x

Santa Rosa's Beer Passport Raises a Glass to 10 Years

For a decade, the Santa Rosa Beer Passport has turned the slowest stretch of the tourism calendar into one of the city’s most anticipated annual traditions. In 2026, Visit Santa Rosa marked that milestone by moving the passport onto Seeker XP, and the response was immediate: more than 1,800 people joined in the first month alone. The upgrade kept the familiar web-app format beer fans already knew, then added the gamification layer it never had before, including digital badge collection, a live leaderboard, and a social activity feed that lets participants watch each other’s progress as they sip their way across Sonoma County.

Overview

The 2026 Santa Rosa Beer Passport launched February 1 and runs year-round, anchored by the city’s signature FeBREWary celebration. The free, self-guided digital passport invites participants 21+ to visit participating breweries and taprooms across Sonoma County, check in via geo-location or photo tag, collect points, and earn a limited-edition 10th Anniversary Beer Passport Medal — a commemorative collectible that doubles as a bottle opener. Twenty locations are included in the 2026 passport, ranging from globally celebrated names like Russian River Brewing Company to neighborhood gems like Moonlight Brewing and Old Possum Brewing Co.

At a Glance

Activation: Santa Rosa Beer Passport 2026
Location: Santa Rosa, CA (Sonoma County)
Timeline: February 1 – December 31, 2026
Audience: Visitors and locals 21+
Use Cases: Digital passport, off-season tourism, brewery trail
Experience Type: Digital passport, check-in challenge, photo challenge
Platform: Seeker XP
Results: 1,800+ participants in the first month, 6,000+ photos uploaded

About Visit Santa Rosa

Visit Santa Rosa is the destination marketing organization for Santa Rosa, California — the urban heart of Sonoma County and one of California’s premier craft beer destinations. A division of the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber, Visit Santa Rosa is funded primarily through hotel occupancy taxes, meaning its mission is directly tied to driving overnight stays and generating local economic activity. The Beer Passport was originally conceived by Visit Santa Rosa’s advisory board to counteract the slow winter tourism season, and it has since grown into a cornerstone annual program. In 2024, Santa Rosa was recognized by USA Today Readers’ Choice Awards as one of the Top 10 Beer Cities in the nation — and the #1 Beer City in California.

“The program was designed for economic development — to bring people downtown, get them into breweries, and encourage them to stay.”
— Christopher Kren-Mora, Events & Community Engagement Manager, Visit Santa Rosa

How it Worked

In 2026, the Santa Rosa Beer Passport got its most significant upgrade in a decade. The passport had always run as a web app, but the prior version was a fairly static experience: check in, redeem, repeat. Moving onto Seeker XP kept that familiar web-app format while adding the gamification layer it never had, including digital badges, a live leaderboard, and a social activity feed. Onboarding got faster too. Participants sign up for the free digital passport, save it to their phone’s home screen, and start visiting any of the 20 participating locations across Sonoma County, with no app-store download to slow them down.

At each stop, participants check in using geo-location or a tagged photo, with no paper and no staff scanning required. Those photos are captured directly through Seeker XP, giving Visit Santa Rosa a steady stream of authentic, rights-cleared content. As check-ins accumulate, points unlock and progress is tracked in real time. The social layer is what makes 2026 different: participants can see other users on the platform, the badges they have earned, and where they are in their journey, which turns an individual brewery tour into a shared community experience. As Visit Santa Rosa’s Christopher Kren-Mora put it, “It works like social media.”

The passport is intentionally designed to be a marathon, not a race. It is self-guided, flexible, and available all year, which makes it accessible to both weekend visitors and locals who want to chip away at it over months. The free Saturday Beer Shuttle, which ran during FeBREWary, added a no-designated-driver option for participants wanting to hit multiple stops in one day.

Activities

Digital Check-Ins

Passport holders visited participating breweries and checked in via geo-location or photo tag on the Seeker XP platform to collect points toward rewards.

Passport Progression

Beer lovers tracked their progress through 20 locations on a social activity feed, with real-time visibility into other participants' badges and check-ins.

Shuttle Hopping

Participants took advantage of the free Saturday Beer Shuttle to safely visit multiple passport stops — including Russian River, HenHouse, Cooperage, Moonlight, and Shady Oak — in a single day.

Badges

Rewards

Every check-in earns points, and those points unlock real rewards. Rack up 300 points and unlock exclusive hotel booking discounts to help make Santa Rosa a full overnight adventure.

Keep going and hit 1,200 points to earn the limited-edition 2026 Beer Passport Medal — a commemorative collectible celebrating 10 years of the Santa Rosa Beer Passport that also doubles as a bottle opener. As Christopher Kren-Mora puts it: “Everybody wins eventually. It’s a marathon, not a race.”

Why We Love It

A Decade-Long Tradition, Upgraded

Visit Santa Rosa brought a beloved 10-year program onto Seeker XP, adding the gamification layer it never had before: digital badges, a live leaderboard, and a social activity feed, plus a faster, friction-free way to join. The format beer fans knew stayed intact; the experience around it got far richer.
Off-Season Tourism That Fills Hotel Rooms

Built specifically to counter slow winter hotel occupancy, the Beer Passport is Visit Santa Rosa's anchor strategy for driving February visitation, turning the quietest stretch of the year into FeBREWary for visitors and locals alike.
A Fast Start: 1,800+ Participants in Month One

More than 1,800 people joined the passport in its first month on Seeker XP, a clear signal that the gamified, social format gave a 10-year-old program real new momentum rather than just a cosmetic refresh.
Local Businesses Win Too

With 20 participating locations spanning iconic names like Russian River and Lagunitas to neighborhood favorites like Old Possum and Moonlight, the passport spreads foot traffic across the full Sonoma County brewing ecosystem.
Truly Year-Round Reach

Unlike a single-event activation, the Santa Rosa Beer Passport runs all year with FeBREWary as its peak, giving Visit Santa Rosa data collection and engagement momentum that stretches across all 12 months.

Community Photos From FeBREWary and Beyond

In its first month, the Santa Rosa Beer Passport generated more than 6,000 photos, captured through Seeker XP as participants checked in across Sonoma County and shared their adventures on social media using #VisitSantaRosa, #FeBREWary, and #SantaRosaBeerPassport. Because the passport runs all year, that library of authentic, rights-cleared content keeps growing well past FeBREWary.