After a wonderful afternoon working our way down the coast, through Redwoods, the Glass Beach, and Mendocino, we ended our day in Petaluma. We initially planned to drive to Napa that night, but realized that we’d be passing through Petaluma on the way, which is home to one of our favorite breweries, Lagunitas.
Although I lived in San Francisco for close to a decade, I’d never made the trip up to Lagunitas, mostly because we never wanted to have to drive back after what I could only assume would be heavy IPA drinking. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for us, so we shifted plans and made Petaluma our final stop.
We checked into the Sheraton Sonoma County – Petaluma hotel. The hotel is less than 10 minutes from the brewery, and we were upgraded to a fantastic room with a kitchenette and a large balcony overlooking the marina below.
We freshened up and then grabbed an Uber straight to the brewery. We were lucky we arrived when we did. The outdoor garden was open, but there were only a few tables left. After we sat down, we noticed a LONG line forming that didn’t let up until close to when we decided to leave.
We opted to do flights, that way we could choose a variety of different beers to taste. We each picked our own bunch of four, and did two rounds so that we could try every single item they had to offer. They brought out a paper with each flight that had the names below so you could keep track of what you were drinking, and we took our time since most of their beers are VERY high ABV.
The food menu was also insane. They had SO MANY amazing options to choose from, and we wanted to try everything. Unfortunately, we’d had a super late lunch in Mendocino, so we could only order a few items.
We started with the fried corn dogs, which came with their own homemade (with beer of course) ketchup and mustard.
For our main we split their MASSIVE fried chicken sandwich. It was so messy, and so delicious, and it made me wish I could eat a second.
By the time we left it was getting pretty late, and we knew we needed to get up early and head to Napa for our morning tasting. We headed to bed full, inebriated, and ready to start the next adventure! Be sure to check out our full month-long Pacific Coast road trip itinerary here!
