Reviews

Utopias 2009

November 23, 2009

On Thursday of last week, Boston Beer brewer Bert Boyce was in town o the last leg of a three-city tour of California to introduce the 2009 edition of Samuel Adams‘ Utopias. Boyce is originally from California, and I first met him while he was working at Drakes in San Leandro a several years ago. [...]

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Monk’s Blood Dinner

November 19, 2009

Monday night a beer dinner was held at the 21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant in San Francisco to celebrate the release of their newest beer in a can, Monk’s Blood, the first in a new series they’ve dubbed the “Insurrection Series.” The cans themselves will be out in four-packs in about two weeks. Here’s what [...]

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First Bay Area Holiday Fest A Good Start

November 18, 2009

Last Sunday, my old company, Beverages & more, where once upon a time I was the beer buyer for almost five years, hosted the first holiday beer fest in the Bay Area. Dubbed the BevMo Holiday Beerfest, it was organized by local beer festival promoter Jeff Moses, who also does the Monterey Beer Festival, among [...]

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Top 5 Beer Cities & America’s Best Beers

October 6, 2009

Men’s Journal yesterday released their annual lists of beer, both America’s Best Beers and The Top Five Beer Towns in the U.S.. Let’s look at the top five cities first. San Diego New York City Portland Philadelphia Chicago It’s nice to see San Diego get some much-deserved love. While I think New York has improved [...]

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Longshot Judging

June 13, 2009

On Wednesday I flew to Boston to judge the finals of the Longshot American Homebrew Contest. This is the third year for the new contest, which Samuel Adams also did in the mid-1990s in a slightly different format. But the idea is the same. Homebrewers submit their beer, which is judged in regional competitions. The [...]

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Traditional Anchor Christmas Ale Day

November 24, 2008

Every year since 1975 the brewers at Anchor Brewery have brewed a distinctive and unique Christmas Ale, which is now available from early November to mid-January. From Anchor’s website: The Ale’s recipe is different every year—as is the tree on the label—but the intent with which we offer it remains the same: joy and celebration [...]

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World’s First All-Rye Beer

January 23, 2008

Most rye beers that I’m aware of use only around 10-20% rye with the rest being the more traditional barley. I’ve always liked that little something that rye adds to the beer and was in heaven over ten years ago during that year or so when it seemed like almost everybody was making a rye [...]

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More on Blogging Ethics

October 7, 2007

I was away this weekend at the Northern California Homebrewers Festival and — gasp — had no internet access for two whole days. As a result I missed the Wall Street Journal article about ethics among food bloggers that ran in Saturday’s paper entitled The Price of a Four-Star Rating. Luckily, more than a few [...]

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Session #7: The Brew Zoo

September 8, 2007

This month’s Session, hosted by Rick Lyke at Lyke2Drink, is another clever one. The theme is the Brew Zoo, meaning beers with animal names or labels, of which the beer world is replete with examples. Today was my son Porter’s birthday party (his actual day is Monday) and so I wasn’t able to blog yesterday [...]

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Session #3: The Mysterious Misunderstood Mild

May 4, 2007

I was thrilled to discover that Dave McLean from San Francisco’s Magnolia Pub & Brewery not only had a mild, but had one on cask available at the pub. He put it on Monday so I was hoping it would still be there when I arrived Thursday afternoon. Happily, when I arrived I found both [...]

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American Brew on A&E Tonight

April 7, 2007

Tonight on the A&E cable network, they’re airing Roger Sherman’s documentary, The American Brew. The first showing is at 10:00 p.m. (Eastern and Pacific)/9 Central and Mt. and then again on Sunday, April 8 at 2:00 a.m./1 Central/Mt. I was fortunate enough to get an advance rough cut of the film a little while ago, [...]

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Session #2: Dubbel Your Pleasure

April 6, 2007

For our second session of Beer Blogging Friday I went a little farther from home and chose an old favorite, Westmalle Dubbel. Dubbel, of course, doesn’t mean the beer is double anything, but merely that it’s stronger than the single and not as strong as the tripel. It’s all relative, meaning the strength of dubbels [...]

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The Blogging Debate

March 26, 2007

Tomme Arthur from Port Brewing sent me, and a few other brewers, a link to a San Francisco Chronicle article entitled “Food bloggers dish up plates of spicy criticism, Formerly formal discipline of reviewing becomes a free-for-all for online amateurs” by staff writers Stacy Finz and Justin Berton. Now given the internet’s erosion of traditional [...]

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Session #1: Not Your Father’s Stout

March 2, 2007

For our first session of Beer Blogging Friday I chose an old local favorite, San Quentin’s Breakout Stout from Marin Brewing. I must confess that it’s been at least several years since I’d tasted it and, as such, was looking very forward to finding out how much it had changed or I had changed in [...]

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Playboy Uncovers Beer

January 30, 2007

The February edition of Playboy magazine includes an article called Brew Romance, in which a distinguished panel of fourteen chose their favorite bottled beers in several categories. The article then recounts the results. Here are their top ten choices: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale Victory Prima Pils Ommegang Abbey Ale Anderson Valley Boont Amber Sierra Nevada [...]

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Strong Beer Month Coming

January 17, 2007

Beginning on February 1, 21st Amendment Brewery and Magnolia Pub & Brewery, both in San Francisco, will team up again to host their fifth annual Strong Beer Month. Each brewpub will create five new and different seasonal beers — and if you haven’t figured it out yet, they’ll all be strong — that will be [...]

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