Since 2010, My wife and I have taken an October camping trip to the Eastern Sierras to hike and fish. Due to complications from Covid, I had to miss this trip the past two years. So this year we were making a return and for the first time bringing some friends along.
We started our trip as we often would camping at Convict Lake and visiting Mammoth Lakes, California. One area we like to visit is the Village at Mammoth. The village is the typical ski resort village with shops and restaraunts. One place that serves great beer and spirits is Shelter Distilling. We started by having one of Shelter Distilling's IPA's called Treeline IPA. The Treeline IPA is a good IPA that is about 6.2% ABV. It has a citrus and piney taste. It is not overpowering in hop character and flavors are subtle but a decent beer.
This photo is from https://shelterdistilling.com/pages/beer
After having a beer my friend Bill and I decided to do a sampling of their Whiskeys. There Whiskeys are very good and have a good variety. We sampled Single barrel blue corn bourbon which was a good bourbon for me since I am not big into the sweetness of bourbon. We also had their Granite Rye which was a good basic rye. We had my favorite which was called Embers Peated Whiskey, I love heavily peated Scotch so this was right up my alley. Being that It is a peated American Whiskey it has a different grain taste then Scotch but has the familair peat taste. Finally, our sampler ended with Wild Rose Whiskey. Wild Rose did have a rose flavor to the Whiskey which made it very interesting and different, not sure if I was a fan or not.
This was Bill and I with our samplers of Whiskeys.
Just outside of the Village at Mammoth is Mammoth Brewing which back when we first started visiting the area this brewery was located in a garage. Now the brewery has a big following and it is easy to find their beers in local stores.
This is a picture of the brewery from https://mammothbrewingco.com/
Over the years I have sampled many of their beers and love many of their IPA's. Both the Epic and 395 IPA's are great. But this visit we decided on the Double Nut Brown.
The Double Nut Brown is a great brown ale and is about 5.5% ABV. The beer is similar to a Newcastle Brown but has more chocolate and nut flavor. If you ever get a chance to visit Mammoth Lakes the Mammoth Brewery is a place you should check out.
This is one of my dogs who decided to stand in Convict Lake for about 20 minutes while we were fishing. You can see my fishing pole at the bottom of the photo. We didn't catch any fish this day because Im sure the fish were afraid to come near us.
After spending a few days in the Convict Lake area we moved on to Bridgeport California. The lake we went to near Bridgeport was Twin Lakes.
Twin Lakes has a few easy short hikes you can do around the area. The next few photos are from those short hikes.
We spent the next #Beersaturday at Twin Lakes as well and continued enjoying the beers from Mammoth Brewing and Whiskey's we bought from Shelter Distilling. But we also enjoyed beer from Anderson Valley Brewing which is located in Booneville California. I have always liked Anderson Valley Brewing and their West Coast IPA is a nice middle of the road IPA again not overlly hoppy, so their easy to drink. The West Coast IPA is 7.6% ABV and has mild fruit flavors.
We also enjoyed Figueroa Mountain Brewery which is located in Buellton California. This is a newer brewery for me with this being the third different beer I have tried from them, so far I have liked them all. The one we brought #camping with us was Hiker's High hazy IPA. Hiker's High is 6.8% ABV and has a grapefruit and piney taste. I liked it and this one has a stronger hop flavor then other IPA's I brought on our trip.
This trip overall was great for many reasons. I was able to enjoy the things I love to do hike, fish, camp, and drink beer in the great #outdoors again, since I had to take a few years off from Covid. We were also able to share the trip with longtime friends who had just purchased a new RV.
A nice day out on the lake, we were lucky we hit great weather because at times October can be very cold in the Sierras.
Thanks for reading and hope you have a great week.