Wednesday Working on It Blogging

Since the LA Times even made the big trek up the 101 to sample Santa Barbara's new brews, it's only fair I report on our latest visit to Hollister Brewing. When I last reported on Hollister it was the first week they opened, and since then I've enjoyed their beer at the Real Ale Festival in Carlsbad, taken a growler of their Hip Hop Double IPA to a fine dinner of homemade Chinese food (thanks Randy!), and on Monday night Amy and I had dinner at the brewpub. My original write-up called them promising but had quibbles. Oddly enough, almost all those quibbles have dribbled away, as if they were reading and responding directly to my blog. That uncertain help was now polite, quick, and funny--she even apologized for not coming to our table quickly enough when we had barely sat for 3 minutes. The fries were a completely different style; no longer potato wedges but actually thick fries, some still with skin, but all with outside crunch and inside munch. A huge improvement, for a brewpub with mediocre fries is like a sentence of mine without a pun. (Wait, that one just didn't....)

Amy had a steak sandwich that was on the Philly cheese steak model for taste (good grilled peppers and onions) but with chunkier beef. I had one of the pizzas, a fennel sausage that said it had oregano on it on the menu probably because it really had oregano--it's good to taste ingredients when they're supposed to be there. It's sort of an old-fashioned style pizza, very thin, crackly crisp crust with enough topping but nothing whopping. Tasty and perfect beer food.

The good news is the beers just seem to get better, and not just after having a few. Amy had whatever they're calling their IPA now and it nailed the style, while I tried the fancifully named The J, an amber that features toasted hemp seeds. I'm not sure why I needed a second pizza, but I did. Seriously, the beer's rich roast was immensely satisfying and well balanced by hops. And then for my second I went to the ever-impressive guest list, passing up on beers from Port and Bear Republic to go with a Green Flash IPA that tasted so fresh they must have brewed it on the truck on the way up from San Diego.

If the place keeps improving like this, Amy and I might have to think about moving to Goleta.

Naw, it can't get that good.