Brookston Beer Bulletin

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Marin Brewing Releases E.S.CHI

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Marin Brewing released their newest beer, an herbal beer made in collaboration with San Anselmo herbalist Dr. Yen-Wei Choong. He runs the Yellow Emperor Natural Healing Center and Zen Garden and has been involved with Chinese herbs all his life. For the last twenty, he’s been working on just the right combination of herbs to improve beer, and make more balanced from the perspective of Chinese medicine.

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Brewmaster Arne Johnson started with his E.S.B. as the base beer. To that, he added 38 pounds of the proprietary mix of Chinese herbs that Dr. Choong created. The nose was subtle herbs, almost gruit-like. The flavors were soft and also subtle, in a good way. The herbs were there but never overpowered the beer, and in fact the two integrated together quite well. It was smooth and easy drinking, almost like a session beer, though I believe the beer is around 5.5% a.b.v. A tasty collaboration.

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Marin Brewing owner Brendan Moylan, Dr. Yen-Wei Choong and Brewmaster Arne Johnson.

For now, the beer is draft only and will be at several events and places during SF Beer Week. They’ve submitted a label for approval, so it may be available in bottles eventually.

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Beer In Ads #34: Lone Star, Have Fun With Your Thirst

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Given that today is the 70th anniversary of Champion Brewing changing their name to Lone Star, it seemed only appropriate for Monday’s ad to be for Lone Star Beer. And it’s an odd one, in several ways. I’m guessing from the art that it was published in the late 50-early 60s. Are the couple at the beach? At night? It looks like a starry background and possibly ocean waves, but it’s awfully bright. Must be a full moon. There are a couple of humorous taglines. First, they’re “now in GLASS cans!” That’s an interesting way to market Stubbies. I knew that Stubbies were created by glass manufacturers to compete with the popularity of cans, but I hadn’t heard that so nakedly admitted in an ad before. And Lone Star claims to be the first “Certified Quality Beer,” with the footnote reading “Certified ‘As Fine A Beer As Is Brewed In The World,'” whatever that means. But the real crack-up is just how happy they seem to be with their food. The main tagline might be “have FUN with your thirst..,” but they’re looking at that sandwich and especially the hot dog way too longingly.

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Beer In Art #63: David Hatfield’s Bartender

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Today’s works of art is called the Bartender, and is by a contemporary Massachusetts artist named David Hatfield. Though most of Hatfield’s paintings are landscapes, he does do the occasional portrait, such as the Bartender, though I don’t know much about the painting apart from the fact that it was sold in July of 2007. Also, it was an oil painting and was 40 x 29.5 in. But who the model was or where, if anywhere, the bar was where it was painted remain mysteries.

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Here’s part of Hatfield’s biography from the gallery where he exhibits his work, State of the Art Gallery:

David Hatfield showed early talent, creating his first painting in 1952. He received a BFA degree from Miami University, Ohio, and began his art career as an illustrator in New York City, completing studies at the School of Visual Arts and the Arts Student League before discovering the art colony in Rockport, Massachusetts and Hoosick Falls, New York. Here he devoted himself to his own work, painting outdoors, capturing the rural towns and farms in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts; the quaint seascapes and towns of Cape Ann; and picturesque cities of Europe. His sensitive portraits are much admired.

Mr. Hatfield continually paints outdoors, even in the cold of winter, creating large and small paintings in an impressionistic style, often including figures in the compositions. He states, “I am trying to create a rich painting in which each part is interesting in itself and becomes even richer in its relationship to every other part of the painting. This is a very difficult thing to do, which accounts for history’s few masterpieces and the beauty that these paintings possess. The shapes, forms, colors and subject matter all combine to form a complex and aesthetically pleasing unit”. He exhibits his work locally at State of the Art Gallery in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

You can see more of Hatfield’s work at the State of the Art Gallery and his American Gallery.

Big News From Beer Wars

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I confess I knew it was coming, but now that it’s here, I couldn’t be more thrilled for Anat Baron and her film, Beer Wars. Starting tomorrow, February 1, the film’s reach should extend beyond the well-insulated beer community. It will then be available to watch online, on your television or gaming console thanks to a deal Ms. Baron inked with a big-time distributor.

