Page 136 - 2018 Travel Guide to California

HUMBOLDT COUNTY
Sip a craft beer beneath the world’s tallest trees
»EXPLORE,
IMBIBE,
INDULGE,
ENJOY!
Eureka-Humboldt
Visitors Bureau
visitredwoods.com
HUMBOLDT COUNTY IS FAMOUS the
world over for its cloud-scraping forests,
but there’s plenty else to do while you give
your neck a rest from all that craning.
You might, for example, investigate the
region’s fascination with a certain green
bud. No, not that one. Humboldt might be
as renowned for cannabis cultivation as
Napa is for Cabernet, but that crop is mostly
for export. The bud that obsesses Hum-
boldters these days is the hop.
AVENUE OF THE GIANTS, top; Lady
Washington and the Carson Mansion
in Eureka, below.
Brewpubs & Cider Presses
With five destination-worthy brewpubs
and microbreweries within 10 miles of
Eureka, Humboldt has become a mecca for
lovers of craft beer. Some venues sit atop
bluffs with riverine views, others operate
134 2018 T R AV E L G U I D E TO C A L I F O R N I A
B Y J O H N F L I N N
out of hipster industrial parks.
From Lost Coast Co.’s Great White Beer
to the Redwood Curtain Brewing Co.’s hop-
crazy Space Oddity Double India Pale Ale,
there’s a pint for every palate. At Lost Coast,
you can even order a beer float. If cider’s
more your taste, the Humboldt Cider Co.
offers refreshing organic brews made
exclusively from Humboldt County apples.
Chocolate & Oysters
In a little plant in downtown Eureka, two
former woodworkers, Adam Dick and
Dustin Taylor, produce some of the nation’s
most well-regarded chocolate at Dick Taylor
Craft Chocolate. Roasting, refining and
conching raw cacao into a silky finished
product, it’s “good every time,” according to
Sandra Boynton, author of Chocolate: The
Consuming Passion.
Humboldt Bay’s clean water, muscular
tides and temperate climate make it a para-
dise for oysters. Roughly 70 percent of all
California oysters come from its chilly
water, and you can taste them fresh out of
the bay while hopping among a handful of
oyster bars in Eureka’s waterfront Old
Town. And if that’s still not fresh enough
for you, you can go out onto the water and
harvest your own on a tour organized by the
Humboldt Bay Tourism Center in Eureka.
Oh, and if it’s that other little green bud
that interests you, note that in California it
is now legal for recreational use.
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