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One More SF Beer Week Video

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SFBW2010-full-400
Here’s one more video from SF Beer Week, this one by The Brewing Network shot at the Celebrator 22nd annual Anniversary Party at Trumer Brauerei in Berkeley that closed SF Beer Week. Justin Crossley and his crew from the Brewing Network set up a video camera and interviewed several of the participants in SF Beer Week, including yours truly. Thanks, Justin. You can also see his photographs from the event at his blog post.

Celebrator 2010 SFBW Wrapup from Justin Crossley on Vimeo.

For earlier SF Beer Week videos, see my previous post.

SF Beer Week Videos

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There are several videos up now from events during SF Beer Week. I heard from Steve Atkinson this morning that he has three up at his Beer Videos YouTube Channel. There are also three more at the SF Beer Week YouTube Channel. Steve Shapiro, from Beer by BART, also has a cool one up on YouTube of people on camera explaining why they love SF Beer Week. If you know of any more that are online, let me know and I’ll add a link here.

Celebrator Anniversary Party 2010

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celebrator-long
The last big event during SF Beer Week was the Celebrator Beer News 22nd Anniversary Party, which was held at Trumer Brauerei in Berkeley, California. It felt good and appropriate being back in a brewery for the event, after two years in the cavernous Marriott Convention Center. There was a great turnout, all in a celebratory mood. Over thirty breweries were pouring their finest beers for four hours on a beautiful February Sunday evening.

Lars Larson (Trumer), Homer Smith (Oak Barrel) & Shaun O'Sullivan (21st Amendment)
Lars Larson, from our hosts, Trumer Brauerei, with Homer Smith from the Oak Barrel and Shaun O’Sullivan from 21st Amendment.

It felt like a fitting end to ten days of events for what to all accounts seems like a very successful 2nd SF Beer Week. Although a lot of hard work by quite a large number of people went into the festival this year, it feel like it ran far smoother too, thanks to great work by everyone, and especially Rich Higgins, Meg Gill and Dave McLean, who spearheaded a lot of the effort this year.

Me and Tom Dalldorf
Me and Tom Dalldorf (photo by Mike Condie).

Below is a slideshow of the Celebrator anniversary party. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

Below are a few videos of random happenings at the party.

The acapella group breaks into song
One interesting impromptu phenomenon that occurred Sunday night was that I kept noticing a seemingly random number of people who had dressed more dapper than most (excluding the people in costumes). At some point in the evening, they all came together and broke into song with the Trumer brewery as a picturesque backdrop. Below is a video of one of their acapella numbers.

Late in the evening, with less than an hour to go before closing time, someone started throwing coasters high into the air and it became epidemic with almost everyone there joining in. I felt sorry for the clean-up crew, so I didn’t participate, but I did capture a few minutes of the melee on video.

Brewers Sunday Tea

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21st-amend
Here’s how 21st Amendment described their Brewers Sunday Tea:

What do Brewers do on Sunday? We drink tea. Yeah, right. Join us Sunday February 14th, from 11:30 until 3:30PM for Brewers Sunday Tea with beers from the 21st Amendment, Stone Brewing, Elysian Brewing and Dogfish Head. Fatted Calf will be serving up brats and sausages with the 21A’s infamous egg pizza. And it’s Valentine’s Day — bring a date!

Merideth, the Girl Beer Geek guarding her pizza
Merideth, with the “infamous egg pizza.”

And out back — really on the side — in the beer garden, they were serving more beers and Fatted Calf had several meat dishes, too.

Jackie Shaun
Shaun O’Sullivan channeling Jackie Chan

Below is a slideshow of the Brewers Sunday Tea at 21st Amendment. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

Lagunitas Beerlesque

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Last year, Lagunitas hosted one of the coolest events during SF Beer Week, the Beer Circus. It was a terrific event but this year because of its popularity they’re moving it to May as a stand-alone event that will be bigger than last year and also to take advantage of the better Spring weather. So instead they treated us to a mini-circus at Taps of Petaluma. Taps is less than one year old, but is already making a name for itself as one of the area’s best beer destinations. The Boiler Bar Theatre, who also had a burlesque and cabaret stage at the Beer Circus last year, brought several acts which they performed on a makeshift stage.

beerlesque

Below is a slideshow of the Lagunitas Beerlesque. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

And here are a few videos of some of the Boiler Bar acts that performed at the Lagunitas Beerlesque:

Jodi’s Eastern Accent Dance

Hobo Strip Tease

The Homebrew Chef’s Beer Dinner At Mercedes

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sean-paxton
Thursday night was the Sean Paxton — a.k.a. The Homebrew Chef — beer dinner at the Mercedes Hair of the Dog Cantina in San Francisco. A modest affair, at least in Homebrew Chef terms, it was a mere eight courses. The dinner was paired with almost all collaboration beers, from De Prouef and Firestone Walker. For that reason, it was known as the Collaboration Beer Dinner.

After the dinner, Matt & Sean
Firestone Walker brewmaster Matt Bryildson and the Homebrew Chef, Sean Paxton.

