It’s easy to sleep on Hot City Pizza. The place is nothing to look at. The pizza’s affordable, occasionally inventive and always filling. But it’s no Masullo.
There is beer, however. Damn good beer.
Owner Colby Pettenger curates the brew menu and does a top job programming local taps, overlooked imports and generally good shit. But his flagship event each year is the Hot City Pizza Sour Fest, which goes down this weekend.
“Sour” approximates a variety of styles. Tart, lambic, fruity. And so on. Sour can be light and refreshing, like the Sante Adairius West Ashley pictured above (which I popped last week, suckers). Sour can also be in-your-face, the antithesis of the Kings’ defense.
Hot City’s sour festival is a three-day blowout with more than 40 hard-to-find-in-Sacramento sour brews on draft, plus a bunch more by the bottle. Flavor profiles will run the gamut.
It’s a big deal. Tents go up in the parking lot. Lines go out the door.
Pettenger recommends that, if you’re going to stay and drink for a while, bring a lawn chair. And green. “Cash does make the line move faster,” he said.
Hot City’s Facebook page includes a tentative list of brews. The highlights: Mikkeller, Fantome, Cantillon, Drie Fonteinen, Alvine Oak, Panil, Friegiest, the Bruery, Ducato, Lost Abbey, Zymatore, LambickX, Allagash, Wildbeer. If those names mean nothing to you, then pass through and try some awesome brews. If those names mean something to you, then show up at
5642 J Street in East Sacramento
March 28, 29 and 30
Friday:
