All hands on deck for San Francisco's Brews on the Bay

Muster the craft brewers from the San Francisco Brewers Guild aboard the historic WWII Liberty ship SS Jeremiah O’Brien docked at scenic Pier 45 on Fisherman’s Wharf, add live music and food trucks, and what do you have? The answer is, one hell of a party.

The 12^th annual Brews on the Bay from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24, promises to be bigger and better than ever, with 24 San Francisco breweries pouring more than 60 beers, up from 18 breweries a year ago.

The guild recently confirmed that music will be provided by country/Americana bands Slow Motion Cowboys and Assateague. Food will be available from Korean BOBCHA (Korean and Asian Fusion), Kabob Trolley (cheesesteaks, Middle Eastern, halal and gluten free), Subs on Hubs (sandwiches, gyros and Italian), and Street Fusion (Vietnamese, healthy food, organic and gluten free).

This year’s event honors the 50^th anniversary of the Grateful Dead and the spooky spirit of Halloween.

Brews on the Bay is a rare opportunity to sample beer from San Francisco craft breweries all in one place and to celebrate the people who make it. San Francisco brewers took home five medals from this year’s Great American Beer Festival, including Social Kitchen’s Kim Sturdevant, who won a gold medal for his English-style pale ale, Mr. Kite.

New executive director

Along with the new breweries, the San Francisco Brewers Guild is welcoming a new executive director. Joanne Marino might be new to the guild, but she’s no stranger to beer or San Francisco. Marino co-produced Austin Beer Week and she’s lived in San Francisco since 2012. Marino also has a technology background. She’s been a partner at Skematic, a consultancy focused on startups and early-stage businesses, since 2002.

In a recent interview, Marino noted the similarities between starting a tech business and opening a brewery. “At the heart, that spark of creativity that both a tech startup and a startup brewer brings to the table is passion,” Marino said. “That’s what motivates people and hopefully that’s there for both industries: to continue to run on passion and make something that’s useful and loved by the community.”

Brews on the Bay is one of the three pillars of the San Francisco Brewers Guild, along with San Francisco Beer Week and the monthly meet the brewer events at San Francisco breweries. “The meet the brewer nights are not just for the public,” said Marino. “They’re a way for the brewers to get together and support eachother. The leading statesmen in the guild are ready to answer technical and business questions. It’s structured to be supportive of what can be an overwhelming process: getting a new business off the ground and running it successfully.”

Beer Week starts early

Because San Francisco is hosting the Super Bowl, SF Beer Week will begin earlier than usual, with the opening gala on Jan. 22, 2016, at Pier 35. Expect 100-120 breweries.

In conjunction with SF Beer Week, the guild is organizing a friendly competition between teams of brewers from the north side of Market Street against their counterparts to the south. Team NOMA and Team SOMA will each brew a collaboration beer that will be released at the opening gala. Craft beer fans will be invited to share their comments about their favorite collaboration beer.

A few tips for enjoying Brews on the Bay:

• Don’t drive. Take public transportation, such as the historic F car, or walk along the Embarcadero.

• Hydrate. Drink a glass of water for every beer you have. Even though the Jeremiah O’Brien is not scheduled to leave the dock, your legs can get wobbly after several beers.

• Request half pours. The servers will likely be generous with their pours, but if you plan to sample a lot of beers, ask them not to fill your glass (pouring out in buckets is OK, too).

• Don’t forget to eat. Make sure not to drink on an empty stomach. The alcohol by volume in beer is relatively low compared with spirits and wine, but the alcohol still adds up after a while. Food is available from the trucks on the dock.

• Make conversation. Meet the brewers and ask them about their beer. You’ll be amazed what you might learn. Also, talk to the volunteer crew that maintains the beautiful ship. They are a treasure trove of information.

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Thirsty Bear takes on the challenge of the lamb

Taking on an entire four-legged herbivore, nose to tail, breaking it down and creating a seven-dish menu is a daunting proposition for any chef. More so if that animal is a lamb, with a distinctive flavor profile that could easily seem repetitive after a while. Then, just for the hell of it, pair the all-lamb menu with all of the beers on the tap list. Thirsty Bear Organic Brewery Chef Rob McCarthy was up to the task, and along the way he discovered some dishes that we hope will find a permanent place on the brewpub’s small plates menu.

