Lost Coast Brewing Company Brewery Tour (Eureka, California)

Lost Coast Brewing Company
1600 Sunset Dr
Eureka, CA 95503
(707) 267-9651
www.lostcoast.com
September 12, 2019

While visiting the Northern California Redwood State and National Parks we stayed in the town of Eureka, California, home to Lost Coast Brewing Company. While rolling into town, I saw a large roadside sign of their new brew house and taproom located at the south end of Eureka.  The sign said “brewery tours”. We had nothing on the agenda on Thursday the week of our stay so I took the opportunity to visit the brew house and take a tour and have some beer, of course.

The original brewery and cafe is located in downtown Eureka but in 2014 A completely new 15 million dollar free-standing facility was constructed on a 9.3 acres site we saw coming into town. Their new facility has allowed Lost Coast’s production to expand from 60,000 to upwards of 600,000 barrels annually! That is a lot of good beer brewing!

I arrived about fifteen minutes before the tour, so a check in it was suggested to grab a pint to enjoy before and during the tour, yep it as a drinking tour. Usually, I always get IPA’s but recently I’ve been gravitating towards, Red, Brown and Scotch Ales. So, I ordered a pint of Scotch Ale. I am glad I did. It was very delicious.

The tour lead us through the brewing process where we got to see all of the behind the scene action that goes into making this craft.

From the grinding of the grain and wheat (no grinding was happening during the tour),

to the water filtration system

to Mash Conversion in one tank, Lautering happening in another tank and the boil happening in the third. (I was fortunate that the cooking process was happening during the tour and I was able to observe all three processes.)

to the fermentation, they have massive fermentation tanks both indoors and outdoors with the largest being 100 barrels or 4200 gallons.

to the bottling. This is a fully automated process from unpalleting the bottles, to sanitizing, to filling, to labeling, to packaging.

It’s a 25 plus year evolution for Brew Master Barbara Groom from her manual six pack filler they had on display.

Afterwards you get to taste the beer (because what is a brewery tour without a tasting!). Although the tasting is not included in the free tour. You can get a tasting flight or a pint for $5.

While I was tempted to order another pint of the Scotch Ale, decided to get a tasting flight to try several other offerings. I Went with the Sharkinator White IPA IBU 40 and ABV 4.8%, Humboldt Logger Lager IBU 7 and ABV 5.1%, Indica IPA IBU 50 and ABV 6.5% and the Fogcutter DIPA IBU 70 and ABV 8.7%. I enjoyed the Fogcutter Double India Pale Ale but the Scotch Ale was my favorite. Unfortunately is wasn’t available in either bottle or can, thankfully I brought an empty growler and filled it up.

You can also check out the Lost Coast Brewery gear shop where you’ll find tons of that cool Lost Coast swag.

Lost Coast Brewery tours are completely free to the public and are family friendly. Tastings are for 21+ with ID, but for the little ones Lost Coast house brewed alcohol free root beer, ice cream or root beer floats are served. If you haven’t toured a fully automated brewery and your in the area, check out Lost Coast Brewery.

*********************************************************************************************

This post contains affiliate links, so I make a small commission if you purchase through my links – that support helps to keep this blog running.

Copyright Foodie Made Simple, LLC. All text, recipes and photographs are copyrighted and may not be published elsewhere without express permission. Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Tumbler, Google+ and Facebook users, you are welcome to “pin” photos! re-tweet and “share” links all you like, just don’t copy the recipes themselves. Fellow bloggers are welcome to repost my recipes, just write the recipe in your own words, use your own photograph, then link back to the original recipe on rvcookingmadesimple.com