Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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The Party Moves to Annie’s

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The third night of celebrations for the Toronado’s 20th anniversary was held last night at Annie’s Social Club on Folsom in San Francisco. The two bands, American Dog and Broken Teeth, that played the evening before at Russian River Brewing, were on hand again to entertain the crowd at Annie’s. Dave Keene had lost his voice the evening before, too, and was very hoarse as the night. unfolded.

Annie’s Social Club was an eclectic bar with lots of personality.

American Dog, from Columbus, Ohio, went on first.

Jeremy Cowan, from He’Brew, Rob Tod, from Allgash, and Tomme Arthur, from Port Brewing and the Lost Abbey.

Tomme Arthur again, this time with Dave Hopgood and Mitch Steele, both from Stone Brewing and Jeff Bagby and his wife, also from Port Brewing. Jeff was the first person I saw when I arrived at Anchor Brewery Wednesday night. He was getting out of a cab from the airport as I parked my car, and he’s one of only a handful of hearty souls who made to every one of the Toronado celebrations so I made a point of making sure he was pictured in every post.

Broken Teeth ended the evening with another raucous set of hard driving rock and roll.
 

Russian River Celebrates Toronado’s 20th Anniversary

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Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo, who own Russian River Brewing, are great friends of Dave Keene and the Toronado. So last night they threw him one hell of a party at their brewpub in Santa Rosa. With two of Dave’s favorite bands performing, and Vinnie’s special beer he created especially for the Toronado’s 20th anniversary, it was a wonderful evening with many people from the Bay Area beer community in attendance.

It was a packed house at Russian River’s long bar.

Brewer Vinnie Cilurzo, American Dog lead singer Michael Hannon and Dave Keene.

Jeff Bagby, from Pizza Port, with Eric Rose, from the new Hollister Brewing in Goleta, near Santa Barbara.

Natalie Cilurzo, Jen Garris (Hi Mom!) and the Katherine.

Vinnie brought out some of the good stuff, like Damnation batch 09, and Supplication Batch 01, which he’s pouring here.

Drake’s brewer Melissa Myers with her “Big Daddy” Dave Keene.

The dance floor overflowed to the music of Broken Teeth.

Dave Keene was definitely having a great time at his party.

Rocking out and toasting Broken Teeth’s final number at the end of the evening.

 

Anchor Celebrates Toronado’s 20th

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Earlier tonight the folks at Anchor Brewery in San Francisco threw a little get together to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Toronado, the best beer bar in San Francisco and one of the best anywhere.

We enjoyed Anchor beers with some appetizers at the bar while we waited to sit down in the brewery for a wonderful meal.

Dave Suurballe with Anchor’s head brewer Mark Carpenter.

Drake’s brewer Melissa Myers with Jeff Bagby, freshly arrived from San Diego where he brews at Pizza Port Brewing.

Publicans three: Dave Keene (Toronado), Chris Black (Falling Rock) and Matt Bonney (Brouwer’s).

Jennifer and Dave.

 

The Brew Am 2007

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The 3rd annual Sasquatch Brew Am took place Friday morning at McMenamins Edgefield Pub Course. It was for a very worthy cause and sponsored by the Glen Hay Falconer Foundation. I also sponsored a hole again this year at the tournament.

Quentin Falconer addresses the golfers, flanked by volunteers Bob Brewer and Lisa Morrison. A portrait of Glen Falconer hangs on the tree at the left.

We listen as Quentin explains the rules.

Shaun O’Sullivan, from 21st Amendment Brewery, with Gabby and Justine — or is that Justine and Gabby? — and Motor.

The CO2 was out so we improvised and opened up the top of the keg to get the beer out. You know that old saying, “where there’s beer, there’s a way.”

Me at hole 8, which is the one I sponsored this year.

The ill-advised shotgunning of the Watermelon Wheat cans.

My fivesome after we finished our round, with a score of 5 under, from left: John, Ken, Brian, me and Shaun, along with tournament organizer Quentin Falconer.

After the tournament, we relaxed with a buffet lunch in the banquet hall, learned who won what (I won longest putt), and found out who won the many raffle items. A great tim was had by all of us. If you’re planning on being in Portland next year during OBF, you really should consider playing in the tournament.
 

UPDATE: Bob Brewer also has a nice collection of photos from the Brew Am online.

 

First Tastes of the Fest

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After the parade on Thursday was the annual media tasting led by Noel Blake. In years past it was conducted before the festival began, but because of the parade this was no longer possible. But that also meant we were crowded around all of the other early festival-goers, which happily turned out not to be as bad as I thought it might be. Noel Blake has been our host of this event as long as I can remember, and he does a great job picking out several representative beers for everyone to sample and also explains what led to his choosing those particular beers.

