As a last hurrah before our nest starts to fill, the Missus and I are taking a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway. To prepare our unborn child for having the kind of parents that will drag him/her and his/her siblings on annual educational road trips, we're stopping by all the Spanish Missions and roadside kitsch we can find along the way. We're also reinforcing why we love living in California as we traverse 340 beautiful miles (well, minus the part where we had to go through the San Fernando Valley...) of sun-sparkled ocean during the day and star-sparkled darkness at night (hey, we live in LA; the only thing that sparkles at night there are police helicopters...).
Pismo Beach is one of those gorgeous little beach communities along the Central Coast that seem to have sprung up mostly for the surfing. Its name derives from the Chumash word for tar, pismu – though we’re probably talking more bitumen than actual pine tar in this case (in case you’re curious) – and is historically known for its clams (source). At a whopping area of 13 square miles – only 3.5 of which isn’t covered by water – a little south of San Luis Obispo (which is actually a little smaller, but can at least boast a Spanish Mission, several institutions of higher learning, a thriving art scene, and 8 more square miles of solid land), you can probably drive right through it without noticing if you don't already know it's there. Thankfully, we know it's there, and thankfully it's home to Pismo Brewing Company (which is also small enough to drive right past if you don’t know to look for it), who thankfully make their own root beer (along with IPAs and ales).
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The Missus tries to hide Porta-Pooj behind her float.
Despite the boom and bust and re-boom of Central Coast microbreweries in the last decade, Pismo Beach didn’t get its first microbrewery until Pismo Brewing Company opened its doors in 2010. This family-owned affair is the result of an enterprising couple who enjoyed the small beach-town breweries they visited south of the border so much that they decided to start one in their own garage with the help of a couple more enterprising friends (source). Pismo Brewing’s brewpub is a modest, comfortable little storefront with a bar, a couple of booths, and a jukebox that alternates from Merle Haggard, to Kid Rock, to Johnny Cash during our stay.
The root beer has a respectable amount of foam coming from the tap, though as you can see, much of it has dissipated by the time I got my photo set up. Otherwise the bubbles are small and soft, but plentiful. It's easy to drink, with a mild generic herb flavor somewhere between the bite of Barq’s and the smoothness of A&W, for lack of better descriptors. Were I pressed to find a dominant flavor, I'd say it's a little sarsaparilla-y with a very faint amount of anise on the back end. And although it's on the sweet side, it's not at all thick, definitely not cloying, and still very refreshing.
Since Pismo Brewing also bottles their brew (which is significant, given that they otherwise only bottle one of their IPAs and lemonade, neither of which I tried) (you can get any other beer to go in a growler though), I’m picking some up to take home for further investigation (we must, after all, be thorough). This time around, fresh from the tap, Pismo Brewing Company Root Beer is just like its home town and precisely what it needs to be – a nice reason to take a break from the road (and quite good in the float). Until further consideration of the bottled offering, Pismo Brewing Company Root Beer gets a low 3.5.
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