Santa Barbara Oktoberfest

We found the Brewhouse in Santa Barbara. It's a local microbrewery. They have had an Oktoberfest every year for the last several years. We really liked this year's theme - Take Me To Your Litre.

Brewhouse Brews are handcrafted right on their premises. This ensures the freshest possible beer, as the brew you drink did not have to survive a journey from St. Louis, Chico, or even Paso Robles. In fact, it has never traveled more than a few feet. They brew in small, seven barrel (201 gallon) batches. The two large copper vessels comprise what is actually known as 'the Brewhouse'. The taller of the two vessels is the mash tun. This is where the process starts. Freshly milled grain is mixed with hot water in a process called mashing. Mashing converts the starches found in grain into sugars. When conversion is complete, the resulting liquid, called wort, is transferred to the shorter copper vessel. This is the brew kettle. Steam is used to bring the wort to a boil, and hops are added. After the boil is complete, the wort is cooled rapidly and transferred to one of the five stainless steel fermenters.

Ed started with their West Beach IPA which was excellent. They also had a seasonal Oktoberfest beer plus several "guest" fest beers. The Spaten Oktoberfest and Hofbrauhaus Okctoberfest also found their way to our table. The big party is this coming weekend so everything was very fresh and we thought it was important to test things out for them.

Pleep and Delete were bummed when they found out where we had gone. They were left at home because we were just running errands and decided to check the place out in case we wanted to return next year for the party. The Parkers attended a few years ago to celebrate Ida's birthday and thought it was worth looking into again. Pleep was especially bummed out when he learned that he wouldn't be going back on Saturday to see the local surfer girls all dressed up in their Oktoberfest outfits carrying big trays of beer.