Defining Local

I love local food and local beer. It seems I'm not alone in this, as more and more I see restaurants big and small promoting their commitment to serve as much local food as possible. Whether it's produce grown an hour away or goat and lamb from down the street, local is a catchy buzz phrase that can bring in the people. I think that's fantastic. What I don't like is the number of joints proud to serve local food with little to no consideration for local beer. Frankly, I find it lazy and frustrating - completely pointless. I buy local products as much as possible and can guarantee you it's more difficult and more expensive to source locally grown meat than it is to procure beer brewed a few miles away. What gives?

This topic was driven home a few weeks back when I stopped a swanky cafe in Sacramento. I had found them via Twitter, checked out their website and was impressed with a few of the menu items. The location was good for meeting a friend and it wasn't long before I was sidled up at the bar, perusing the beer menu that apparently featured "local" beer. Well, this is when it got dicey. I saw beer from Vista, Paso Robles and San Francisco - or 7, 4 and 2 hours driving from where I was sitting. Local? No, I don't think so, not when there's a world-class brewery less than a mile away, another just a couple miles down the freeway, another 15 minutes and yet another 30 minutes away. Were the beers impressive? Yes, who doesn't like Green Flash, Firestone Walker and Anchor? Their great beers! Still, not local. Not here.

So, I guess my question to you is, 'what is local'? I have seen other examples of this and from time to time I let it get to me (don't even ask about places with seasonally rotating menus with beer menus etched in stone). I would pose that it has a lot to do with where you live. Here in California the cities aren't all that spread out, yet the Bay Area and Gold Country aren't the same. Neither is the Central Valley and Central Coast, The Lost Coast and the Syskiyous, San Diego and Orange County. Furthermore, with regards to beer, each of these regions in California have breweries of their own - each with at least one producing good beer. Now, this is a different scene than you'll find in more rural parts of America where breweries are more scarce. I say that believing there are very few places with a local beer option, especially when places like Baker City, Oregon; Wells, Nevada; Belgrade, Montana and Mount Vernon, Washington all have good local beer available. Good, local beer is not hard to find for most establishments in America - especially those with upscale dining options that would boast local options everywhere but the beer menu.

So, Mr. Restaurant Manager, if you have a menu or a website that boasts of using local ingredients, please see that this carries through all the way to the back page where beer is likely relegated to. If you're not sure what beer is made locally, ask a beer geek - that's the person at the bar perusing your beer menu. There's no reason not to. You just can't convince me that a patron 'in to' locally produced food isn't going to be interested in locally brewed beer. You also can't convince me that local beer is cost prohibitive for customers willing to shell out top dollar for lamb grown down the road. Otherwise, please start using the word "regional" in your marketing materials when that's really what you mean.