Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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First Pink Boots Society Meeting Held

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The Pink Boots Society, the organization of women in beer founded by Teri Fahrendorf, held their first meeting during the recent Craft Brewers Conference on April 19. Teri used to be in charge of brewing operations for the Steelhead chain of brewpubs, but left that job to travel around the country, a journey which she documented as the Road Brewer. Around the same time, she started the Pink Boots Society to be a group of women brewers and related beer occupations that would advocate for women in the industry.

16 women brewers & cellarwomen attended the first meeting, as listed below in no particular order.

Teri Fahrendorf (Formerly Steelhead Brewery), Laura Ulrich (Stone Brewing), Jessica Gilman (Stone Brewing), Alysha Heck (Orlando Brewing), Barbara Gerovac (Red Car Brewery), Emily Thomas (Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing), Erin Glass (Formerly New Belgium, now with the Brewers Association), Hayley Meagher (Rock Bottom – Long Beach), Maribeth Raines (Great Beer Company), Michelle Lowney (Formerly Phantom Canyon, now a Consultant in Canada), Jamie Martin (Dells Brewing), Tonya Cornett (Bend Brewing), Denise Jones (Moylan’s), Laurie Wright Matthews (Island Brewing), Carol Stoudt (Stoudt Brewing), Alyson Tomlin (R & B Brewing).

A First Look at the San Diego Toronado

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The well-known Toronado bar in San Francisco is coming to San Diego … soon. Rumored for almost two years, I attended a reception Thursday afternoon at the new location currently under construction at 4026 30th Street in San Diego’s North Park. If all goes according to plan, it should be open with the next month.

Fal Allen, with San Diego Toronado owner Ian Black. Ian worked at the Toronado in San Francisco for some time before moving to San Diego.


Dave Keen, owner of the Toronado in San Francisco, was on hand and pouring Duvel for Ian and a packed house of revelers.

 

For more photos from the San Diego Toronado reception, visit the photo gallery.
 

Green Breweries On Earth Day

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Happy Earth Day everybody. This is the 39th annual celebration setting aside a day to reflect on the big blue marble that sustains us and makes every second of all our lives possible, including enjoying some wonderful beer, organic or otherwise. I did a feature earlier this year on Green Breweries called It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Green in All About Beer magazine. In addition to writing about organic beer, I packed as many stories of ways breweries are running their business in sustainable ways as would fit. But the reality is that in doing research for the article what I discovered is that the number of breweries and the numbers of ways that breweries voluntarily adopt green practices is, quite frankly, staggering. And as far as I can tell, most of them do so just because it’s the right thing to do. There are economic advantages for some sustainable decisions, but by and large they’re not necessarily the least expensive way to do things. I was really struck by this as so many places stepped up to tell me what they were doing, so many in fact that I couldn’t fit anywhere near what they told me in the article. So as Earth Day has me reflecting on this while enjoying a frosty beverage, I’m proud to be a part of one of the greenest industries around. It’s time to fire up the iPod and put on a favorite old song: The Most Beautiful World in the World, by Harry Nilsson. Please join me in drinking a toast to our Earth.

 

Portland’s FredFest To Honor Two Beer Writers

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Portland’s Fred Eckhardt is a living legend, especially in his home city, having pioneered writing about and defining beer styles with his early book on the subject, The Essentials of Beer Style, published in 1989. A couple of years ago, Portland threw Fred a surprise birthday party for his 80th — called “FredFest.” It’s become an annual event, now in its third year. And this year, the charity event will raise funds for Parkinson’s disease in honor of fellow beer legend Michael Jackson, who passed away last August.

From the press release:

More than 15 rare and unique beers created by some of Oregon’s most celebrated breweries will be on tap at FredFest 2008. The event will take place from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 10 — the actual date of Eckhardt’s 82nd birthday — at Hair of the Dog Brewing, 4509 SE 23rd Avenue in Portland.

The beer menu is still being firmed up, but brewers are promising to pony up something special for the event. The number of beers for FredFest will increase from last year, according to co-organizer and chief beer wrangler Preston Weesner. Some of the breweries that already have committed to the event include: Hair of the Dog (with a special keg of Jim 07), BridgePort, Deschutes, Widmer, Hopworks Urban Brewery, Rogue and Firestone Walker.

Attendees will be treated not only to a rare assortment of hand-selected beers, but also light fare including pastrami cured with Hair of the Dog Fred ale and a birthday cake — complete with a round of “Happy Birthday” — for Eckhardt. Cheeses, chocolate, candy and even cereal will be offered in abundance so attendees can experience some of Eckhardt’s famed beer-and-food pairings.

Cost for the event is $50 in advance and includes a souvenir glass, free ticket for a raffle of bottled specialty beers and four hours’ of sampling, sipping and story-telling with Eckhardt. Admission is limited to 200 attendees. Judging from previous years, the event is expected to sell out quickly. Tickets are available through Pay-Pal. E-mail fredfest@comcast.net to purchase tickets.

