The Station Public House in Auburn, CA

Yesterday we reviewed Pretzel Bites from the Placerville Public House. Today we’re trying the Bavarian Pretzel at another “Public House”: The Station Public House in Auburn, CA.

(As an aside, I’ve always felt that John Q’s Public House would make a great name for a casual pub. A quick Google search shows it’s still unused.* So if you’re going to open a pub, feel free to use it.)

Anyway, my visit to The Station started out so promising. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and The Station boasts a comfortable outdoor seating area (they call it a “beer garden”) that fronts Auburn’s main street, which is the old Lincoln Highway. (For my earlier explorations of the Lincoln Highway, click here.) Anyway, the weather and the setting were perfect. And on the menu was a “Bavarian Pretzel with amber ale beer cheese.” I paired this with an Anderson Valley Bourbon Barrel Stout. The moon and the stars were aligning.

The pretzel arrived–it was a good size, with a artesinal shape and a decent amount of salt. In the middle was a serving of beer cheese, which was the only sign of potential trouble. It had that tell-tale plastic-y sheen to it.

Still, I am a man of duty, and I proceeded, selflessly, to sample and rate the pretzel before me. This turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. Not because it was hard to describe, but because it was hard to swallow. The pretzel reminded me of the frozen pretzels that you get from the grocery store and then microwave for 45 seconds and serve with yellow mustard. They aren’t that bad when you’re really hungry, in the same way that moldy bread isn’t that bad for starving POWs during WWII. In both cases, your immediate hunger is somewhat mollified.

The biggest problem with the frozen pretzels is that they start to get tough and gummy once the microwave-imparted heat wears off. The Station’s Bavarian pretzel seemed to suffer the same fate. It quickly became tough and rubbery. I suspect that it really had been frozen, for this did not taste like a fresh pretzel. Frankly, it seemed a bit stale.

To make matters worse, I would say the amount of salt was about half the optimal level. This, my friends, was the Wonder Bread of pub pretzels.

And then there’s the “beer” “cheese.” I put both words in quotation marks, because I strongly suspect that this yellowish substance contains neither beer nor cheese. It frankly tasted like Velveeta. The texture was like a melted orange crayon. The color was as artificial as William Shatner’s hairline. The taste was as bland as generic mayonnaise. Seriously, this was the worst “beer” “cheese” I’ve ever had. There was no cheddary goodness, and no beery bite. I’ve had better cheese sauce on my nachos from the county fair.

I’m afraid this pretzel gets only 1 star, and that’s for the generous size and its resemblance to Pinto Colvig.

*There used to be a (supposedly) fine dining restaurant called John Q’s at the top of the Holiday Inn in Sacramento. But (1) that Holiday Inn has been gone for years now, and (2) the name didn’t try to play off the “Public House” semi-pun.

PRETZEL TRIVIA

When my son was in middle school, he was in a group of students that designed and built miniature bridges out of balsa wood. They entered competitions to see whose design could withstand the most weight. Turns out this is a thing in the STEM field, though they don’t always use balsa. Sometimes they use toothpicks or popsicle sticks or tongue depressors. And sometimes–you see where this is heading–they use pretzels.

Now, some of these pretzel structures are rather unremarkable. Like this:

Some are a bit more intricate:

But I stumbled upon this animated short that really caught my fancy:

Admittedly, the bridge itself isn’t that amazing. But the whimsy is irresistible. I think this world could use a bit more low-tech whimsy. And pretzels. #PretzelWhimsey