Creekside Brewery located on Broad Street was opened in January by two Cal Poly alums.

In the 1920s, as prohibition reigned and lovers of the suds had to go underground to enjoy a good brew, the speakeasy provided a haven for friends to meet, enjoy laughs and escape for a few hours from the drudgery of day to day life.

Luckily for us, while that sad period of American history is long dead, the tradition of the speakeasy lives on in downtown San Luis Obispo thanks to the newly opened Creekside Brewery.

“The brewery, of course, is the showcase,” co-owner Eric Beaton said. “We’re really focused on the beers that we brew and the food rather than entertainment, like some of the other breweries in town. We also have a decent selection of quality bottled beers. It’s a bit of a beer destination — a beer geek destination.”

Sitting inconspicuously along the creek just outside of the crowded row of bars on the main drag, the main floor of the two-story building that formerly housed Grappolo’s opens up to the spacious restaurant section. The balcony on the northwestern side offers a view of a peaceful section of the creek for a dining experience complimented by the natural sounds of the flowing water.

A quick descent down a short flight of stairs leads to the coolly-lit barroom, the only subterranean bar in the county, where one first notices the silver tanks of the brewing system next to the sleek bar that hoists a row of the signature Creekside beer tap handles and rests in front of rows of fine liquor.

Beyond the aesthetic qualities of the building, Creekside Brewery offers quality food and, of course, the signature Creekside brews.

“We’ve gone through 12 batches of beers so far and only a couple of them have been repeated,” Beaton said. “The ones that we’re going to try to keep are our bases, like our pale ale, our IPA, probably our blonde and our stout.”

According to Beaton, the blonde is one of most popular among patrons. An “introductory” beer, the blonde is light in color, not flavor.

“It’s got a lot of flavor, a lot more than say, Budweiser,” he said. “It’s one of those beers for people who come in and try to order a Bud or Coors Light, which we right now do not carry. We’ll give them a sample of that and they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah! I’ll take this.’ It’s sort of an intro beer for the craft beer scene for people who drink Coors Light and the other little yellow, fizzy beers.”

The Creekside Pale Ale is a hoppier version of your standard western pale ale with the noticeable dominance of Cascade hops and a reasonable alcohol content at six percent. The I.P.A. on the other hand is a bit maltier with a nice balance between the bitterness and the fresh Centennial and Cascade hops aroma, coming in at just under 7.5 percent alcohol. Creekside’s stout also contains 7.5 percent with a nice body and a filling blend of coffee and chocolate notes.

“Serving the beer is really cool,” Beaton said. “All the beers so far have come out really well. I’ve been really proud of them and people seem to like them. I’ll tell you, it’s a real boost to your ego when you’re brewing the beer and people like it.”

In addition to their home brews, Creekside Brewery offers a variety of domestic and imported bottled beers rarely found in even the upscale bars in town, and at a reasonable price. Two of the biggest sellers in the exotic category are the Lindemans Lambic Framboise, a sweet and sour so fruited it tastes like soda (the raspberry flavor is most popular), as well as the Franziskaner Dunkel Weissen, a dark, chocolaty Hefeweissen.

Make Creekside your first bar experience on your 21st and you will be greeted with the establishment’s own Dirty Creek Water, a tasty specialty shot made with Blue Curacao and Chambord raspberry liquor. The red and blue mix together to give a blackish, murky color.

Though the brewery is certainly more beer-oriented, its wine menu offers a list of local wines, and true to fashion, Creekside’s very own brand, made by Autry Cellars.

“We do have a nice selection of local wines,” Beaton said. “Most of the wines we have are decent quality from the area, although we have a couple that are priced on the low-end for those who would just like a nice glass of wine for a reasonable price. Because a lot of the wines around here are really good quality and you end up paying $15 a glass.”

With all the tastes downstairs, it could be easy to forget that the establishment is also a restaurant. Like the beer and wine selection, the lunch and dinner menus boast a variety of options that promise not to drain your wallet. For lunch, warm up with their signature plant-ripened jalapeno bottle caps and chase them with the popular live oak sandwich, a filling smoked beef brisket, topped with pepper jack cheese and grilled onions on ciabatta bread. For dinner, the half rack of smoked baby back pork ribs are very popular, as is the lime and tequila chicken.

