Jan and I will be in the Bay Area on March 26th and 27th.  Is there any interest in getting together to taste some Heater Allen beer and then move on to wine?

I'm game. Unfortunately, I don't drink beer Are you staying in the city? Or suburbs?

We're staying in Berkeley. I'll probably only bring three beers, so we'll have to move on to wine pretty quickly!

If I am not working I would definitely be game. I have been dying to try your brews.

Jason, that would be great.

DukeRiley, we live a block from the Berkeley border off of College Ave. How about an East Bay offline?

Tanglenet, That sounds great to me. Heck, I'll even bring down a couple bottles of the local swill (wine).

Cool. Where abouts are you staying?

Might be available. Keep me posted.

We have an extra bedroom if either of you (Dave / Jason) need a place to stay.

Tanglenet,
We're staying with my sister who lives in Berkeley - near Chez Panisse.

You will be in North Berkeley, about 10-15 minutes away. Any preference for food, venue or wine?

I'm not picky about venue - I just need a place where BYOB means beer too! I'm planning on bringing down 4 beers in both bottles and small (3 gallon) kegs. Because my beers focus more on malt then hops, they go with just about any kind of food. I do have one beer that is a real epiphany with a dark chocolate dessert... As far as venues are concerned, if I can leave that in your capable hands, that would be great. I really enjoyed Bay Wolf, Downtown, and Oliveto when we lived in Oakland, but I suspect that the dining landscape has changed over the last few years.

As far as wine is concerned, I'd love to bring down some Pinot Noirs from our area that are a little harder to find down your way and one Chardonnay that might be interesting. I'm always interested in what's new in Pinots from down your way - particularly from the true Sonoma Coast. We rarely see your really good stuff up this way.

"mmmmmmm pinot..."

Well, you're familiar with the main guys that haven't changed much. I have been wanting to try Downtown, but haven't made it over there yet.

If it's just the 4 of us, I recommend:

woodtavern.net

www.jojorestaurant.com

www.acoterestaurant.com

If there are more than 4 of us:

www.garibaldisrestaurant.com

www.maritimeeast.com - haven't tried, but used to be known as Zax's Tavern

Wow! They all look great to me. You are so lucky to have so many choices so close to home! I've been to A Cote before - had some very good friends that used to live on Lawton (BTW, is Garibaldi's new? I don't remember it). Maybe one of the others? FYI, I am a party of two, and possibly three (my sister may want to come, but I can't ask her right now because she's in Africa).

I'm thinking of talking one of my friends out of an older Thomas Pinot to bring down...

Very cool, Eric. I hope you bring one of your bottles!

I've been to Sea Salt twice and to tell the truth, I wasn't that impressed. There's also some indifferent posts on Chowhound about it. I haven't been to Flora or Dopo, but would love to try. Do you have any pull at either place?

It's been a while since I've been to Sea Salt....sorry to hear it isn't holding up.

I've never been to Flora but it sounds interesting (thanks to Jim Hanlon for pointing it out). It's run by the same folks that run Dona Tomas, and it's gotten good reviews from the chron.

Dopo is excellent, but it's a bit small, so maybe not the best choice for this. But you should definitely try it sometime.

Any of the places on your list sound great to me.

And yeah, I'd be happy to bring one of my wines....the RRV pinot maybe (which I'm finally going to be releasing in the next couple of weeks...finally). Maybe my Rose will be ready...if so I'll bring a bottle of that as well.

I just got off the phone with Flora. The manager will get back to me in regards to a reduced corkage fee ($15 per) and the question of bringing beer (I mentioned that it is made and brought by the micro brewery owner). I told her March 28th for 8.

It looks like 3 for us here (I'm bringing a beer aficionado as a ringer)

tanglenet = 3
dukeriley = 2 maybe 3
Eric =1

Good news? They just had a review in the SF Chronicle this Sunday:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/24/CMCMUSDD4.DTL&hw=flora&sn=001&sc=1000

Pencil me in! Sounds fun, I am sure I can find something interesting to bring ;)

Eric, Terri too?