Thirsty Bear was one of four American restaurants chosen to participate in this week’s “Brews, Ewe’s, and BBQ’s,” sponsored by the American Lamb Board to highlight a meat that is popular around the world but somewhat underappreciated in the United States.

McCarthy included beer in several of his recipes and paired Thirsty Bear’s beers not so much with the meat as with the overall flavors of the dishes. Although the menu listed beer pairing suggestions, we ordered a tasting flight of all of Thirsty Bear’s regular beers, as well as a couple of new IPAs, to experiment with our own combinations.

Right off the bat, McCarthy knocked it out of the park with an ambitious Merguez Sausage dish that included grilled octopus, potato and lemon, pimenton aioli and pea sprouts. McCarthy made the sausage himself (although casings were not provided with the lamb) and slow cooked, then grilled the octopus so that it was tender with an endearing smoky flavor. It all came together with the aioli and lemon. Although the menu suggested pairing the dish with Polar Beer Pilsner, we liked it even better with the Valencia Wheat, which seemed to pick up on the citrus flavors while complementing the Merguez sausage and balancing the grilled flavor of the octopus. McCarthy said he wants to keep this one on the menu, and we heartily agree.

Lamb Belly Pastrami was another standout. Nicely poached asparagus and eggy sauce gribiche accentuated the many flavors of the deftly cured lamb belly. Grilled Lamb T-bone consisted of a small, thick, flavorful chop that we preferred medium rare rather than the suggested medium. The T-bone was accompanied by a lemon-mint gremolata and marinated fava beans. It paired nicely with the Citra Double Down IPA, brewed for last week’s IPA Day. 

In another dish, a pair of Piquillo Peppers were stuffed with ground lamb and rice and bathed in a sherry tomato cream sauce. Thirsty Bear was right to suggest pairing those hearty, delicate flavors with their Meyer ESB.

McCarthy was clearly stoked by the lamb challenge, and he didn’t forget the offal, either. Lambs Head Cheese was served almost like a pate, with Challenger Hop Mustard, atop grilled bread. We thought that toast or something crispier would have stood up better to the headcheese. Lamb Sweetbreads came fried and puffy with heirloom tomatoes and tiny flavorful padron peppers. You’ll either love them or hate them.

Thirsty Bear will be serving the seven-dish beer-pairing menu all week, and if we’re lucky we’ll see at least a few of the dishes on the restaurant’s regular small plate menu.

Thirsty Bear Organic Brewing

661 Howard St

San Francisco, CA 94105 


(415) 974-0905

http://thirstybear.com

Beer and games in the Castro

As craft beer asserts itself as part of the mainstream, it is becoming a necessary part of trendy new pubs and bars.

About 10 years ago, Paul Kermizian, who directed the 2002 craft beer documentary, American Beer, and a few of his friends bet they could make a business out of two of their favorite pastimes: playing classic video games and drinking good beer. In 2004, they opened their first Barcade in an old metal shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Four more followed, including two in New York in 2014. Beer and arcade-themed pubs have since sprung up in Chicago, Omaha and Indianapolis, and now in San Francisco.

Brewcade on Market Street offers an intriguing prospect to grizzled ‘80s arcade veterans and retro-chic millennials alike: The opportunity to wrap their itchy trigger fingers around a breed of uniquely satisfying video games sadly on the verge of extinction. The beer is the easy part. Success will require Brewcade owners Shawn Vergara and Tiffny Vergara Chung to invest as much care and creativity in the quality of the games as they do in the taps and bottles, if not more.

The Beer

The beer list is promising, though a little unfocused. That’s to be expected as the brand new pub finds its footing with its video gamer customers. For now, the 25 taps and numerous bottles tick most of the boxes that beer drinkers have come to expect: usual suspects like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Anchor Steam and Racer 5, along with some unexpected pleasures, such as Fort Point Kolsch, Heretic Shallow Grave Porter, Henhouse’s Honest Day’s Pay Tart Saison and on nitro, Ryrish Dry Irish Stout from Mountain Toad Brewing. Adjusting the taps to suit the clientele shouldn’t be too difficult, though dedicated craft beer drinkers might still prefer the classic pub ambience of Lucky 13 down the block.

