Originally Posted by ktblunden

This past weekend my wife surprised me with a trip to Santa Rosa for my birthday (long, long car ride from us) to visit Russian River and have Pliny the Younger. It was amazing. I'm a big fan of Elder, but with all that extra grain Younger is so much more balanced of a beer. I really wish I could have taken some home, but they don't allow filling growlers of it anymore. Brought home a growler of Elder and a few bottles.

Got a tip while we were in Santa Rosa that the Whole Foods there has a tap room with Abyss on tap, so we made a side trip there. I've had Abyss in bottles from '07 to '11, and '11 on tap blew each of them away. I'm jealous of my friend who lives right by Deschutes.

On the way home we stopped off at Lagunitas and I brought home a growler of their Gnarly Wine (their growlers are actually 2 liter Ball mason jars, which is cool except the lids have a tendency of popping and leaking).

So it was an awesome trip and I ended up drinking and bringing home quite a few beers I don't normally get my hands on.