A Chase Down the Coast

He lost his signature red hat at the last pub, but ever since arriving at the new stop Santa could not appear less concerned. Instead, he and Mrs. Claus—her grannie grays suspiciously bottle blonde—converse easily with the long-haired brewer over a lacquered surfboard bar. Returning to our group outside, the Clauses bear gifts. Not toys: finely crafted Californian beers.

Our reaction is merry and raucous. Santa tosses a slender bottle Rudolph’s way before offering one to me, who carefully maintains a distance from the bar’s door.

“It’s called an Island Blonde,” he says, showing me the label. “Think of it as our own Carpinteria special.”

I have to turn his offer down: I’m not twenty-one yet. Too young to be at a pub crawl. Therefore, way, way too sober to be biking through town, wearing green tights and tossing candy canes to by-standers in the middle of July.

Climbing back onto our bikes, we head toward a big highway in Carpinteria, Santa Claus’ Lane, yelling Christmas carols. As I ride, I count no more than two stoplights and perhaps a dozen side roads. My bell hat jangling in my face, striped polyester tights glistening with sweat, I can’t help but wonder how I got here.

Ten weeks ago, I accepted an internship here at the local paper. I first guessed there would hardly be anything to wring a measly Facebook status from, let alone write regular articles for an entire summer. Back then, Carpinteria appeared to me as it appears to a lot of tourists visiting California’s central coast: yet another beach community, perhaps a more hokey alternative to Montecito and Santa Barbara further up the freeway.

Now as I pedal, I observe rather than judge as a decent journalist should—describe rather than prescribe. I notice how often my new, thoroughly imbibed friends opt for Island Blondes and other local beers—an example of Carpinteria’s terroir. Here, boxes of Coors weigh down the shelves of the local grocery, silently rejected.

It is beer, I realize, that will save Carpinteria. Cities and towns north and south of Carpinteria are gradually subsuming and fusing together into a suburban sprawl, but here it is the sense of terroir that guards and preserves the community. Here, there is cheerful indifference toward the outside world. Everyone who lives here has grown up here. I learn from our Mrs. Claus that she learned to drive on Santa Claus Lane.

And like Christmas, that is something to celebrate. Even in July.