The Games

As most local arcade goers know, you'd be hard-pressed to find a real video arcade anywhere in the Bay Area. The economy hasn't been kind to any establishment trying to make a buck off arcade cabs. Most have closed down and their games languish in storage.

Walking into Brewcade, I was happily greeted with the familiar blend of arcade sounds and fuzzy ‘80s monitor glow. A well-used Neo Geo cab hummed away up front, and it was nice to see a Paperboy cab complete with bicycle handle controller and  Centipede. A panel TV was showing a movie with the sound off and the juke box rumbled loudly against the din of the machines.

I usually gravitate toward shooting games like R-Type II and the 19xx series. One of the nicest aspects of arcades is how social they can be, with onlookers clustering around more experienced players to see how it’s done and to pick up new strategies against some of the seemingly impossible stages of games.

For arcade game newbies, these games are real quarter-munchers. I'm sure that having a few too many beers only adds to the hilarity of “Game Overs!” leading to even more coins spent out of frustration. (Arcade etiquette demands that you put your quarters on the cabinet or screen of the machine as your place in line. Don't just feed the machine until you run out of money.) 

I liked the way the arcade cabinets were spaced out, and the cup-holders by each game were an excellent touch. Overall I really like the idea of a bar and an arcade, and think it's a perfect marriage of two wonderful things. However, there are a few questions/suggestions I'd like to address.

What’s up with the games?

Are there more?

The Neo Geo cabinet, for instance, is a cartridge based game system built with swapping in mind. Could players like my friend Myung Kim and myself request game board changes in some of the cabinets? Swapping out boards could be an attractive option for people who want to play different games.

If the owners offered this to their gamer customers, they'd have a grateful and loyal following for the rest of their days.

Smooth buttons and joysticks, please

The game cabs could badly use some TLC. Nothing crazy—just a little maintenance on the buttons and joysticks.

Also the coin slots are in dire need of fixing. They ate at least a dollar’s worth of my quarters and I know I'm not the only one. And I wasn't please that my button jammed the entire duration of my game.

These are good machines; they just need regular maintenance to function properly. Most of them carry inexpensive American Happ parts, which are cheap to swap out.

To sum up:

1) Recap and retune the screens

2) Replace the buttons (some of the sticks on the older games are harder to get new, but all the buttons are standard happ parts you can get for cheap)

3) Repair the coin mechs (they eat too many coins)

4) Replace the blue elf and pandora boards with original hardware and cycle through the games more

(Special thanks to Myung Kim for his input and expertise on this matter)

The gamer in me really hopes arcades will make a comeback, but if my only alternative was a beer and Puzzle Bobble, I'd say Brewcade was doing it right.

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Historic Summit Showcases Hundreds of California Craft Beers

Tom McCormick isn’t getting much sleep these days. In just a couple of weeks, the executive director of the California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA) will welcome some 150 craft breweries, along with home brewers, retailers, wholesalers, beer enthusiasts and others to celebrate the state where craft beer was born. “It’s an event that’s never been done in the craft brewing industry anywhere in the country,” said McCormick.

The two-day California Craft Beer Summit and Brewers Showcase, which will be held Sept. 11 and 12 at the Sacramento Convention Center and on Capitol Mall, respectively, will be unlike any other beer event. The Summit on Friday and Saturday will feature exhibitors and tap talks on the convention floor, as well as chefs demonstrating how to pair beer with food and how to cook with beer. The Summit will also include interactive discussions about the four primary ingredients in beer: hops, water, barley and yeast. Tasting stations will offer an array of beers, including some new releases.

Speakers represent a who’s-who of California craft beer, from pioneers like Fritz Maytag and Mark Carpenter of Anchor Brewing and Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada to David Walker and Matt Brynildson of Firestone Walker Brewing, Natalie and Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing, Tony Magee of Lagunitas and Steve Wagner and Mitch Steele of Stone Brewing, to name a few.