Creekside opened in January of this year, the brainchild of Cal Poly engineering alums Beaton and Jon Moule, who met through a local homebrew shop. Realizing they both had the same idea for opening a Central Coast brewery, the pair decided to collaborate instead of compete and within a year found the perfect location in downtown San Luis Obispo.

According to Beaton, the brewery is in the process of securing their entertainment license and they hope to continue the Thursday Nights Jazz series made popular by Grappolo’s.

Though less than six months old, Creekside is quickly developing a fan base among people looking for something different than bland beer at a crowded and noisy bar.

“It’s a lot different from other bars in town. I come here to actually hang out with my friends — it’s not your warehouse bar,” said San Luis Obispo resident Mike Coughlin. “It kind of has that aura of the prohibition era, you know, where it’s a classy bar underground.”

San Luis Obispo native and Creekside regular Christina Bertsch sites the selection and atmosphere as what brings her back. “I like the whole brewery system and that you can get a beer that you can’t find in stores. It’s also a small town local business and what’s not to like about that? We have to help each other out. It’s also a little hidden bar that a lot of people don’t know about yet, which is kind of good because it’s not crowded all the time.”

“If you want to learn about beer and try good quality beer, come on down,” Beaton encourages. “We have tasters and you can get four tasters for $5. And tasters are about five ounces, so you can try a bunch of different beers without getting hammered. We can walk you through it and explain all the different beers and what you’re supposed to be tasting and what the different styles are.”

More proof for how seriously Creekside Brewery takes slinging suds is their pledge to use the proper glassware to accompany a particular beer. “Well, as best as we can, anyway,” Beaton added.

The Creekside Brewery is located at 1040 Broad Street and open daily for lunch from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and for dinner from 4 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The bar is open late. To view the menu visit www.creeksidebrewing.com.

Paul Bittick

As graduation for many super-seniors is approaching, some of us less fortunate juniors are stuck on this wonderful campus for another year of educational bliss.

Many of my friends will be graduating in a week and leaving me to fend for myself during times of senioritis (I hear it is a serious situation), procrastination, loneliness and most of all, confusion.

As they get ready to flip their tassel and I get ready to buy another $90 parking pass, I asked them what they thought will make my senior year easier and some things that I should or should not do to help my last year on this amazing campus be one of fun and enjoyment instead of stress, anxiety and disappointment.

I knew the challenges I had this past year from difficult teachers to 7 a.m. classes and yes, even having my face swell up from those lovely bees on campus, so any advice they could offer I was happy to hear.

First of all, everyone keeps telling me to spread my units out equally instead of overload myself the final quarter and to definitely not drop classes. It seems obvious enough, but try to stick out the tough class in the beginning, because once those 10 weeks are over, more than likely it will be a huge relief knowing that class is behind you instead of included in your final two quarters of grueling classes.

Secondly, enjoy the time with your friends now while you can. If I wanted I could take this a different way and just hang out with people all the time and never do my homework, but I don’t think my parents would appreciate those grades very much and neither would I. From what I hear, college life and the real-world life are vastly different as sleeping in becomes a little more difficult, bummer.

Thirdly, see your advisor early. Don’t wait until the quarter before graduation to discuss your plans with your advisor. They don’t have the final say in everything and the disappointment one of my friends experienced when he found out he would not be graduating on time was not the happiest time for either of us, but it was his fault for assuming he knew everything.

Fourthly, do your senior project as early as possible. This is next to impossible for a lot of people, but since it is a big time consumer, the sooner you get it done the more time you have to focus on other academic areas before graduation.

Finally, don’t skip classes. So many people as they get into the home stretch of their college career basically give up and don’t worry about their grades. They lose sight in what is important and give into drinking, partying, sleeping and procrastination. As tempting as this may be, if you have to do it, do it in moderation. Isn’t making the dean’s list a little more exciting than making a margarita? From what I hear, the dean’s list lasts longer too.

Well, for all of the upcoming seniors, good luck. I have spent four years in college so far and I don’t want to give into senioritis to give up everything I have worked so hard for.

