A Travel-Packed August Ahead

It occurred to me the other day that I've got a lot of trips planned in August. I've got 5 trips planned in just 4 weeks!

• Aug. 4 I'm making a "rubber band" trip (out and back same day) to Phoenix


• The week of the 11th I'm headed to Chicago on on a business trip for 4 days of sales training


• On the 18th I've got another rubber band trip to Phoenix


• The week of the 25th Hawk  and I are traveling to Toronto to see family and visit waterfalls.


• Somewhere in the middle of all that we've got a weekend road trip to the Eastern Sierra planned.

As I noted in a blog last night, travel is what inspires a lot of my blogging— when I have energy left to write. 😔 We'll see how much I write this month. It could be a little... or a lot.

Beer Tasting at Lost Coast

North Coast Roadtrip travelog #5
Eureka · Sat, 26 Jul 2025, 3:15pm

After driving quite a bit this morning— including a relaxing roll along Avenue of the Giants— and rock-hounding at Agate Beach we'd worked up quite an appetite for lunch. No, we didn't eat at a brewery as the title of this journal entry made lead you to believe. We ate lunch at a regular restaurant. Then we went to the brewery, just for beer tasting. 😅

Lost Coast Brewing is a small brewery located in Eureka, California. We passed through Eureka this morning driving north, driving right past the brewery just south of downtown, then ate lunch just up the street from it. We mulled eating at the brewery, as it has a small food menu in addition to its beer, but decided the eats might be better at a regular restaurant. So we enjoyed Philadelphia-style cheese steaks first then drove over to the brewery.

I'm familiar with a few of Lost Coast's beers. Grocery stores here in California generally carry their Great White and Downtown Brown varieties. Great White is the one with a Picasso-esque shark on the label. That shark art also exists as a huge wood carving in front of the brewery (photo right/above).

I'm not much of a fan of the Great White, and I've had Downtown Brown various times before, so in picking a handful of beers for my taster sampling I chose a bunch of beers I've never seen before. There was a pilsner, a plain wheat, an amber ale, a dry stout and the Peanut Butter Chocolate Milk Stout. I also grabbed a quick taste of the Great White to remind myself of what I'm not missing.

I liked three of the beers enough to want to buy six-packs to take home: the pilsner, the wheat, and the candy-bar-in-a-glass stout.

Beers I didn't even bother tasting include any of their IPAs and overly fruity wheats. I know I don't care for those. I grabbed a quick taste of their best-selling Great White to remind myself of what I'm not missing.

Unfortunately when I went to check their shop, most of the beers I liked were not sold in bottles or cans; they're only available on tap at the brewery. That left the Peanut Butter Chocolate Milk Stout as the only one I could buy to take home with me. So I bought two boxes. 😂

Update: since getting back home I've enjoyed one can of the candy-bar-in-a-glass stout. It really is like drinking a candy bar in a glass. That's why I've only had one. It's delicious but it's so sweet it's not something I find enjoyable to drink too many of. It's like milkshakes. I love milkshakes— but I've never drank two of them in one day.