From the press release:

How did this happen? Well this David (me) made a deal with Goliath — Warner Bros. — to distribute the film. You should know that very few independent films, let alone documentaries, ever get this far, especially without a big name like Michael Moore or major festival buzz. I am humbled and elated that this movie will be available to tens of millions of people.

But I still need your help. Just because it’s available doesn’t mean that people know anything about it. Without word-of-mouth it could just sit there without any takers. So please, tell everyone you know by forwarding this email, or posting on Facebook and/or tweeting on Twitter. We even have web banners should you want to display them on your site or blog. You’ll not only be helping this indie filmmaker, but you’ll help convince studios like Warner Bros. to continue supporting these kind of films.

I think this is great news. Whatever you thought of the film, in my experience the people who got the most out of it were the people who knew the least about the beer industry going in. This distribution deal through on-demand and for download will make it available to a wider swath of the population, and many more of the people who I think need to see it. If only a fraction of the mainstream public sees the film and is moved or motivated by it to at least sample craft beer, then it will be a great victory for better beer.

Below is the nuts and bolts of how it can be seen, starting tomorrow. Spread the word to all your non-beer geek pals.

In the U.S., Beer Wars is available to rent on demand through Digital Cable and Satellite providers Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Cablevision, Charter, Insight, Bresnan, Verizon FiOS, AT & T U-Verse, Dish Network and DirecTV. It is also available for download on iTunes, Amazon Video On Demand, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Tony Sings The Blues

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Another highlight of The Brewing Network’s Winter Brews Festival, held yesterday at Linden Street Brewery in Oakland, was the music. There were some terrific bands playing. But my favorite was, as usual, the down home blues stylings of Tony Magee, owner of Lagunitas Brewing. He taught himself to play just a few years ago and in fact his debut performance was at the Celebrator 15th Anniversary Party when we held it at the Great American Music Hall in 2003. Since then, Tony’s been getter better every time I see him play. Here he is performing a Big Bill Broonzy song, Key to the Highway.

A Rosa By Any Other Name

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One of the highlights of The Brewing Network’s Winter Brews Festival, held earlier today at Linden Street Brewery in Oakland, was Rosa, a sour beer brewed by the new Sacramento brewery, Odonata, recently started by former Sacramento Brewing’s Peter Hoey and Rick Sellers, formerly with Draft magazine. Here’s a short video of brewmaster Peter Hoey talking about Rosa.

Beer In Ads #33: Rolling Rock’s Great Minds

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Since Friday’s ad is number 33, I thought it only appropriate to feature one for Rolling Rock, since they so successfully exploited the mystery surrounding the number “33” being printed on their bottles, though the likeliest story isn’t that mysterious. This humorous ad plays on that theme with some of history’s greatest thinkers contemplating the mystery, which they call “Great Theories of ’33.'” The bottom row is Charles Darwin, Ludwig Van Beethoven and Thomas Edison. The top row is Sigmund Freud, Galileo and William Shakespeare. Also, the painting is called “Great Minds Drink Alike,” which is a pretty great name IMHO.

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Tune In Tomorrow

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If you live in the Bay Area and have nothing going on tomorrow morning (or have Tivo), I’ll be on television in the early morning to promote SF Beer Week. It will air around 8:45 during the three-hour KRON 4 Weekend Show that’s on from 7:00-10:00 a.m. The exact time will depend on how the show develops, then they’ll cut to us at a remote location. I’m told it will be a very short segment, something like 3-4 minutes during which time I’ll try to taste the host, Henry Tenenbaum, on three beers paired with cheese, sausages and ice cream. And at the same time, I’ll try to talk about what he’s sampling and also discuss SF Beer Week, too. I expect it will be a lot like juggling while riding a unicycle. Did I mention I don’t know how to juggle? Or ride a unicycle or that matter. So tune in to watch me make a fool of myself or do Bay Area beer proud. Either way, it should be good for a laugh.

UPDATE: My sister-in-law Kit made a video of the spot and I’ve uploaded it to my YouTube Channel.