Take It One Day at a Time for San Francisco Beer Week

One weekend into San Francisco Beer Week, a couple of harsh realities have become abundantly clear:

• We're in for a marathon and not a sprint, so pace yourself and take a day or two to recover whenever necessary.
• No matter how noble your intentions or how meticulous your plans, trying everything will almost certainly not be possible. There's just too much good beer.

The San Francisco Beer Week Opener last Friday was the beer drinker's dilemma in microcosm: 68 breweries—almost twice as many as last year—and more than 250 beers spread out along the circumference of the cavernous Concourse Exhibition Center (a funkier, more comfortable and spacious venue than last year's Yerba Buena Gardens).

With so many beers to choose from, it was difficult to decide where to begin. As usual, Russian River Brewing seemed to be a safe choice, particularly since they were pouring Pliny the Younger and Elder, Sanctification and a dazzling pre-release of Beatification. This year's Younger might be the best in years, gushing with hops and remarkably well-balanced. Several other beers gave the Younger a run for its money, however, including Hoptimum from Sierra Nevada and Hopocalypse Black Label from Drakes. Another strong contender was the Imperial IPA from Auburn Alehouse, a deliciously well-constructed brew from an underappreciated brewery.

While The Younger is an outstanding interpretation of a relatively familiar style, Beatification is something else entirely: an American wild ale with grapefruit overtones that's a marvel of spontaneous fermentation. The batch poured at the Opener is scheduled to be available in April, according to Natalie Cilurzo. Beatification was delicious with Rosamunde's kielbasa dotted with truffles.

Auburn wasn't the only unexpected overachiever of the night, as Thirsty Bear and Gordon Biersch also came through with some tasty offerings. Clean and stylistically correct, GB's regular beers are not held in high regard by many of today's beer geeks, who deem its lagers to be insufficiently adventurous. And there's probably some truth to that, since the beer is meant to appeal to the palates of the people who eat in their restaurants. However, come Beer Week, Gordon Biersch San Francisco head brewer John Tucci cuts loose with some enticing and exciting beers—he even had a stout on. This year, Tucci brought a saison that was refreshing yet subtly delicious.

Other standouts from the Opener included a complex barleywine from High Water Brewing called Old and in the Way; Evil Twin and Evil Cousin from Heretic, and a bevvy of tasty beers from Moonlight Brewing.

Events during the rest of the week will include the “kopstootje” (beer and a shot) dinner on Monday at Comstock Saloon, featuring Trumer Pils and Bols Genever.

Love (or anti-love), as well as beer, will be in the air on Tuesday, with several romantically inspired events all over the Bay Area.

• The romantic Beer Revolution will be the place to go for a Valentines Day Massacre, featuring a special beer that Speakeasy made for Beer Week, paired with special sorbets, including Frosted Anus.
• Bitter Valentines continues at Beer Revolution with “Stones' Bitter Valentine.”
• At Church Key in San Francisco, “Love is for the Birds,” with Grand Teton (Stranahan's Colorado whiskey barrel-aged Black Cauldron Imperial Stout for starters), scuzz rock movies and a DJ spinning “the best tunes to get bummed out to.”
• At City Beer, Firestone Walker owner David Walker will bring some special beers (including the brewery only "Bravo" and Pappy Van Winkle barrel-aged Velvet Merkin), paired with sweet treats from nearby Pinkies Bakery.
• Jupiter's anti-Valentines festivities will include “live blues and cask beers from several local breweries to help you either drown your sorrows or revel in your singledom.”
• Shotwell's Bar will pair Drake's Brandy Barrel Imperial Stout with TCHO Chocolate.
• Oysters paired with beer will be on the menu at Magnolia for Oyster Extravaganza, Valentines Edition. The shucking starts at 11 a.m.
• If you're single on Valentines Day, don't be bitter, as Public House marks Valentines Day with an anti-Valentine’s Day “Bitter, Sour, Single” Party. The featured beers that evening are Bear Republics Tartar Sour, Cuvee de Bubba Sour & Jack London Bitter.

