Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Triple Rock Rolls Out the Barrels

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Yesterday Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley, California held its second small beer festival, this one all barrel-aged beers. The first, on Sunday, was sour beers and I would have loved to have been at that one, but couldn’t miss the Lagunitas Beer Circus (and once I finish posting all the photos and videos from that beer circus, you’ll understand why, too). Happily, Triple Rock did have a few sour beers left over from Sunday, and I sampled as many as I could, in additional to the many barrels they had available. It was a great event, as I love small festivals that focus on one type of beer, allowing you to really taste the range within that category, be it a style or what have you. There can’t be too many niche festivals to my way of thinking. It’s the difference between a stadium concert (beer festival) and a show in an intimate club (niche festival). Which would you rather attend? Both have their place, but I almost always prefer the small affair.

Rodger Davis, brewmaster at Triple Rock, up on the rooftop patio with an assortment bottled barrel-aged beers.

Tom Dalldorf, Celebrator Beer News publisher, did attend the sour tasting on Sunday, and was kind enough to share a few snapshots.

Sunday at Triple Rock, tasting sour beers.

Pete Slosberg and Justin Crossley having a friendly sour discussion. Justin runs The Brewing Network, and did a great report about the opening events of SF Beer Week that includes a podcast of my opening toast at Anchor Brewer and an interview with me and Vic Krajl of The Bistro.

 

East vs. West Slam Dinner

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It was an evening of music, poetry, rapping and fun topped off with great food and beer at the “Wanna Git My Eastern Peanut Butter In Yer Western Chocolate” beer dinner, a.k.a. an East vs. West Slam with Dogfish Head and 21st Amendment. In between five courses, Sam Calagione and Shaun O’Sullivan took turns humorously dissing each others’ coast and the beers from each. I’m kicking myself that none of us recorded any of it on video. It was hilarious. A great evening of merriment.
 

Sam Calagione, dressed as a west coaster and Shaun O’Sullivan trying to look respectfully eastern.

 

For more photos from the East vs. West Slam Dinner with San Calagione and Shaun O’Sullivan, visit the photo gallery.
 

Moylan’s Whisky! Beer! Cheese! Chocolate!

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Moylan’s Monday definitely was, as they described it, “a beer and a shot kind of afternoon” at Noonan’s Bar & Grill in Larkspur, California.

Come meet Brendan Moylan and Denise Jones of Moylan’s Brewing Company for a taste of the finest. Noonan’s is the definitive destination west of the Mississippi River for the world’s most distinguished whiskeys. Over 300 whiskeys are displayed ranging from the traditional to the rare, featuring Irish, Canadian, American, Rye, Bourbon and Micro-Distilled favorites. The 80 foot bar features the craft brewed beers from Moylan’s Brewery and Marin Brewing Company, as well as an extensive wine collection. Join us as we celebrate SF Beer Week at Noonan’s with fine whiskey, spectacular Moylan’s beer, delicious cheese and delectable chocolate.

What a fun, laidback event. Considering it was a Monday afternoon, it was especially gratifying to see the bar fill up. Moylan and Jones poured beer and whisky samples, and passed around large plates filled with delicious samples of local cheeses and chocolates, all made in Marin County.

Denise and Brendan tending to us and making sure our glasses had something tasty to try in them.

Brendan Moylan two-fisting two of life’s greatest pleasures; beer and whisky.

 

Bill Brand’s Condition Stable

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I got a brief note from Daryl Brand, Bill’s wife, who let me know this morning that the doctors have told her that Bill is in stable condition, which is very good news. She’s promised to post updates on Bill’s Facebook page as she learns more.

Let’s all continue to send our best wishes and prayers for Bill’s recovery.

UPDATE: Found out the following from a reporter friend (thanks again, Brent) who heard back from a colleague at the Contra Costa Times. Bill has apparently had surgery to relieve pressure in his brain. He has a broken bone in his neck but no others were broken. His lungs are struggling, still somewhat critical I’m afraid, but he’s stable all the same.

 

Bill Brand Hit By Muni Train

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A reporter friend (thanks Brent) just sent me this terrible news. Bill Brand, longtime Bay Area beer writer and reporter with the Oakland Tribune, was critically injured last night when he was struck by a Muni train near Pac Bell Park south of 21st Amendment in San Francisco where he had just left to catch a ride to BART. The following information was posted on his Bottoms Up column in the Oakland Tribune.

Bill Brand was in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital after he was hit about 9:10 p.m. Sunday, family members said.

He was was walking near Second and King streets when an N-Judah train struck him, according to the San Francisco Municipal Railway.

In his career with the Tribune, Brand covered a host of topics for the newspaper, including crime and science. After leaving the paper in July, he continued to write a regular beer column titled “What’s on Tap” and contribute to the Bottoms Up blog.

At Bottoms Up, they’re asking to hear from “blogging buddies, commenters and community members in the comments section so they “can pass your best wishes as soon as we’re able to share them.” Let’s do our part to inundate him well wishes.

