21st Amendment’s IPA was chosen best in show at the 10th annual IPA Festival yesterday at the Bistro in Hayward, California. The full list of winners is below.
The search continues for Steve Harrison, Vice President of Sierra Nevada Brewing and one of the original employees of the northern California brewery, who was discovered missing Tuesday morning. There have been several news updates by the local Chico paper, but precious little new information. Saturday morning, the Chico Enterprise Record reported that a new team of tracking dogs was being brought in to confirm a previous group’s findings that Harrison most likely went into the river near where his car was found along the bank of the Sacramento River.
Another Chico story on Sunday reported that Saturday’s search to find Harrison was again unsuccessful and that the new team of dogs did confirm their earlier conclusions. Butte County Search and Rescue indicated that after four days of searching it is likely efforts will be scaled back somewhat in the coming days, although helicopters will continue to fly over the area and the underwater camera may also keep searching the river.
The San Francisco Chronicle has also now picked up the story, running on the SF Gate Saturday and in Sunday’s print edition.
The Chico Enterprise Record is reporting today that Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Vice-President Steve Harrison has been missing since Monday afternoon. He was last seen leaving work at the end of the day. His car was found the following morning near the bank of the Sacramento River on River Road in Chico, California. The keys to his car were apparently found several feet from the car in the dirt. There doesn’t appear to be any evidence of foul play, though police have indicated they can’t rule it out, either. Brewery workers have been helping in the search all week and understandably have canceled the 3rd annual Hops Festival which had been scheduled to take place this Sunday.
I’ve known Steve for over a decade and he’s one of the finest people in the industry. I just saw him in San Diego in June during a CSBA meeting at Stone Brewery we were both attending. I wish there was something we could do to help, as this news has really taken me aback. If you’re in the Chico area or are nearby, perhaps you could volunteer to help with the search. If you have any information, please be sure to contact the Butte County Sheriff’s Office at 530.538.7321. If nothing else, join me in sending positive thoughts his way that he’s found safe and sound as soon as possible.
UPDATE: Butte County Search and Rescue is now concluding, based upon tracking dogs brought up from Napa County, that Harrison entered the river near the spot where his car was found Tuesday. County officials have begun using an underwater camera to search the river, which in places can be as deep as twenty feet. The Oroville Mercury Register also has a follow up story.
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.
I’m up waay too early to catch a flight to Portland for the 20th annual Oregon Brewers Festival. I get in at 8 a.m. and then it’s off to the Rogue Public House for brunch before the parade to open the festival at Noon. This is probably my second favorite festival of the year. Time permitting, I’ll try to post photos from the various events surrounding the festival and the festival itself, of course, each day.
For a long time now, if you wanted to try Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.‘s anniversary ale, you had to drive to Chico and visit the brewery pub, because that was the only place it was available … until now. This year, Sierra Nevada will be offering the 27th Anniversary Ale in bottles. I’ve only been fortunate enough to be in Chico at the right time to try the beer one time, many years ago. It’s great that it will now be much more widely available.
From the press release:
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My computer crashed two days ago while running a routine update. The culprit was the hard drive, which has now been replaced. I’ve got my computer back now but I’m still waiting to see if I can get all the data off the old drive. Until then, I’m missing some files that make it possible for new posts to be created. Hopefully, posting will continue again by this afternoon or tomorrow. Thanks for your patience.
Mark your calendars, and start training your livers for a marathon, because next month, beginning August 9, a three-day celebration for the Toronado‘s 20th anniversary will take place.
First up, on Thursday August 9,a special night of music and beer will be held at Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, California. Two bands, American Dog (from Dave Keene’s home state of Ohio) and Broken Teeth (out of Austin, Texas) will perform. On tap, in addition to the usual beers, will be a special anniversary ale created by Vinnie Cilurzo for the Toronado milestone. No word yet on what time the festivities will begin, but I’ll update that information as soon as I get it.
| The following night, Friday, August 10, this time at Annie’s Social Club in San Francisco another special night of music is planned. Beginning at 9:00 p.m., Alcoholcaust and The Toronado will present the Toronado’s 20th Anniversary Party and Big Daddy Dave’s Birthday featuring Broken Teeth, American Dog and Infested. Annie’s Social Club is located at 917 Folsom Street at 5th in San Francisco. It’s a free show with no cover. |
The big finale will take place Saturday night, August 11, starting at 5:00 p.m., at the Toronado. In addition to the Russian River Anniversary Ale, Tomme Arthur from the Lost Abbey as created a special blended beer for the Toronado anniversary called “Cable Car.” Only six kegs of this beer were made, one of which will be at the Toronado Saturday evening. The remaining five will be bottled as a special release. Also on tap that night will be a special cask version of Anchor’s Porter. It should be an amazing night of beer.
I got the good news over the weekend, the Homebrew Chef, Sean Paxton, has a new apprentice. On Thursday, July 12, at 6:28 a.m., his wife gave birth to a baby girl, their first. She was 8 lbs., 1 oz., and 22 in. Her name is Olivia Rose Paxton. Join me in wishing her and her parents all the best.
Olivia Rose. She already has good taste in beer.
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:
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.