Also on Tuesday, Pi Bar promises to tap many rare and limited release beers in an evening with Russian River Brewing and Green Flash Brewery from San Diego will take over the taps at Churchill on Church Street.

Mikkeler will be in the house at Amsterdam Cafe in San Francisco, with more than 25 specialties, including the Black Hole barrel-aged series...Tequila, Bourbon, Red wine, White wine and try the limited sour quadrupel Sur Monk. Also available will be the Our Side saison collaboration with Stillwater and on draft is Invasion IPA, a once-brewed beer collaboration with Drake's Brewing.

Don't stress out if you can't make all of these events, or even most of them. Sit back, enjoy your brew and remember how lucky we are to live in these fantastic beer times.

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Celebrate San Francisco Beer Week

For a lot of people, the holidays are but a fond memory. Christmas and New Years are long gone, the Super Bowl is over, the gopher saw his shadow, and Chinese New Years is winding down.

Take heart, beer lovers, the best is yet to come. Once again, it's time for San Francisco Beer Week, sponsored by the San Francisco Brewers Guild. Cynics might say that the Bay Area is awash in beer all year long, and that would be true. But Beer Week just keeps getting bigger and better with more beer, beer events and beer venues than ever.

“Beer Week,” admittedly, is a bit of a misnomer for the annual event, which takes place from Feb. 10-19. The kickoff is the Opening Celebration at the Concourse Exhibition Center on 8^th Street and Beer Week staggers to the finish line at the Toronado on Feb. 19, with the Barleywine Festival. According to the SF Beer Week site, more than 60 breweries will be pouring at the opening event. Tickets are still available.

For the next eight days, you can indulge your beer self, enjoying beer by itself, mixed in cocktails or paired with food all over the Bay Area. There are so many events to choose from that it's a good idea to have a plan. Download the free SF Beer Week app for your computer, smartphone or iPad to fill out your itinerary.

Some general guidelines:

Don't drive. Almost all of the beer venues are accessible via public transportation. The SF Beer Week app includes a map, or check out Beer By BART to locate your destination.

Drink water. Lots of it. One glass of water per beer is a good rule of thumb. Some craft beers, like double IPAs, barleywines and imperial stouts pack a wallop.

Be courteous and respectful. Venues get crowded during Beer Week and there's bound to be a little jostling and bumping. Take it in stride. You're there to enjoy yourself. And tip your servers. These people work hard to make sure you have a good time.

Also, unless you plan to spend more time traveling than enjoying beer, it's a good idea when you plan your itinerary to see what else is within walking distance or a few stops away. For instance, if you're going to an event at Pi Bar in the Mission, check out Rosamunde, which is only a couple of blocks away. If you'll be at a brewer meet and greet at Beer Revolution in Oakland, you might find something at The Trappist nearby.

A few noteworthy destinations for the opening weekend:

The Double IPA Festival at the Bistro in Hayward on Saturday, Feb. 11 will feature some 75 double IPAs, more than enough to temporarily paralyze even the most experienced beer palate. For the first time this year, triple IPAs like Pliny the Younger and Dogfish Head 120 will be judged in their own category.

Also on February 11, Beer Revolution will host three consecutive Meet the Brewer events, starting with Jef Versele of Van Steenberge in Belgium at 2, followed by Matt Wells of Lost Abbey/Port Brewing at 5 and Firestone Walker brewer Matt Brynildson at 6. Pull up a stool and fasten your seatbelt for some amazing beers.

On Sunday, Feb. 12, you can check out any number of Beer Brunches, like the Beer-Chef brunch with Bruce Paton at Barclays in Oakland, Sunday Brunch with Drakes at 21^st Amendment, Beerunch at Public House and Sunday Barbecue at La Trappe.

