We visited Ruhstaller Farms in June 2023 and learned a lot about the role of hops and beer in the greater Sacramento’s area history. While revisiting its Indigenous history, and acknowledging its past, Sacramento has grown up to become the capital of California; and is now a place well known for the Farm-to-Table and Craft Beer movements.
If you love beer, or are traveling with kids or dogs, Ruhstaller Farm is a great place you might want to visit, for it is a wonderful, friendly, amazing throwback delight. But as well, it is part of California’s current brewery history.
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Sacramento, California
Before Colonization
The Sacramento Delta is the ancestral homeland of the Nisenan, Maidu, Miwok and Me-Wuk peoples (2). All of these tribes had access to an abundance of fruit, veggies, and nuts: from acorns, mushrooms, seeds, berries, to various and abundant plants. For meat they hunted primarily deer, elk, antelope, quail, and rabbit. It was a land of plenty in many ways for the people roaming and living in the area.
Additionally, three major rivers, plus lots of various waterways, lakes, and islands made up the Sacramento Delta: the Sacramento, San Joaquin and American Rivers. Being near so many rivers and lakes, the original inhabitants also had access to fish including salmon, shellfish, and seaweed (3).
So what to take from this very brief description of the time before Europeans arrived? The area was rich in food already, and was considered exceptionally prime agricultural land by all who subsequently arrived at this land.
But rather than covering the time prior to the recognition of California as a state (which occurred in 1850), my post focuses on the mid-1800s (or gold rush) forward. It is related to what greater Sacramento has now become: an area renowned for its tree-lined state Capital, the farm-to-table food movement, and its many small, craft distilleries and breweries.
1839 – 1900s
Sacramento has a rich history, literally. The Gold Rush story starts in 1839, when John Sutter arrived on a shore near the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers. Sutter’s Fort was established there, with the apparent intent to develop an agricultural community. It soon started to attract men looking for opportunities, then women who were doing the same. However, when gold was discovered in 1848 in nearby foothills, the community transformed into an epicenter of the Gold Rush (4).
Immigrant and Captain, Frank Ruhstaller learned brewing at Canton of Berne in Europe and came to Sacramento in 1865, eventually creating Ruhstaller Brewery in 1881. This was California’s first premium craft brewery, and for those who love beer, it produced steam beer 15 years before Anchor Steam (5).
But rarely do stories go smoothly, and on its way to creating the city of Sacramento and Ruhstaller Brewery, nature intervened. In 1862, the greater Sacramento Area was hit by a massive storm and was essentially under water for 3 months (6). The subsequent flooding ended up being among the worst in California’s recorded history. The result was that people realized they had to deal with levees, bring in soil, and raise the level of the city by 9 feet or it would be regularly flooded.
The railroad was big in this area due to the gold rush, and had invested lots of money in that venture. So to save their investment, and with governmental support, they brought in over 14k Chinese workers for manual labor. Their various flood-related efforts, including changing the course of the American River, worked. Thus, the historical, and original Sacramento was raised up 15’ above the flood plain. In some older buildings, what was the first floor became the basement once the city was raised, not unlike Seattle.
But then another catastrophe occurred, the 1920 Prohibition. This meant the death of Sacramento’s breweries and most of the hop farming.
2000s to now
Sacramento was formally founded in 1854, and is currently known for many things, such as being the capital of California. It also is known for being a city with lots of trees. Evidently, during the Gold Rush, settlers planted a whole bunch of trees to provide shade. The residents took pride in this aspect of the community and gave themselves the title “City of Trees”. The city has embraced the idea ever since. But more importantly to me, they have two major food-related aspects I had not known before: its role in the Farm-to-Table (or Farm-to-Fork) and Craft Beer re-emergence.
In 2012 the City took on the “Farm-to-Fork Capital” name to highlight its location within an agricultural setting and a booming restaurant scene. HeyExplorer even wrote that fast food is banned in a central portion of the city supporting more locally sourced and owned restaurants.
- This one city has 40+ farmers markets (5) which to me is an amazing number.
- Tower Bridge Dinner event: locally sourced, 5 course meal for 800 guests, seated down the middle of the bridge.
- Farm-to-Fork Festival: a combination of chef demonstrations, local farmers selling their goods, food ready to be tasted, and live music.
But also, the City is claiming its rightful place as a craft beer capital. There are 50+ microbrewies all around, and there is a long history of growing hops, barley, and using the abundant water.
