The Best Brewery Hops in Sacramento

Sacramento’s beer scene is, to put it mildly, booming. California’s capital has seen its number of craft breweries more than double in only two years, with highly-rated breweries springing up like daisies in a superbloom. We wouldn’t be surprised if, by the time you read this article, they’ve had multiple new breweries open. Such a landslide of luscious libations can prove overwhelming for even the most experienced of brewery hoppers. On our most recent trek to Sacramento, we believe we pinpointed a few of the best hops that the greater Sacramento area has to offer. So put on your walking shoes and your Marvin Bagley Kings jersey and prepare your liver for some of Sactown’s finest craft beer.

3. Bike Dog –> Urban Roots –> Device

Bike Dog‘s Broadway Taproom is an appropriate first stop for a brewery hop that takes a little over a mile to complete– some of you travelers out there may be more comfortable biking this path. Regardless of whether you bike, walk, or Uber, Bike Dog is a worthy first stop, with its menu of pizzas, its refreshing assortment of pales and IPAs, and its aesthetically pleasing assortment of quirky bike-and-or-dog-themed art adorning the walls. They have a dog-friendly patio (also a bike-friendly patio, I’d imagine) for those traveling with furry friends. Our recommendations: Emily loved the Soft Pedal, their New England IPA, but Russell was partial to the Western Front, a hybrid of the West Coast and NE IPA styles, which delivered a nice balance of hops and haze.

Make sure you didn’t eat and drink *too* much, because you’ll want to make room for Urban Roots, your next stop a little over half a mile away. Their brewery is massive, with tons of seating both indoors and outdoors. They even have a kid-friendly area with little games on the wall for toddlers. Before we get to the beer, it’s important to note that the food here is some of the best we’ve had at a California brewery– not just Sacramento, but statewide. There’s an ocean of tasty barbecue for you to swim in here. Those who wish to eat at the start of their brewery hop may want to eschew what makes sense geographically in favor of starting here, but be warned, one could eat so much at Urban Roots that a nap may feel mandatory. While stuffing your face, wash the food down with their wide assortment of very good beers on tap. Our recommendations: Like Riding a Bike (more bike references on this hop!) is a great, dank IPA, ideal for those adorning their barbecue with spicier sauces– and for pils lovers, the Ez Pz is one of the finest, most crisp pilsners we’ve ever had on a brewery hop.

Your last stop, half a mile away, is Device Brewing‘s midtown location, found in the Ice Blocks community. It’s a lovely taproom with a ton of outdoor seating, flanked by some terrific murals. Plenty of games are on hand to help you either drink your day away or give yourself a brief reprieve from the shopping in the area. Their brewery is covered with signs that tout a simple mantra: “DRINK LOCAL BEER.” We couldn’t agree more. When in Sacramento, drink as the Sacramentans drink. Luckily, this particular local establishment has a number of terrific IPAs to choose from. Our recommendations: for those who like their New England IPAs on the juicy side, go for the Curious Haze, and for those who prefer them a little drier/with more bite, go for the What the Haze. Their DIPA, Anguish, feels ironically named, as it’d set any beer drinker at ease.

2. Alaro –> Big Stump –> Fieldwork

A note for ambitious brewery hoppers: one could technically combine the previous hop and this hop. Yes, you could walk a little over two miles and hit six terrific local craft breweries. For those who are less mobile or whose livers are less steel-plated, treat this as a separate expedition and start at Alaro Craft Brewery. They’re more of a restaurant than a taproom, which certainly can help those looking to dine without relying on the accuracy of food truck schedules. Alaro has a diverse and interesting menu as well, giving folks the bar snacks and brewpub fare most may crave while also giving the option for healthier options. Sometimes one feels the need to balance out a day of beer drinking with a nice salad! Our recommendations: the Armada Brown was our favorite beer, a brown ale that has the heft of something imperial but the alcohol content of something sessionable. For those looking to crush a pils, the La Boheme is also one of the better pilsners we’ve had in recent months.