Also on Sunday, you can let Caltrain do the driving with Wet Your Whistles SF Beer Week Caltrain Pub Crawl. It starts at The Rose and Crown in Palo Alto and ends up at Grape & Grain in San Mateo.

Stay tuned to this blog, as well as bayareacraftbeer.com for more announcements.

And stay thirsty, my friends.

Just Can't Wait for SF Beer Week

San Francisco Beer Week seems to start earlier every year. Even though the “official” kickoff to Beer Week is the Opening Night Gala on Friday, Feb. 10, some Bay Area breweries have already jumped the gun. The first was Russian River Brewing, with the much-anticipated annual release of its triple IPA, Pliny the Younger. Even before the pub in Santa Rosa opened last Friday morning, Younger seekers were lined up for the limited-release beer.

Not to be outdone, East Bay up-and-comer Drakes Brewing held a coming out party on Saturday at its beautiful barrel house in San Leandro for its double IPA, Hopocalypse. The real star of Drakes' Hopocalypse release party, however, turned out to be the Black Label version of Hopocalypse, a triple IPA brewed along the lines of such legendary beers as Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA and Pliny the Younger. Like those well-known triple IPAs, Black Label Hopocalypse executes the delicate balancing act of overabundant hops (100 IBUs) and almost syrupy sweet malt in a potent 12.5% brew. Drakes has a winner on its hands and despite a two bottle per customer limit, all of the 22 ounce bombers (between 700 and 800 bottles) sold out on the first day. You can still find it on tap at Drakes, at least for the moment. Black Label Hopocalypse is a worthy entrant into the triple IPA pantheon and worth seeking out.

It would have been interesting to see how Black Label holds up against other triple IPAs at next week's Double IPA Festival at The Bistro in Hayward. For the first time, triple IPAs will be judged in their own category. Unfortunately Drakes didn't brew enough of this wonderful ale to pour at The Bistro, so people won't be able to compare it side by side with other triple IPAs. Black Label might not be the best triple IPA, but it can certainly hold its own in the best company.

Beer Revolution in Oakland also got a jump on SF Beer Week as it celebrated its second anniversary, with vegan chocolate cake, of course. It seems strange to think that Beer Revolution has only been around for two years; it already seems like an Oakland beer institution. Beer Revolution might already be outgrowing its downtown Oakland location, though, and the pub was bursting at the seams for its birthday party. Happy Birthday, Beer Revolution, and many happy returns.

Tomorrow we'll highlight some useful strategies for SF Beer Week. But let's be honest here. One week isn't enough for SF Beer Week. How about we just call it a fortnight?

note: updated to correct that Black Label Hopocalypse will not be poured at the Double IPA Festival and is only available at Drake's Barrel House.

A Healthy Appreciation of the Bourbon Barrel Makes for a Fine Imperial Stout

Winter is the perfect time for dark, rich, complex beers. In fact, an entire style of “winter warmer” beers is brewed especially for the winter months to get us through the long, cold nights. And when hearty beers are aged in barrels, the result can be a marriage made in beer heaven. Whiskey barrels in particular add an extra dimension to stouts and barleywines that accentuates some of their more subtle notes, like coffee and chocolate, while taming a few of the rough edges.

Healthy Spirits, a tiny boutique in the Castro, combines a love for fine bourbons with an affinity for quality craft beer. Healthy Spirits contracts with bourbon makers to make private-selection bourbons from the specific barrels that catch the fancy of the shop's staff. As part of the bargain, Healthy Spirits ends up with the empty bourbon barrel. For brewers, bourbon barrels can be worth their weight in gold, and Healthy Spirits thought it would be a good idea to use the empty barrel from its Eagle Rare single barrel bourbon to age a beer.

So Moylan's Brewing brewer Denise Jones filled the empty bourbon barrel with Moylan's Ryan Sullivan's Imperial Stout. After 10 months sitting in an Eagle Rare 10 barrel, the stout had acquired a lot of the fragrance of the bourbon barrel and a good deal of the flavor as well. The beer has that unique toffee quality that's characteristic of the finest bourbon barrel-aged stouts. It's a wonderful, dense beer to chase away the winter doldrums. Try it with a chocolate dessert over the Christmas holidays.