Bill is a terrific person and an asset to the Bay Area’s beer community, a tireless champion. I’ve been with him at events three out of the last four days, so I can hardly believe this news. With everyone here in the Bay Area for SF Beer Week, let’s all stop for a moment tonight, say at 7:00 p.m. and drink a toast to Bill and especially for a speedy recovery.

UPDATE: I got a call from Jesse Friedman of Beer & Nosh, who sat with Bill last night a dinner. By coincidence, he lies near the hospital and stopped by to see Bill and find out how he was doing. Jesse spoke to Bill’s wife and Bill is in a coma and his prognosis is not known at this time. As I learn more details, I’ll add them here.

UPDATE 2: Shaun O’Sullivan told me as Bill was leaving the 21st Amendment, he paused at the front door to dial a number on his mobile phone, then stepping into the night, turning left. He most likely called his wife, Daryl, s several reports indicate that, such as the following by Robert Salonga in the San Jose Mercury. “I spoke to his wife, and it sounds like he was on the phone with her just before the accident,” Dean Taylor [of the SF Police Dept.] said. “The train’s driver saw him, and he appeared to walk onto the track, where he was struck by the first eighth of the train, the part up front where passengers get on.”

Brand was knocked into a nearby pole by the impact, Taylor said.

 

Rob Tod Rocks The Trappist

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After the Double IPA Festival on Saturday, I stopped by The Trappist in Oakland to see Rob Tod from Allagash, who had flown in from Maine a few hours before. We got a call from him when he touched down while we judging at the festival. The week before, while attending a charity event and schlepping some kegs, Rob slipped on the ice and two full kegs smacked together on his hand, breaking three fingers, dislocating two, and flattening his wedding ring. He saved the ring with a pliers — now that’s love! I figured if he could endure all that and still fly in for SF Beer Week, the least I could do was drive a few miles to see him. He was in surprisingly good spirits, but that might easily have been his terrific beers showing their medicinal uses. I finally had a chance to try the collaboration beer, Fedeltá, that he made with the brewers from De Struise. After a day of Double IPAs, it was a welcome change, and quite delicious.

No two-fisted drinking for 6-8 weeks.

 

Beer in Art #14: The Tibetan Barley Beer Song

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I’ve been trying to present a mix of old master and contemporary art featuring beer. If art is a reflection of real life, then beer should — and is — as much a part of art as any other aspect of our lives. That beer is also an art and craft all its own I think magnifies its importance, because it then becomes art reflecting art. Today’s painting is by a Tibetan artist by the name of Zhungde. The painting is titled “Barley Beer Song,” and depicts three women engaged it what appears to be some sort of ritual.

 

The painting was completed in 2001 and is 100 x 100 cm (or about 40 x 40 in.), making it not too large. That’s really all I know about it.

As for beer in Tibet, it’s traditionally an unhopped barley beer known as Chhaang, or more often simply Chang.

From Wikipedia:

Barley, millet (finger-millet) or rice is used to brew the drink. Semi-fermented seeds of millet are served, stuffed in a barrel of bamboo called the Dhungro. Then boiling water is poured and sipped through a narrow bore bamboo pipe called the Pipsing.

When the boiled barley has gone cold, some yeast or dried barm is added and it is left to stand for 2 or 3 days when fermentation begins when it is called glum. The barm consists of flour and, in Balti, at least, often has ginger and aconite added to it. After fermentation is complete, some water is added to it and is then ready for use.

“If proper care is taken (and the people of Ü and Ladakh generally do so), the pale beer, thus obtained, is not amiss, and sparkles a good deal, but not being hopped it does not keep long.”

In Lahaul and some other places the glum is pressed out by hand instead of by filtering, making quite a cloudy drink. The residue of malt can be pressed through a strainer and then mixed with water or milk and used instead of barm in baking bread or cakes.

Near Mt. Everest chaang is made by passing hot water through the fermenting barley, and is then served in a big pot and drunk through a wooden straw.

In Nepal, it is called tongba by the Limbus. There is another term called jand which refers to the turbid liquor obtained by leaching out the extract with water from the fermented mash. Unlike chhang or tongba, it is liberally served in large mugs. These alcoholic beverages are prepared by using traditional starter called murcha. Murcha is prepared by using yeast and mold flora of wild herbs in cereal flours.

The brew tastes like ale. Alcohol content is quite low, but it produces an intense feeling of heat and well-being, ideal for enduring the temperatures which go well below freezing in winter.

Most accounts say that’s it’s aromatic, sweet and low in alcohol. Singing and drinking seems to figure quite prominently in Tibetan culture and is a fixture in virtually all holidays and celebrations.

Here are the lyrics to just one of their folk songs sung in celebrations.

May you have long life,
may the house be filled with grain,
May you have the good fortune
to make use of this abundance.

The China Tibet Tourism Board adds an interesting tidbit about drinking customs in Tibet:

As a guest, one should use the third finger of the right hand to dip into beer or wine three times and flick it up to the sky to show the respect to heaven, the earth and the older generations. When the host serves the wine or beer, after the three dips, drink a little, the host will fill up your glass and do like this three times, the fourth time is bottoms up if you are able.