I’ll be having fun times during the next three quarters, and I am far from an academic nerd, but I will be the loser who does the homework and comes to class.

But hey, at least I know I will be walking down that aisle on time and with a better GPA than a 2.0., hopefully, and trying to make my senior year be just that, only a year.

Paul Bittick

I feel old. Some days I look in the mirror and I see a woman I do not know and wonder where the 16-year-old me is.

Oh my God, I am turning into my mother. I blame the sweater sets I wear to meet the dress code of my internship and to look professional as a tutor. But it is more than that, my nightly highlights include still getting home in time to make dinner, cleaning my bathroom and paying my bills.

Life is moving too fast. Internships, senior project, my job, that thing I want called a career – all coming toward me at 110 mph. Forget movies like “Legally Blonde” and “Animal House”; I never had time for anything that exciting.

A few weeks ago, I mailed out all my graduation invites and I felt like that took obsessive amounts of “me time.”

Wasn’t college supposed to be glamorous? What about all those great stories college recruiters fill Web sites with, or all those profiles from catalogs you get from schools that liked your SAT scores.

Now, at 21 years old I will be done with this chapter of my life and onto something else. What else is there?

When Richard Kipling, an editor at the Los Angeles Times, spoke to the journalism department in March, he talked about where you want to be professionally by the age of 30.

Does he realize how old that is? Thirty! My parents were my parents by the time they were 30. Why not just tell me to count my life over as of now?

I have spent most of college wondering what I want to do with my life. I have changed this idea several times, often depending on my mood or what others suggested.

But I have developed a philosophy on life that serves me well. Those who are happiest in life recognize that we are unto a purpose bigger than ourselves. Everyone in this world makes a difference and matters to someone.

Good manners always out perform good breeding to strangers. It might even make them your friends. Say “thank you” and tell people that you love them whenever you get the chance.

Those are just ways to live life, not plan ahead. Living life counts more than planning for a life you might not live out anyway.

Thirty is too far for me to plan right now. So, I chose to plan for today and embrace it as the best thing ever. Because now is what I have to work with, even with the yucky sweater sets.

Katie Hofstetter

As a graduating senior, there is one question that I hate above all else. It’s the dreaded, “What are your plans for next year?”

Each time I hear it, I have to pause for a minute, allowing the “Dodgeball”-style bit of throw-up that has entered my throat to subside, and forcing back the word vomit that plagued Lindsay Lohan’s character in “Mean Girls” so that a slew of profanities won’t spit out of my mouth and land in the ears of the questioner.

After that ritual is completed, I usually try to mask the taste of vomit, both word and real, before answering with “I’m not quite sure yet.”

What I really want to do as a response to this hateful, hateful question is walk away, hang up or answer with “I plan on sleeping in until noon each and every day and watching ‘Dodgeball’ and ‘Mean Girls’ on repeat to fill my afternoons.”

Unfortunately, Cal Poly doesn’t offer a major in laziness, and while I’ve heard more than once that a journalism degree is the next best thing, I’d be inclined to disagree. Engineering is.

OK, well maybe not. But I can’t help feeling a hint of disdain for the engineering majors who are met with a plethora of prospective employers at any job fair.

Yes, we’re a polytechnic university, and yes, your major is accredited. Big whoop.

But the truth is, I’m not mad at the questioners, or the engineers. I’m anxious because I don’t have an answer yet.

This is the first time I’ve ever really had to plan anything so important, and I don’t even know where to start. Is it best to decide where to live and then look for a job? Or find a job first and then relocate accordingly?

With senior project deadlines to meet, finals to study for and graduation announcements to send out, the last thing I need to be worrying about is the rest of my life.

Thus is the burden of graduation and total independence.

The move to college marked the loss of a curfew, the all-important 18th birthday and later the most-important 21st birthday – all the pros of independent life.

With graduation come the cons: the full-time job, the rent check and the insurance policy.

Whatever elation my parents are feeling for their financial freedom I am feeling equally in fear for the responsibilities that come with being entirely on my own.

And each time I hear the dreaded question, the fear is recognized once again because really, I don’t have a plan yet.

So as the date of graduation draws nearer, instead of running toward the finish line, I’m hesitantly walking a plank into the harsh waters of the unknown. I can’t help but feel that my celebration of the end is tainted by the realization that I’m only just arriving at the starting line.