Additionally, this year, a silent auction featuring bottles of rare beers running in conjunction with FredFest, allowing Fred fans across the country to be a part of Eckhardt’s birthday and the FredFest celebration and fundraiser.

As always, proceeds from FredFest and the related online auction will go to a charity of Eckhardt’s choice. This year, Eckhardt named Parkinson’s Resources of Oregon, the local affiliate chapter of the National Parkinson Foundation, as the featured charity in memory of his longtime friend and fellow beer writer Michael Jackson, who died in 2007 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

What more could you ask for, great beer and a worthy cause.

CBC Begins In San Diego

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The Craft Brewers Conference, this year held in San Diego, officially began last Thursday — as it always does — with all the Brewers Association members assembled in a large hall for the “Welcome and Keynote Address.” During this time, they also present three awards important within the craft beer industry.

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After opening remarks from BA President Charlie Papazian, Tom Nickel gave the history of San Diego, the area’s beer community, along with tips on what to see and do in the city.

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Dr. Michael Lewis, from U.C. Davis, received one of the three awards.

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As did Vinnie Cilurzo, from Russian River Brewing.

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For more information and photos from this year’s first day of the Craft Brewers Conference, visit the photo gallery.

CBC San Diego: The Night Before

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For the second time in four years, the annual Craft Brewers Conference again descended on San Diego, California. It was an opportunity for beer people from around the world to get together and interact, learn and, of course, have a great time.

The tightknit San Diego brewing community went out of thier way to make everyone feel welcome. Tomme Arthur, from Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey, and his lovely daughter Sydney, greeted people from far and wide at the Brewers Reception hosted by Stone Brewing.

It was an opportunity for friends from around the world to see one another again, often for the first time since GABF.

 

For many more photos from the day before this year’s Craft Brewers Conference, visit the photo gallery.
 

The Midnight Raid of Paul For Beer

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While attending the annual Bay Area Firkin Festival in Berkeley a few weeks ago at Triple Rock, I was again struck by this beautiful old ad for Genesee beer in upstate New York.

It’s a great play on words, and got me thinking about the phrase it’s based on: the midnight ride of Paul Revere, which in turn was the inspiration for another beer.

Anchor’s wonderful Liberty Ale, a favorite of mine, was first released today, April 18, in 1975. This date was chosen because it was the 200th anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride, as immortalized in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem Paul Revere’s Ride, which begins:

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

Here’s how Anchor describes the beer:

A special top-fermenting ale yeast is used during fermentation and is responsible for many of Liberty Ale’s subtle flavors and characteristics. Carbonation is produced by an entirely natural process called “bunging,” which produces champagne-like bubbles. Dry-hopping (adding fresh hops to the brew during aging), imparts a unique aroma to the ale. It is a process rarely used in this country today.

As historians will tell you, the poem takes quite a few liberties with the true story, but because of it, Paul Revere is the only one of the three riders that night that is remembered. You can read an account on Wikipedia and there’s also ones on the Patriot Resource and Travel & History.

But anything that inspires so fine a beer as Liberty Ale can’t be all bad, so let’s drink a bottle or draft of Liberty Ale tonight and toast Paul Revere. Cheers.

And to add a little culture into the discussion, this is one of my favorite paintings by Grant Wood, called The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, also based on the poem. Grant Wood is best known for his iconic painting American Gothic but there are some other great works in his oeuvre.

 

The New 21-A Cans

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With any luck, the new 21st Amendment canned beer will be available by the 4th of July weekend. Initially, they’ll be test marketing the cans in all Beverages & more stores, but will also continue to be available at the brewpub. After a three-month test, assuming all goes according to plan, then they’ll be rolled out in all area stores.

 
The 21st Amendment IPA, now renamed Live Free or Die IPA.

And the Watermelon Wheat, now renamed Hell or High Watermelon.

 

Fat Tire Cans

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After the announcement of New Belgium cans, I e-mailed their P.R. person, Alicia, and they hadn’t yet gotten around to taking photos of the new cans yet. She just got the photo today and now we can all see what the new Fat Tire cans will look like.

 

Lagunitas Plants Hops in Tomales Bay

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Lagunitas Brewing of Petaluma, California, is a big exponent of local ingredients, though usually food. But now they’re trying to make a portion of the beer locally, too. Lagunitas has planted a 1/3 acre test plot in nearby Marshall, California, right on Tomales Bay. I’m not sure about the weather at that location — with fog and wind — but I certainly admire the effort. They’re planted two hop varieties, Emperor and Pathetique (really Nugget and Cascade, but Tony Magee renamed them since they’re not being grown in the Pacific Northwest — and apparently he’s a big fan of Beethoven). If all goes well, they plan on developing five acres at the same location. Obviously, this won’t meet all of their hop needs, but I think it’s great that brewers are looking to grow their own hops and take a greater ownership of what goes into their beer. Now if we can just pull out all those grapes and get hops growing again in Hopland.

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The Lagunitas Hopfields.

UPDATE 4.18: The Marin I.J., my local paper, also did a nice story on the new Lagunitas hopfield, in which they quote yours truly.