California

Lagunitas Building New Brewery In Chicago

April 10, 2012

Sheesh, you try and do something other than sit at your computer all day, and all hell breaks loose. At least I have an excuse, sort of. My wife and I just bought another house, which we’re having some work done on before we move in, and that’s been occupying a healthy percentage of my [...]

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Beer Birthday: Steve Wagner

April 5, 2012

Today is Steve Wagner’s 54th birthday. Steve is a co-founder of Stone Brewing and the president of the California Craft Brewers Association. In the late 1980s, Steve was a member of the band “The Balancing Act,” who put out several albums on I.R.S. Records. Now he just presides over one of the most successful microbreweries. [...]

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Beer Birthday: Tom McCormick

April 5, 2012

Today is the 55th birthday of Tom McCormick, Executive Director of the California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA). Tom’s also owned and ran a distributorship and the Pro Brewer website, but has found his true calling promoting and defending small brewers in California. Tom is the most unflappable person I’ve ever met, and hands down one [...]

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My Home County Healthiest In State Despite Higher Than Average Binge Drinking

April 3, 2012

My family and I live just north of San Francisco, in Marin County. We moved here a number of years ago to be closer to my wife’s family, who live in Sonoma County. When she was working in San Francisco, Marin was in the middle of work and family, so it made sense. There’s a [...]

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Toronado Belgian Beer Dinner 2012

April 2, 2012

Yesterday, one of my favorite beer events of the year took place. The annual Toronado Belgian Beer Dinner with food by Sean Paxton, the Homebrew Chef, ran to twelve courses and was paired with 21 different Belgian and Belgian-inspired beers. Including the beers that were used as ingredients in each dish, a total of 48 [...]

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Toronado Belgian Beer Luncheon This Sunday, No Fooling

March 30, 2012

I just learned that one of my favorite beer events of the year still has a few seats left. The annual Toronado Belgian Beer Dinner — really a luncheon — or I like to call it, a Blunch, is this Sunday, April 1, and that’s no joke. The food for this always amazing beer dinner [...]

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Beer Birthday: Rich Higgins

March 29, 2012

Today is the 34th birthday of Rich Higgins, who wears many hats in the San Francisco beer scene. He recently left his job as the brewmaster at San Francisco’s Social Kitchen & Brewery, he’s also the President of the San Francisco Brewers Guild and Director of SF Beer Week. He’s currently focusing his attention on [...]

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Anchor Plaza Debuts At AT&T Park

March 29, 2012

Today was media day at AT&T Park, where the San Francisco Giants play. It’s not the kind of event I’m normally invited to, but this year is a little different. Debuting this season at the Giants’ stadium is Anchor Plaza, a new area behind the giant scoreboard where fans can find beer from Anchor Brewing, [...]

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Beer Birthday: Fraggle

March 26, 2012

Today is also Fraggle’s 45th birthday, or as he often refers to them, his 45th bornday. Fraggle, along with his wife Rebecca, own and operate the terrific Beer Revolution, their beer store in Oakland, near Jack London Square on 3rd Street. I first met Fraggle when I featured them in an article I did for [...]

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Beer Birthday: Bill Brand

March 26, 2012

Today would have been Bill Brand’s 74th birthday, if not for the tragic events of February 8, 2009. Bill, of course, was hit by a Muni Train that evening and passed away twelve days later, on February 20. He was a bastion of support for the local beer community for decades, and one of it’s [...]

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Beer Birthday: Anat Baron

March 25, 2012

Today is the birthday of filmmaker Anat Baron, whose Beer Wars movie started people writing and talking about the beer business, from all sorts of angles, two years ago, and while it’s slowed down somewhat, the discussion has yet to have completely gone away. Or as Alan from A Good Beer Blog puts it, “joined [...]

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New Albion Vintage Beer Tasting

March 23, 2012

Today I had a great experience that’s been a few months in the making. Last October, one of my newspaper columns was about the 35th anniversary of the date in 1976 when New Albion Brewery, the first modern microbrewery built from scratch, was incorporated by Jack McAuliffe. A homebrewer and beer collector in San Jose, [...]

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Anchor Video On History Of California Lager

March 19, 2012

Anchor Brewing today posted a new video about the history of California Lager, and their new Zymaster series which attempts to recreate the beer brewed by Boca Brewing in the 1870s. You can read more about that history on their blog, too, in Part 1 and Part 2.

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Beer Birthday: Joe Tucker

March 13, 2012

Today is the 44th birthday of Joe Tucker, the “Boss” — a.k.a. Executive Director — at Rate Beer. He runs the website from his Vineyard bunker in Sonoma, California. Because in the Bay Area, I run into Joe from time to time, and usually at the annual hop picking day at Moonlight Brewing. Join me [...]

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San Francisco Gordon Biersch To Move

March 13, 2012

The picturesque location on San Francisco’s Embarcadero of the former HillS Brothers Coffee building is home to the third Gordon Biersch brewpub, which opened originally in 1992. According to Inside Scoop SF, as of the end of April, that will no longer be the case. (And thanks to Pete S. for sending me the link.) [...]

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San Francisco’s Temporary Beer Gardens

March 8, 2012

The Atlantic online had an interesting post on their Cities Places Matter blog entitled San Francisco’s Temporary Beer Garden Takes Off, all about a couple of new beer gardens in the city, one of which is in a temporary space while it waits to be developed.

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