Mariecar Mendoza

It is 1:01 a.m. and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” is blaring from my television. But it’s not Conan’s jokes that are keeping me awake, nor is it the screen’s glow or my computer’s hum.

It’s this darn thing: The goodbye. The adieu. The farewell.

I knew it was near; shoot, I cursed that it couldn’t come sooner. But now that graduation is only days away, my eyes are glued to my computer screen hoping letters will appear, come together and make sense of all that I have lived through in my journey – no, my odyssey – that is “the college life.” I mean, I don’t want to leave college without providing some words of wisdom to those who must continue contorting themselves to fit in those miniature torturing devices the university calls desks.

But to do so, I have to reflect on how I have reached this point in my life. Hmmm, how did I get here? Aww yes, I know: Family, friends, FAFSA and an understanding that for every hour you bust your butt for school equals two hours of having fun after school. I’m not trying to lure the Ferris Bueller out in everyone, nor am I recruiting for AA, I’m just warning every student after the class of 2006: You must have fun! Whether it’s a long, blurry night at Black Sheep or a belly-aching, sober night at Boomers, everyone needs to laugh and make memories. If you don’t, you risk spontaneously combusting.

Now, with that said, I exhale and think of my future with utter glee.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m as scared as the next graduating senior, but I’m also insanely excited. In a matter of 11 days, I will be a full-fledged adult. I know I’ve got past many-a-bar’s velvet rope since I turned 21 in 2004, but now I’m going to pass a different kind of velvet rope; the kind where you flash that class ring to show you are a regular at “Club Alum.”

Sure, I will no longer have the comfort of knowing I have a safety net, but knowing I can potentially go splat all over the pavement if I fall gives me a surprising rush of adrenaline. Sounds sadistic, I know, but what a challenge! This is what my parents have dreamed for me, what I have been training for all my life, what Cal Poly has been preparing me for – this is my last curtain call for this one epic performance – and I am ready.

Amy Asman

“Oooh, man didya zeee da mooviee about tat guuyy witda boat ontop of that giiiiant wave?! That wasss AWWWSOME?”

This previous blurb of drunk-speak is actually an excessively intoxicated friend of mine asking whether or not I had seen the movie “Poseidon.” Or what I like to call: “Poseidon: The Ultimate Lame-o Memorial Day Box Office Sinker, Which Just Happens to Have a Shamefully Good Cast.”

The Hollywood tradition of bombarding Memorial Day weekend with over-hyped, mega thrillers – a time that is rightfully set aside to remember those who died to protect our fine capitalist country – is unfortunately not a new concept.

Sadly, the closest Hollywood ever got to actually honoring the military on Memorial Day was the summer Jerry Bruckheimer released “Pearl Harbor.” Now I love Josh Hartnett just as much as the next person, and Ben Affleck isn’t too bad either, but this movie definitely did not exceed everyone’s high expectations.

With that in mind and since everyone is probably wondering when I’m going to work alcohol into this little vignette, I will cut right to the chase.

In order to survive the onslaught of ridiculously mediocre movies released in theaters this weekend, I propose that we all get drunk. Mind you, I am referring to all of us responsible 21-and-over-year-olds. Sorry youngin’s.

Here’s why: It was while listening to my friend slur on and on about the sheer cinematic glory of “Poseidon” that I realized alcohol makes everything seem better. Heck, it could probably make “Gigli” look like an Oscar winner. Well, maybe not.

The point is studios continue making really awful holiday blockbusters because people continue paying to see them. So rather than suffer through a two-hour waste of your life, why not enjoy yourself with a little bit from the bottle?

I suggest drinking after the movie in order to avoid that nasty “drunken in public” citation. And if movie theaters won’t let you bring in hot beverages from Starbucks, they definitely aren’t going to let you in with a keg.

Of course, the most revolutionary idea would be to boycott the movies altogether and spend the day sticking it to the man at the beach or – God forbid – throwing a barbecue for all your friends and talking about what this country means to you.

But that’s the beauty of living in America – you get the freedom to decide. And that, my friends, is the true meaning of Memorial Day.