An easy quarter-mile walk away is Big Stump Brew Co. In a town where the higher-profile breweries tend to dedicate their barrels primarily to IPAs and stouts, Big Stump is attempting to carve out their own corner of the market as the Queen of Tarts, with over a third of their fifteen-deep tap list dedicated to saisons, berliners, and good ol’ barrel-aged sours. Everything we tried was good, but with so many top-of-the-line options of other styles found elsewhere, get yourself a flight of sours, pull up a chair, and play the old-school Super Nintendo they have set up along the back wall. Our recommendations: for those who love their sours floral, the Capulet’s Orchard found a fan in Emily– for those who don’t, head straight for the Sutter’s Kriek. It’s not as pucker-inducing as other krieks you may find, but it’s smooth and has terrific fruit flavor.

A block and a half away is your final stop, Fieldwork Brewing. Fieldwork was founded in Berkeley, but its award-winning IPAs have built a considerable buzz, resulting in Fieldwork’s expansion into six locations, including this Sacramento taproom. It’s a smaller taproom than many of the others on this list, but as we occasionally get exhausted by the packed breweries overflowing with loud parties and boisterous drinkers, Fieldwork’s relative intimacy is a net positive. There are games on hand to play, and as for the IPAs… well, they live up to the hype. Our recommendations: the King Citra, which holds the esteemed title of being our 1000th beer of 2018, is a fantastic double. Additionally, in a state with so many marvelous IPAs, the Saint Thomas, a medium-bodied NEIPA that balances Mosaic hops with grapefruity goodness, can stand alongside the best of them. Finally, those who frequent this blog know our affinity for coffee stouts– and the Morning Time easily earns a medal in the Sacramento Coffee Stout Olympics.

1. Knee Deep Brewing Company –> Moonraker –> Moksa

Once again, we’ve led you astray, as this isn’t really… a hop. It’s in no way walkable, it’s not even something you could bike. We debated including it at all. However, it includes our two favorite breweries in the greater Sacramento area, so despite the fact that we’re fudging the definition of a hop, it’s 100% worth whatever effort is required to make this “hop” a reality, i.e. finding a designated driver or preparing your Uber budget. Because while this is an exceptional day of beer drinking, it’s on the outskirts of what could be called the greater Sacramento area. You’ll be starting in Auburn, which is about 40 miles northeast of Sacramento, and you’ll be working your way back toward the city. “A 40-minute drive? Just for beer?” If this thought crosses your mind, you’re not ready for how terrific the beer you’re about to consume is.

Our advice is to start at Knee Deep Brewing Company. You’ve likely seen bottles of Knee Deep at your local grocery store if you live in California, as they have terrific distribution. Because they’re so easy to find outside of Auburn, we would consider this first stop *somewhat* optional. Fans of hoppy IPAs will find themselves in hog heaven here (hop heaven?), but time is money, and money is… also money, so if you want to conserve for the things harder to obtain elsewhere, we won’t blame you. Knee Deep is, however, a lot of fun. It’s located inside a giant industrial warehouse with scores of tables for seating. Games and cornhole are on hand, as you’d imagine, and food trucks come through daily. You’re not here to toss bean bags though– you’re here to toss buckets of hops down your throat. And Knee Deep’s IPA options are happy (hoppy?) to provide. Our recommendations: hey, go big or go home, right? If you’re limited to only trying a couple, go straight to their double IPAs, Hoptologist and Lupulin River, and their triple IPAs, Hop-Trio and Simtra Triple. These are hop grenades with the pins pulled. If you don’t love the hoppy fare, perhaps go for the Tanilla, a vanilla porter– but if you’re anti-hop, something tells me you’re unlikely to be at Knee Deep in the first place.

For those fortunate enough to be staying the night in Auburn, here is the only walkable part of this hop! .2 miles away from Knee Deep is Moonraker Brewing Co. This is one of those special scenarios in which two terrific breweries are so delightfully close to one another– it’s as close in quality to Torrance’s Smog City/Monkish Brewing hop as one is likely to find in Northern California. Moonraker is, simply put, one of the best breweries in California.

