Today is the 57th birthday of Forest Gray, co-founder and former president of Speakeasy Ales and Lagers in San Francisco. I first met Forest when Speakeasy first bottled their beer when I was the beer buyer at BevMo. For the last many years, his brewery has made some terrific beers, especially their Big Daddy I.P.A., although the brewery has a new owner and I’m not sure how Forest is spending his time these days. Join me in wishing Forest a very happy birthday.
Forest with Brian Lenzo, from Blue Palms in L.A., and Meg Gill, now “on the winning team” with Golden Road, at a Speakeasy Anniversary event several years ago.
The Speakeasy crew at the start of SF Beer Week in 2013. That’s Forest with the glowing hat. [Photo purloined from Facebook.]
Long live Big Daddy, & belated thanks to he & his fellow proprietors for letting the San Andeas Malts use their space (including the original just off of 3rd St) for meetingsin the eraly 90’s &, later, @ the current Evans St site, stashing/holding prelims for the State Comp that we ran until everyone involved forever kinda burned out & it flipped over to NCHA.