Noel Blake using a bullhorn so he could be heard telling us about the beer in our glass.
 

Some of the beers we sampled were the following:

Bourbon Barrel Abbey Dubbel. The original goal of OBF was to showcase beers from around the country to educate and expose local consumers to craft beer. So while most of the beer at the festival is either from Oregon or nearby states like Washington and California, there are a few from farther afield. Probably the farthest perennial exhibitor is New Jersey’s Flying Fish Brewery, which has been sending beer to the festival for countless years. This year it was their abbey dubbel aged in a bourbon barrel. Malty and nutty, with some fruity esters and only a hint of the bourbon’s alchemy it was decent lighter dubbel.
 

Not quite open yet, Hopworks Urban Brewery is the brainchild of former Laurelwood brewer Christian Ettinger. They were pouring their Organic IPA, which was made with Amarillo, Centennial and Ahtanum hops. It’s a big hop monster, thick with flowery and citrusy hop aromas and flavors that stick to the roof of your mouth. I also had a chance to visit the brewery, which is still under construction. Look for a later post with photos from the new place.
 

Laurelwood Public House was pouring their PNW Pils, a pilsner with not only traditional Saaz hops but also Brewer’s Gold. It’s so well-hopped that it may as well be a big northwest hop because it’s only reminiscent of a pilsner. Really, it was more of a pilsner on steroids.

 

The TG Triple from Terminal Gravity Brewing in Enterprise, Oregon was one of my highlights for the festival. I’m not exactly sure how to describe it, because there’s no jumping off place to begin since it’s so far from what I think of when handed something called a “triple.” Strong, but not too strong (at 8.5% abv), rich, but not too rich, light, but not too light. It certainly tastes mild for a triple, but that’s not to say it isn’t full of flavor all its own. But really, who cares what it is, what’s important is that it’s a great beer.

 

At the media tasting: Rick Sellers, from Pacific Brew News, Merideth and Chris Nelson, The Beer Geek, and Meagan Flynn (at right) with her assistant, publisher of a new magazine — Beer NW — that will debut in October covering the beer scene in the Pacific Northwest.

Tom Dalldorf, publisher of the Celebrator, Fred Eckhardt, legendary Portland beer scribe, Meagan Flynn and our host, Noel Blake.

 

Mayor Leads Parade to Open Oregon Brewers Festival

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On Thursday, the 20th annual Oregon Brewers Festival began with a brunch at the Rogue Public House on NW Flanders in Portland. Afterwards, Portland’s mayor, Tom Potter, led a parade through the streets of town to the festival grounds at Tom McCall Waterfront Park along the Willamette River.

Mayor Tom Potter with Chris Crabb as the parade begins.

Eventually, after winding through the streets of Portland, everyone massed across the street from the grounds and crossed the street to enter the festival.

The mayor tapped the ceremonial keg and shared the first pint with festival director Art Larrance, and the festival was declared officially open.

For more photos from this year’s Oregon Brewers Festival Parade, visit the photo gallery.
 

Brestfest ’07

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Saturday was the 7th annual Micro Breweries Battling Breast Cancer Brewfest (a.k.a. “Breastfest“) in the courtyard behind Marin Brewing in Larkspur, California. It’s a festival near and dear to my heart because I lost my mother to breast cancer when I was only 21 (and she was 42). It’s a small, crowded place — especially since it’s become so popular — but it’s worthy cause, as far as I’m concerned. There was a lot of good beer and friends in attendance, plus food, music and some pretty wonderful weather. All in all, a great event.

“Gabby” looking fetching in her pink hat, pouring 21st Amendment’s Watermelon Wheat.

Ken and a colleague, both sporting pink hair, from North Coast Brewing.

For more photos from this year’s Micro Breweries Battling Breast Cancer Brewfest, visit the photo gallery.
 

Bravo for the Winners

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Okay, I promise that was the last bad Bravo pun, but yesterday at Drake’s Brewing in San Leandro the 2nd annual Single Hop Festival & Washoe Tournament took place. This year, 21 breweries made an IPA using only Bravo hops, following roughly the same recipe. The recipe called for mostly 2-row malt, along with Munich and Crystal 45, though the exact malts was left to each brewery. The 21 breweries used seven different ale yeast strains and nine of them filtered the beer. Hop additions were specified in the directions, though mash and fermentation temperatures were left to each brewery.