On a quieter day, they have a roomy interior with board games, but if you go after work on a weekday, it likely won’t be too quiet. Moonraker is incredibly popular, not only because of its award-winning beer (though that helps), but also because of its tremendous multi-room facility with a giant outdoor covered patio. Don’t let the crowds put you off: very few breweries we’ve been to have lines that move as quickly as efficiently as the lines at Moonraker do. Daily food trucks, occasional live music, and enough space to host multiple parties and still have room for the lone drinker looking for a pint after a hard day. Did I mention the award-winning beer? You can find some of the best New England-style IPAs in the country at Moonraker. Our recommendations: if it’s hazy, you should try it. This is one of those breweries that merits going down the line and tasting as much as you can. But for the love of God, if you are forced to leave before trying everything, do not pass on the Yojo. It’s the leader of the pack, a soft, frothy, almost creamy NEIPA that allows citrus and pineapple to dance on your tastebuds before delivering a delectably crisp finish. Once you’ve had your fill of hazy goodness, make sure to sample the Weird Boy Porter. You’d expect something advertised with maple, bacon, and coffee flavor to be sugary sweet and/or incredibly high ABV, but the Weird Boy is astonishingly smooth and balanced.

Assuming you’re not staying in Auburn, and assuming you’ve saved enough room for one more delicious stop, have your driver take you back down the 80 toward Sacramento for 20ish minutes before you stop in Rocklin. There’s no finer establishment in Rocklin than Moksa Brewing Company. Normally, I would suggest ending *any* hop with a brewery as fantastic as Moonraker… but Moksa is one of the exceedingly rare breweries in the state that actually compares with Moonraker in terms of quality. This is all the more impressive considering they only opened their doors in early 2018– I fully expect them to end up in the same widespread, nationwide esteem as Monkish and Moonraker before long. The interior of the brewery is bright, clean, and upbeat. Dog friendly, family friendly, and overall friendly, it’s an impressively fun experience. Most noteworthy, its beers are exceptional. The IPAs maybe aren’t *quite* up to the Moonraker standard yet, but that’s like comparing a grade-A filet mignon to wagyu beef: are you really going to complain about eating filet? Where they’re really making their name, however, is with their mind-bogglingly good imperial stouts. Our recommendations: certainly try one of their IPAs– the Winter Somewhere was our favorite, a tropical Nelson-hopped New England IPA– but make way for some of the richest stouts in California. The Lush is a vanilla pecan stout, dangerously smooth for a 12% ABV. Grasp of Darkness is a bourbon-aged coffee vanilla collaboration with Modern Times, and it meets the lofty expectations that description provides. Finally, their Cold Steeped series of coffee stouts provides, in the minds of these coffee stout lovers, some of the best coffee stouts in the country. The Cold Steeped with Vietnamese Coffee is near the pinnacle of coffee stout perfection.

BEST PLACE FOR IPAS:
Moonraker (Runners-up: Moksa, Fieldworks)

BEST PLACE FOR SOURS:
Big Stump (Runner-up: Urban Roots)

BEST PLACE FOR STOUTS:
Moksa (Runners-up: Fieldworks, Moonraker)

BEST PLACE TO PLAY GAMES:
Knee Deep Brewing Company (Runners-up: Moonraker, Big Stump)

BEST PLACE FOR A LARGE GROUP:
Moonraker (Runners-up: Urban Roots, Knee Deep)

BEST PLACE FOR A SMALL, QUIET DRINK:
Fieldwork (Runners-up: Device, Bike Dog)

BEST PLACE TO EAT:
Urban Roots (Runners-up: Alaro, Bike Dog)

Which is your favorite of these brewery hops? We’ve yet to hit a couple of the bigger name craft breweries in Sacramento, such as New Glory and Track 7– are there any breweries/brewery hops you love that we neglected to mention? Please shout them out in the comments below! Also, please check out our other beer travel guides for California, including guides to Los Angeles, Anaheim, and nearby Lake Tahoe!