So it seems clear that Zhungde is reflecting an important aspect of Tibetan life, and how beer figures into it. Knowing now about Chang, one assumes that the three women are singing in celebration and enjoying the barley beer as a part of that celebration.

From Zhungde’s biography at Gendun Choephel Artists’ Guild:

In my childhood, there were some odd pictures always emerging in my dreams, I do not remember the concrete contents of the dream, but visible or invisible appearance of these forms always entwine with my soul together, often making me fidgety. Later one day I unintentionally drew a few sketches and my heart started to feel calm, and had an indescribable pleasant feeling, then I took the paintbrushes and another world was discovered.

I do not understand what is art, and do not want to understand, and I feel only to paint, and this lets me feel happy, and I paint to pursue a simple, innocent life. Emphasizing this kind of emotion, I paint in fact to examine my own heart, pacify my uneasy emotion. I and the canvas rightly meet each other in the process of seeing one’s soul. If I can’t paint, life seems to be pale and meaningless, because painting has already constituted my life and it has become indispensably part of myself.

Regardless of any circumstances, I would continue to paint for ever.

There’s precious little additional information about Zhungde and only one more painting at his Artist’s Main Page, called Sisters and Peaceful Wind gallery has a third Zhungde painting, Crowded Train.

 

The Lagunitas Circus Comes To Town

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At the Lagunitas Beer Circus, here’s some preliminary pictures of the wildest event of SF Beer Week. More photos to follow soon.

 

A giant tent, nearly a city block long, was erected next to the Lagunitas Brewery.

Pat Mace (at right) from Lagunitas Brewery and Paul Stokeld, the owner of Santa Rosa’s Toad in the Hole Pub.

One of the beer and food areas behind the Boil Theatre stage at one end of the tent, before the circus began.

At the other end of the tent, the first musical act did a soundcheck.

Out front at the entrance, a snailmobile.

Captain Crunch (whose name mysteriously changed later in the evening to Captain Chronic) with one of the Boil Theatre performers and a bewildered-looking passerby.

Part of the brewery itself was roped off and had all manner of curiosities and oddities on display, such as this stuffed Jackalope.

 

Continue on to Freaks and Beer Geeks

 

The 9th Annual Bistro Double IPA Festival

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The 9th annual Bistro Double IPA Festival, and the first major event of SF Beer Week, got underway Saturday morning in beautiful downtown Hayward. It was a gorgeous February day, cool, not cold, but with a bright, warming sun. Owners Vic and Cynthia Kralj finally persuaded the city to let them takeover a larger portion of the street for the festival. The additional space was a wonderful addition as it made getting around and navigating to your next beer far less crowded. But even with the extra space, the Bistro was full of people by early afternoon, with somewhere between 25-50% more attendance over last year.
 

Even with considerably more space, this year’s Double IPA Festival was a well-attended affair.

Russian River’s Vinnie Cilurzo with Melissa Myers, the Bay Area’s best brewer without her own brewery.

 

For more photos from this year’s Double IPA Festival, visit the photo gallery.
 

Anchor’s OBA & SF Beer Week Launch

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Friday night Anchor was kind enough to host an event to officially kick-off SF Beer Week. It was a chance for all the people who made SF Beer Week to get together — the organizers, the brewers, the bar owners, the chefs and restaurant owners, the volunteers and the media. It was also an opportunity for Anchor to share their latest creation, a spectacular new beer that they debuted for the local beer community.

Available only in magnums, and very limited — only 100 cases — that will be sold only at the brewery, for $30 per bottle.

The OBA, or “Our Barrel Ale,” a nod to their Christmas beer, “Our Special Ale,” is a blended beer using three of their beers. Though not revealed, I’m guessing their Porter, Liberty Ale and Old Foghorn.

We had a pretty good turnout to enjoy Anchor’s hospitality.

They opened four cases of OBA and poured everyone there a small sample of it.

Which took some time for everyone to get a taste.

Then Fritz Maytag talked about the beer and how it came to be. Originally he was not in favor of it, but eventually saw it was a good way to use their old whisky rye barrels. Three of their beers were aged in their own used barrels for six months and then blended into the beer they dubbed Our Barrel Ale.

Then, using Anchor’s OBA, I gave a toast to officially launch SF Beer Week and we drank to a successful week of events. Here, the organizers of SF Beer Week pose with Fritz Maytag after the toast. From left: Tom Dalldorf (Celebrator Beer News), Dave McLean (Magnolia), Bruce Paton (The Beer Chef), Fritz Maytag (Anchor), Shaun O’Sullivan (2st Amendment) and me (Brookston Beer Bulletin). Behind us, from the left, is Steve Bruce from the Toronado who was there on behalf of Dave Keene, who was unable to be there, and Dean James, also from Magnolia, who took over web duties and kept the schedule updated.

This was the toast I wrote and gave:

To San Francisco, where beer flourished with the gold

To Gold, the beautiful golden color of beer

To Beer, its art and craft whose soul we celebrate

To Celebrating, the reason we’re all together

To Togetherness, the hallmark of the Beer Community

To Community, which is who made SF Beer Week

To SF Beer Week —

Raise Your Glass To the Start of SF Beer Week 2009

And so it begins …