“We intentionally picked topics that we thought will be of interest to the broad spectrum of people attending, but also compelling topics such as, what’s the potential for the industry looking into the future?” said McCormick. “Is there a bubble? Will it continue to grow? And for the Sacramento brewers panel: What can we expect in Sacramento? How many new breweries can open up?”

McCormick added: “We’re offering demos, educational seminars and exhibits specific to each of the individual groups attending the event. But we feel we all have something to learn from each other. For example, the brewers are really excited that we’re going to have three or four home brewing demos going on. Home-brewing clubs are bringing the latest and greatest equipment in home brewing. The brewers are excited to see what the home brewers are up to. Likewise, vendors for the professional brewery are exhibiting equipment, and the home brewers are excited about that. The retailers have a lot to learn from the consumers and the wholesalers have a lot to learn from the retailers.”

The Craft Beer Summit will shine a light on the unusual synergy among consumers, home brewers and professional breweries. “It’s a unique industry in that the consumer is really connected with the manufacturer, in this case the craft brewery. You don’t see that in many consumer products,” McCormick said. “The roots of craft brewing are absolutely in home brewing. So many of the current craft brewers come from a home brewing background originally.”

It’s a sure bet that some of the consumers attending the Sacramento event will become home brewers and some of the home brewers will open their own breweries. It’s already happening. “There are hundreds of what we call ‘breweries in planning’ on our database list. A lot of consumers are thinking about it and a lot of the people who are coming to this event are actively in the process of starting a brewery,” McCormick said.

Brewers Showcase

The beer drinking will commence in earnest on Saturday afternoon after the Summit, a few blocks away on Capitol Mall. The Brewers Showcase will offer a unique opportunity to sample beers from all over the state side-by-side, especially beers from Southern California that usually don’t make it outside their local markets. “That was a big part of our goal, and it wasn’t easy,” McCormick said. “A lot of the (Southern California) breweries that will be at the Brewers Showcase would not typically go to a beer festival in Sacramento or even Northern California because they’re so small and a lot of them are already selling as much beer as they can make anyway.”

To make it easier for SoCal breweries to bring their beers to Sacramento, the CCBA set up a logistical system of drop-off points in San Diego and Los Angeles where the breweries can drop off their beers and equipment. “It’s great, because some of these tiny breweries are able to just drop their beer off and then hop on a plane or drive their car up rather than their van full of beer. Then we’re taking all of their empty kegs and jockey boxes and whatever they want to put in there and are shipping it back to them,” McCormick said.

At the Brewers Showcase, each of the 150 breweries will bring two kegs and as many bottles as they want. One of the requirements for the event is that someone from each of the breweries will be pouring at their booth. “We’ve told the breweries that this event is for them, so bring some special beers,” said McCormick. “We anticipate some very special beers and we’re starting to see some specific products as the breweries fill out their sheets. There are definitely going to be some unique beers poured that breweries are bringing out of the aging rooms and cellars because it is a special event.”

The Craft Beer Summit and Brewers Showcase is an ambitious maiden voyage for an organization known mostly for its advocacy for craft beer legislation, such as lobbying the state legislature to allow craft beer to be poured at farmer’s markets. “Although we’ve done a lot of events over the years, the association has never done a consumer event before,” said McCormick, whose background is in the beer industry and not events. “We’re all entrepreneurs. You have to be a pretty crazy entrepreneur to get into this business. You don’t get into this business for the money. You get into it because you love it and you’re passionate and creative. We wanted to do something different, and I think we are.”

Happily, this year’s Summit and Showcase won’t be a one-off. “We have a five-year strategic plan, and this event signals that the association wants to further promote craft beer both as a product and as an industry,” McCormick said.

“Our vision is for this to be an annual event and ultimately not just a regional event. Our vision is that this will be a showcase event for the craft brewing industry that people from all over the country come to California to see and do, similar to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.”

For more details about this historic event, including how to get tickets, go here.

Use this code for a discount: CAcraftbeer10

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