Healthy Spirits will release its first-ever exclusive barrel aged beer at 6 p.m. on December 16, with Denise Jones on hand to answer questions. The barrel yielded only 20 cases of 22 ounce bottles, and it's definitely worth seeking out. Bottle sales will be limited to two per customer.

Keep an eye out for more of Healthy Spirits exclusive barrel-aged beers from different California brewers in the coming months.

Healthy Spirits

2299 15^th Street

San Francisco CA

415-255-0610

Get your stout on in honor of International Stout Day

A few years ago, BBC news reported that the old advertising slogan that “Guinness Is Good for You” might actually be true. A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin reported that they tested the health-giving properties of stout against lagers by giving the ale to dogs who had narrowed arteries, similar to those in heart disease. The result: Dogs given Guinness had reduced clotting activity in their blood, but not the dogs who were given lagers (Heineken).

The researchers told a meeting of the American Heart Association that they saw the most benefits from 24 fluid ounces (just over an Imperial pint) taken at mealtimes. The antioxidant compounds in Guinness were similar to those found in some fruits and vegetables, which slow down the deposit of harmful cholesterol on the artery walls, the researchers said.

More recently, the Chicago Tribune also touted the health benefits of Guinness (and other stouts), including this pearl: “Feeling down? Have a few pints. You'd be amazed by how fast your Debbie Downer worries get chased away by a good foamy stout. And did that fellow at the end of the bar just get more attractive?”

In the 1920s, Guinness did in fact advertise that “A Guinness a day is good for you,” and post-operative patients and blood donors would be given Guinness based on the belief that it was high in iron. Guinness was forced to rescind that claim and Diageo, the company that now manufactures Guinness, said, “We never make any medical claims for our drinks.”

Regardless of whether Guinness and other stouts actually have some health benefits, there's little debate over the fact that a pint or two (in moderation, of course) just makes you feel better.

To test these theories for yourself, head over to Public House at AT&T Park on Thursday (Nov. 3) beginning at 4 p.m. and raise a glass to the opaque elixir in honor of the first International Stout Day. Public House will feature:

• Avery Czar from the cellar
• Firestone-Walker Velvet Merlin

• North Coast Old #38 on nitro

• Bottles of 2010 Firestone-Walker Parabola

• Speakeasy's Sutro Chocolate Milk Stout

• a few bottles of Stone 2010 Russian Imperial Stout

* Pictured is a beer float with Grand Teton Black Cauldron Imperial Stout and vanilla ice cream at Monk's Kettle.

Oregon's Widmer Brothers Brewing: More Than Just Hefeweizen

Oregon beer has been trickling into California for quite a while. Older beer drinkers might remember Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve years before anyone knew what “craft” beer was. That trickle has become a steady flow as the 1980s generation of Oregon craft brewers, like Widmer Brothers, Full Sail, Deschutes and Rogue, and more recently next-gen brewers Ninkasi and Upright Brewing, among others, have become commonplace in California beer stores.

Oregon--particularly the “beervana” of Portland--produces a lot of beer. Portland alone, with a population of 584,000, is home to 53 breweries and brewpubs, or a brewery for every 11,000 residents. According to the Oregon Brewers Guild, Oregon ranks second nationally to Vermont in per capita beer consumption, with a brewery for every 31,662 Oregonians (California has nearly twice as many breweries, but a lot more people). Even though 40% of the beer brewed in Oregon is consumed in the state, Oregon is clearly brewing more beer than even its 3.8 million thirsty inhabitants can swallow.

