frontier here.
Back in June, for the final week of this year’s trip to America, Rick and I drove one day from Fresno to Oakland, where Rick lives. On the way we stopped for a couple of afternoon pints in Livermore, the easternmost city in the San Francisco Bay area.
Considered the Gateway to the Central Valley, Livermore is probably most famous for being the home of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which was established in 1952, followed by the Sandie National Laboratories. The area where Livermore now exists was originally home to the Ohlone Costonoan people. By the early 1800s, after the Spanish mission of San Jose was established nearby, the Livermore-Amadore Valley was used as grazing land for herds of cattle, sheep, and horses. Four decades later Robert Livermore, a Brit who jumped from a merchant sailing ship that was stopped in Monterey, moved to the area and eventually started making money by selling longhorn cattle to Gold Rush miners. In 1869 the city of Livermore was founded, and by the end of the century the wheat and barley fields had been replaced by vineyards. These days the city is known as a major research and technology hub.
But of course Livermore offers more than technology and wine. As we were hungry for a late lunch, we first stopped at Hop & Sessions, which is the city’s only self-pour taproom. When we entered we found 25 self-serve taps, and I was instantly reminded of my visit to Beerstro in Lille, France earlier in the year, where I was given a card coded to my table so that I could dispense as much beer as I wanted. The system at Hop & Sessions asks customers to insert their debit cards into slots under the taps. We first poured ourselves tasters of three beers. The Maui Waui IPA (6.5% ABV, Altamont Beer Works, Livermore, California), hopped with Mosaic and Citra, was pleasant enough. Our second was Conspiracy IPA (6.7% ABV, Henhouse Brewing Company, Santa Rosa, California). A collaboration with Hollow Moon, this was hopped with Mosaic and Sorachi, and it was intense-- in fact, a bit too intense for the early afternoon. So we both settled for the Daisy Cutter Union West Coast IPA (7.0% ABV, Half Acre Beer Company, Chicago, Illinois). A collaboration with Firestone Walker of Paso Robles, this was yummy and absolutely perfectamento. Because we were pouring our own glasses, we dispensed what looked like half pints to us, and we weren’t too far off in our calculations.
For our late lunch we shared a Beet Salad with mixed greens, beets, goat cheese, walnuts, dried cranberries, balsamic vinaigrette, and a bowl of Garlic Truffle Fries. We sat at a table on the front pavement, which was a great choice because the weather was absolutely perfect. And what a wonderful introduction this was to my first day of the Bay Area leg of my journey, with my good friend. I mean, good food, good beer, a nice fresh breeze, and adventure was lying ahead of us.
We moved on down the road to another Livermore brewery, Dust Bowl Brewing Company. Located in a plain modern building in a rather minimal shopping centre, this is the fourth taproom of the brewing company, the original having opened in Turlock in 2016. The Livermore Dust Bowl is the largest, with 30 back-to-back beer taps and a large beer garden with food truck and fire pits. Although there was plenty of comfy seating inside, we chose to sit at the bar where we could chat with the staff, as is our custom.
For our late afternoon session, Rick and I decided to share four 4-ounce tasters. Our first choice was Dust Bowl IPA (6.1% ABV, Dust Bowl Brewing Company, Turlock, California). Hopped with a mixture of Mosaic, Nelson Sauvin, Simcoe, and Strata, this is a gentle beer, easy to drink, with a mere 56 IBUs. Our second choice was Fruit Trap Strawberry Lime Kettle Sour (4.7% ABV), brewed with lime zest, strawberry puree, and salt. So it was basically a strawberry margarita in beer form. I was tempted to leap up and start dancing while singing da-da-da-da-da-da-TEQUILA!. But I restrained myself. The third taster was Day Ender Imperial IPA (8.7% ABV),which was quite heavy on the Mosaic, Nelson Sauvin, and Simcoe, and with 60 IBUs. It was quite excellent, if I don’t mind saying so. Our last taster was the powerful Dump Truck of the Gods Quadruple IPA (11.7% ABV), loaded with 130 IBUs. I mean, sure, this was ridiculously strong, but we simply had to taste it. And it was malty and hoppy and obviously bittttttter!! Wow! I mean, this was a really dangerously good brew! It offered just the right amount of super-bitter rrrRIPPPP! that was smoothed with a balance of dry malt and hoppzzziness, and probably more examples of double and triple letters as well. “It’s like a long-lost friend tapping on my shoulder,” commented Rick. “And I have that supreme senior moment when I can’t recall who it is.” I decided that the intense bitterness of this brew was definitely needed to head off the powerful taste of liquor. This was one of those “dangerous gentlemens”, as an old late blues singer friend of mine may have described it.
As we sat at the bar, we admired not only the view out onto Jack London Boulevard but also the dust bowl-era artwork on the walls. The brewery’s name was inspired by the Tate family, who during the Great Depression drove out west from Oklahoma to Turlock in their Model A Ford to start a new life. In 2006 Brett Tate, a third-generation descendent of the settlers, started the Dust Bowl Brewery with Don Oliver, and three years later they produced their first beer, appropriately named Hops of Wrath IPA. In 2016 the Turlock tap room was opened, along with a distillery producing gin, bourbon, and moonshine, and that was soon followed by taprooms in Elk Grove, Monterey, and finally Livermore.
Although we didn't go out to see the beer garden, the food truck there offers a selection of sharing plates, salads, burgers, sandwiches, flatbreads, and desserts. The Dust Bowl Brewery ranks in the top 2% of all independent craft breweries in California and the US, and their beers are distributed not only around California but as far as Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Arizona.
Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed our selection of tasting experiences, and I thought to myself what a cool place this is. I mean, I could easily become a regular, if only I lived in Livermore. But I don’t. So on future Bay Area visits we’ll have to come back, or at least check out one of their other locations.
Related Links
- A Short History of Robert Livermore (Livermore Heritage Guild)
- All about the wineries of the Livermore Valley (Livermore Valley Wine Community)
- All about the Dust Bowl settlers in California (State of California Capitol Museum)
- All about the Ford Model A (Wikipedia
- ...and while you read this review, you can sing along to the Champs' classic version of "Tequila"