I was asked to coordinate and lead the judging, and I took a hedonistic approach, meaning we used a standard of which beer would you buy for yourself and a friend. Since they were all IPAs, we didn’t dwell on style considerations. I divided the judges into teams of three each, and gave each group seven random beers, from which they each chose two to push forward to the final round. We were then joined by Mike Sutton, who works for S.S. Steiner (the company that developed the Bravo hop variety) and chose our three favorites from the six. Sometimes when I judge deadlocks are broken by a simple vote with the beers getting the majority of votes being declared the winner. While I understand the rationale for this method, I do not personally like to use it because it’s my feeling that all of the judges should be satisfied with the results, not just a majority. For this reason, I prefer to use more of a jury-like approach where ten angry men talk it out until all can agree with the results. This approach does tend to take longer, but I think the result is a more well-thought out decision that each judge can feel good about. This year, the winners we chose were:

  1. Bison Brewing
  2. Russian River Brewing
  3. Sonoma Coop’s

The three other beers that made it to the finals were, in no particular order, from Firehouse Brewing, Seabright and 21st Amendment. The Bravo hop proved to be far milder than last year’s Summit hop and overall made for a better-tasting beer. There did seem to be less variation, too, but also Bravo did not have bold signature aromas the way Summit did. That’s not better or worse, just different. It seems like Bravo should blend well with many other hops and should end up being a successful hop over time. Now that’s my idea of a fun afternoon. The only thing that would have made it better is if I could have played washoes.

Washoes,

Beer and Barbecue.

Shaun O’Sullivan, from 21st Amendment Brewery, James Costa, from E.J. Phair Brewing, and Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing.
 

For more photos from the Single Hop Festival, visit the photo gallery.
 

Bravo for Bravo

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July 14, from Noon to 6:00 p.m., at Drake’s Brewing in San Leandro, California you’ll have another unique opportunity to taste at least twenty beers all made with the same hop, but with different malt, yeast and water. This year’s hop will be Bravo, a new variety that was “cultivated as a result of a cross in 2000 at Golden Gate Roza Hop Ranches in Prosser, Washington.” The new hop was only patented last year, and is distributed exclusively by S.S. Steiner, who donated the hops for the beers in the festival.

Drake’s Brewing Company 2nd Annual Beer Festival and Washoes Tournament will also feature music by The No Cover Band, The Shuffle Kings, and The Doormats. Your $35 admission price includes unlimited sampling, a commemorative glass, t-shirt and an entry into the Washoe tournament. This should be a lot of fun. Perhaps I’ll see you there.

From the press release:

Drake’s is about a 15-20 minute walk from the San Leandro BART station. Buses run up and down Davis Street. Cabs are available at the BART station. We are located at the loading dock area around the back of the Wal-Mart. Hope to see you here.

 

Some photos from last year’s inaugural festival:

Drake’s brewer Rodger Davis, Dave Keene from the Toronado, Melissa Myers (also from Drake’s), James Costa from E. J. Phair, along with beer enthusiast Motor.

The Washoes Tournament underway.
 
 

Breweries Attending & Brewing the Same Hop IPA
 

  • The Beach Chalet
  • Bear Republic
  • Bison
  • Blue Frog and Grog
  • Devil’s Canyon
  • Drake’s
  • E.J. Phair
  • El Toro
  • Firehouse Grill
  • Half Moon Bay
  • Magnolia
  • Marin
  • Rubicon
  • Russian River
  • Sacramento
  • Seabright
  • Sonoma Chicken Coop
  • Stone Brewing
  • Thirsty Bear
  • Triple Rock
  • 21st Amendment
  • Valley Brewing

 
 

7.14

Single Hop Festival & Washoe Tournament (2nd annual)
Drake’s Brewing, 1933 Davis Street #177, San Leandro, California
510.562.0866 [ website ] [ directions ]
 

Weizenhammered

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Friday night was another spectacular beer dinner at the Cathedral Hill Hotel in San Francisco. This one featured the beers of German brewery, Georg Schneider & Sohn.

Beer Chef Bruce Paton looks on while Susanne Hecht, Export Manager for Schneider Weisse, talks about the brewery, its history and their wonderful beers.

The main course, Trifecta of Duck Preparations paired with one of my favorite beers, Aventinus Doppelbock. I don’t think I’d had the Aventinus Weizen-Eisbock, which was served with dessert, before and at 12% it packed quite a wallop. But it had some great complexity going for it, too, and worked quite well with the chocolate bread pudding. Also, Schnedier’s Oktoberfest beer, which they can’t call an Oktoberfest beer anymore since they no longer brew in Munich — the Schneider Wiesen Edel-Weisse — was a delight. It’s now certified organic for the U.S. market, and a very easy-drinking beer loaded with flavor.