You can see each course and photos from the beer dinner below in the slideshow. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

Toronado Barley Wine Festival Results 2010

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toronado
Here are the results from the 2010 Toronado Barley Wine Festival in San Francisco:

The other beers that reached the final round were AleSmith Old Numbskull, Alpine Brewing Great, Anchor Old Foghorn, and Big Sky Old Blue Hair.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Hump Day SF Beer Week

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Wednesday was hump day for SF Beer Week, falling smack dab in the middle of the ten days. Here’s some more photos from Day 6. Below are individual slideshows from several Wednesday events during SF Beer Week. They’re best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

Day 6: Wednesday, February 10

The Bistro Cheese-Off

Barclay’s Bill Brand Tribute

Cobb’s SF Beer Week “Beer-In”

Toronado Nightcap

After Cobb’s, I went over to the Toronado for a nightcap and to see if any of the Lagunitas folks we re still there. They’re weren’t, but Gabbi Chan and Phil Lowry were still there, though about to leave. I made do with a Russian River Mortification, Vinnie’s quadrupel.

Gabbi & Phil at the Toronado
Gabbi Chan & Phil Lowry.

Drinking my nightcap of Russian River Mortification at the Toronado
Having my last beer on Wednesday night at the Toronado.

The Great Cheese-Off Of 2010

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Last night, the Bistro held its 2nd annual cheese-off, one of my favorite SF Beer Week events. Similar to last year, Bistro co-owner Vic Krajl picked four cheeses and then asked four breweries — Eel River, Mad River, Moylan’s and Sierra Nevada — to pick the beer they made that they felt was the best pairing with each cheese.

Pairing #2: Moylan's Hefe, Eel River Amber, Mad River Jamaica IPA & Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Here’s flight 2, for example, one cheese with four beers.

After choosing our favorite from each round, we handed in our scorecards and they tallied up the results to determine which pairings were the most popular. A prize was awarded to whoever correctly predicted the most popular choices. Only one person, for the second year running, chose all four most popular. While I’d argue that most popular doesn’t necessarily mean best, especially since people’s tastes and palettes vary widely, it was still a fun way to wrap up the evening and determine at least what a majority of people thought about the choices. Below is a list of each of the cheeses along with the beer pairings chosen by each brewery and then what was determined to be the most popular. The beer in bold was chosen as most popular and italics indicates my personal choice, in case you’re interested.

Cheese No. 1: Wavreumont (cow)

  1. Molyan’s: Celt’s Golden Ale
  2. Eel River: Triple Exultation
  3. Mad River: Mad Belgian Golden Ale
  4. Sierra Nevada: Kellerweis

Cheese No. 2: Petit Agour — Tomette d’Helette (sheep)

  1. Molyan’s: American Hefeweizen
  2. Eel River: Amber
  3. Mad River: Jamaica IPA
  4. Sierra Nevada: Pale Ale

Cheese No. 3: Sunlight (goat)

  1. Molyan’s: Hells’ Lager
  2. Eel River: Porter
  3. Mad River: Jamaica Red Ale
  4. Sierra Nevada: Torpedo Ale

Cheese No. 4: Bleu de Laqueuille (cow)

  1. Molyan’s: Barrel-aged/blended Kilt Lifter
  2. Eel River: IPA
  3. Mad River: John Barleycorn Barleywine 2008
  4. Sierra Nevada: Glissade Golden Bock

What’s interesting to me is that I chose all four of the beers from Mad River Brewing, and similarly last year I picked four of the five beers from a single brewery: Bear Republic. What that suggests is that while palettes do differ, we tend to be in sync with them, that is my palate was similar to whomever chose the pairings last year at Bear Republic and this year at Mad River.

Cynthia Kralj at a table w/ Bruce Paton & Denise Jones
Bistro co-owner Cynthia at one of the cheese-off tables.

Hat’s off once more to Vic and Cynthia for coming up with such a simple yet effective new way to approach cheese and beer pairings. It’s such a great way to educate yourself about cheese and beer and at the same time have an enormously fun time. I really hope to see more of this type of event in the future.

Below is a slideshow of the Bistro Cheese-Off. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

The First 4 Days Of SF Beer Week

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With four days under my belt for SF Beer Week, I’m now behind in everything except having a great time. I thought before I get even more behind that I’d share some of photos from the first few days, which in order to get up quicker are just below in their individual slideshows from Flickr. Below are individual slideshows from several events during SF Beer Week. They’re best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

Day 1: Friday, February 5

Russian River’s Release of Pliny the Younger

The Opening Gala

Day 2: Saturday, February 6

The Bistro Double IPA Festival

Day 3: Sunday, February 7

Matevaza’s Beerunch at Kelly’s Mission Rock

Beer Ice Cream from Humphry Slocombe

Meet the Brewer: The Lost Abbey at The Toronado
Dave Keene & Tomme Arthur after a night of Washoes
After the Super Bowl, I went into San Francisco to the Toronado where Tomme Arthur was pouring his Lost Abbey beers. Tomme and I ruled the Washoe boards for the better part of the night.

Day 4: Monday, February 8

Triple Rock Sour Monday Sour Fest

Meet the Brewer: Moonlight Brewing at Bobby G’s Pizzeria
Brian Hunt pouring his beer at Bobby G's
Brian Hunt of Moonlight Brewing at an event with some of his rarer beers at Bobby G’s in Berkeley.

Meet the Brewer: Valley Brewing at Barclay’s
Stave Altimari at an event at Barclay's
Stave Altimari from Valley Brewing at Barclay’s for a Meet the Brewer event.

Meet the Brewer: Rob Tod of Allagash at The Toronado
Rob Tod at the Toronado
Rob Tod from Allagash trying to stay awake at the Toronado, where he was pouring his beers Monday night.