Craft brewing has come a long way since 1984, when Kurt and Rob Widmer opened their brewery in Portland, and the craft beer stakes have gone up considerably. More and more people want more flavorful beer. To keep up, first-generation craft brewers have had to expand their range of beers to appeal to more adventurous drinkers. Think about Sierra Nevada, which in addition to its iconic pale ale produces several of the more exotic brews much in favor among today's connoisseurs, like porter, stout, barleywine, extra and imperial IPA, and dubbel and saison.

For years, Widmer's trademark beer has been its hefeweizen, but as the brewery demonstrated last week at a beer/food-pairing party at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, Widmer makes a lot more than just hefeweizen. For the event, “Explore Your Craft,” co-sponsored by Draft Magazine, the Portland brewery brought along its Drifter Pale Ale, Nelson Imperial IPA, Rotator IPA: X-114, Pitch Black IPA, Citra Blond Summer Brew, Galaxy Hopped Barleywine, W'11: KGB Imperial Stout and Brrr Seasonal Winter Warmer. San Francisco was the second stop on the “Explore Your Craft” tour, after Boston (in July) and before Orlando and Seattle, in October and November, respectively.

Widmer Brothers is 40% owned by Anheuser Busch/InBev and through the Craft Brewers Alliance has stakes in Oregon brewer Redhook and Kona Brewing of Hawaii, which brews, cans and distributes its beers on the mainland (AnheuserBusch holds a 32.25% stake in CBA). Thanks to the Anheuser Busch/InBev distribution chain, Widmer has the clout to place its beer on shelves nationwide. The question is, will people drink it?

Widmer Brothers seems to be aiming for a middle ground with its beer: sufficiently flavorful to appeal to serious beer drinkers but not too extreme for relative newbies. Kurt Widmer said the Bay Area is an important market for his brewery not only because of our healthy thirst for beer, but also because of our vibrant food scene. Food/beer stations at the event showed off some interesting pairings, several of which were very good, including the imperial stout with pork ribs, ceveche with the black IPA and the Brrr winter warmer with chocolate brownies and chocolate-covered strawberries (pictured above).

Although Widmer Brothers might not appeal to the most rabid beer enthusiasts, it nonetheless makes respectable beer, and not just for newbies. If you happen to see Rotator, KGB or Brrr on the shelves of your local grocery story, give them a try. After all, Oregon can't possibly drink all of that beer.

Explore Craft Beer with Widmer at the Great American Music Hall

In conjunction with Draft Magazine, Oregon’s Widmer Brothers Brewing Company will showcase its beer, along with food, art and music, starting at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 13, at the venerable Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. “Explore Your Craft” will celebrate the artistry of brewing, cooking, visual art and live music by Buxter Hoot'n.

Widmer Brothers is one of the oldest craft brewing companies in the U.S. It was founded by brothers Kurt and Rob Widmer, who began making beer for themselves and their friends in 1979, when home brewing was legalized in Oregon. The brothers opened their brewery in Portland in 1984 and built a new 40-barrel brewing system on Russell Street in Portland in 1990. Widmer installed a bottling line capable of producing 500 bottles per minute in 1996. Widmer Brothers is perhaps best known for its American-style Hefeweizen, a cloudy wheat beer based on the German style.

Along with the flagship hefeweizen, the event at the Great American Music Hall will feature Drifter Pale Ale, Rotator IPA: X-114, Citra Blonde Summer Brew, Nelson Imperial IPA, Galaxy Hopped Barleywine and Brrrbon, as well as several exclusive special release beers.

The chef-designed, locally sourced menu made with and for Widmer’s beers will include fish and chips deep-fried in a Citra Blonde beer batter paired with Widmer’s Citra Blonde and ginger lemongrass mussels steamed in a pitch black coconut milk broth served with Pitch Black IPA.

“Explore Your Craft”

Presented by Draft Magazine and Widmer Brothers Brewing Company

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell St.

San Francisco

6 p.m.

A limited number of tickets, priced at $50, are available at ExploreYourCraft.com.

For more information, contact Tanya Pinkerton at 415-669- 9832 or Katie Holland at 205-821-0257