BSMT Taproom, Sacramento, CA
The Ruhstaller Farm has a direct-to-customer outlet called the BSMT taproom, located in the heart of Downtown Sacramento that opened in 2018, with 16 taps that are constantly rotating through limited, small-batch experimental beers.
They use hops from the Ruhstaller Farm, locally grown and malted grain, and process their well water to make what they call Sacramento-grown beer. They are also focused on capturing and cultivating native yeast from our farm environment for unique fermentation projects.
We did not make it to the taproom, as we could have the beer right there on the farm. And there was so much more to see and experience at the farm. Free roaming animals, hop plantings, orchards, and of course the same beer.
Ruhstaller Farms in Dixon, CA
This is a 40 acre farm that grows hops, walnuts, sheep, + citrus, and welcomes dogs, and has beautiful sunsets & bonfires. While being a working farm, they also have a special “bar barn” as I call it. They serve their beers on site, among the growing hops and stills, and are very family oriented. They sponsor live music events every Thu, Fri, Sat, and Sun; and have food trucks on site all the time to make it a lovely family + friends day at the farm. But their hours are limited, during the week they are open 3pm to 8-9pm, and on weekends 12 noon to 9pm.
This farm is organic, regenerative, sustainable, bio-dynamic, and the owners have the basic approach of leaving their land, water, air, and the animals better off, than when they started. So to use their words, “we are trying not to screw up.”
Meanwhile, this hop farm has historical importance, as one could reasonably argue it played a part in restarting Sacramento’s beer making and hop growing history.
There is so much history associated with Sacramento and the original Ruhstaller brewery. The story continued when this new group of people received permission, and blessings, to continue with the Ruhstaller name and legacy.
Our RV Visit, with Dogs
Using Harvest Hosts, we booked a one night (free for Harvest Host members) stay at Ruhstaller Farm. So there, among the growing hops, we parked and entered the facility. And all I can say is WOW. The parking lot was deep with as many spots as they could fit, for it turned out they were not just a farm, but sponsored a rather large (I mean holding hundreds of people large) beer barn.
While first impressions were all on the hops, but right next to our parking spot was the boardwalk leading to the beer barn.
Along that path we ran across free ranging geese. Very loud geese in fact, where one (male I assume), would bark to say “stay back” whenever the gaggle would get ready to cross the wooden path.
The barn gave off a funky, college-town feel with a family vibe. Here are random impressions when we first walked in, with the dogs on leash. Starting with OMG this is a huge space.
- They have hay bales to sit on, I do not want to get bug bites.
- Oh they have couches and arm chairs…some looked like they were picked up from the street.
- OMG look out, Maggie (the dog) is going to eat that chicken poop.
- Then Charlie (the dog) lunged at his first direct introduction to a rooster walking by.
- Look at that beer list, never heard of any of them.
- Outdoor, indoor, bar and barnyard all combined to make a funky space, with a great mister to keep folks cool, a good taco truck, loud music, and beer.
- Stop, here are some seats in a real breeze-way, ahh, that cools everyone down
- “Honey, do not bother brushing off the cushions or looking under them. Please.”
- Holy sh*t a rooster and chicken just came up to me and are on the couch, where’s Charlie??
The photos tell the story, but let me say the staff are very friendly, the music loud but we could still talk (weekends are too loud to talk, “all party” according to the beer seller), the music they played that day was from 60-70-80’s, and the tacos were great. We ordered a beer flight each and tasted the different beers, ate a couple of tacos. Eventually felt pleasantly buzzed, and then walked with the dogs back to the parking lot, to start getting us all to bed.
Bottomline, if you are in the area, go to this place for a great relaxing time. Try a flight of 4 beer samples, get some food, rest and avoid the chicken poop on the floor. There were kids here and they played in some water works they have, ran through the mister they had spraying water, and tried to pet the cats and chickens. Everyone seemed very happy to be there and were enjoying themselves.
By the way, the beer was good. Of course both my spouse and I had our favorites. (Ok, I let the dogs have a taste, and they liked the Ida Red.)
The other thing I wanted to call your attention to is the changes to the land this Beer Barn, walnut orchard, and hops farm brought about. The photo above, taken of a poster they had made, shows how the land was cultivated, and its effects over three years.
A year later you can see the walnut orchard planted in most of the acres, but all the heavy green part are hops.
This was one of the more relaxing and fun stops we have had and would love to go here again.
—Patty
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