The Friday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle had a beer article about holiday beers by spririts writer Camper English, who I met at the Anchor Christmas party on Thursday. At least English’s article wasn’t an embarrasment like the Chronicle’s last beer article fiasco. He at least did a thorough job and there were no gaffes. I’d still like to see beer assignments go to beer writers wherever possible, but this does represent a leap forward for the perennially wine-obsessed newspaper. English is also the author of the book Party Like a Rockstar: Even When You’re Poor as Dirt.
CNN Money Looks at Colorado Beer
Fortune Small Business writer Christopher S. Stewart has an interesting piece on CNN Money entitled “Small Breweries, Big Beer.” In the article, he travels to Colorado for a visit with Great Divide Brewing in Denver, Oskar Blues in Lyons and finally Avery Brewing in Boulder. For the last two stops, Paul Gatza from the Brewers Association joined him. All in all, not a bad piece.
McFarland Nabs Second Writing Award
British writer Ben McFarland won the coveted “Beer Writer of the Year” award from the British Guild of Beer Writers for 2006. This is the second time he’s won this award, having also been given the honor in 2004. McFarland writes for various trade and national press in the UK, including the Publican, the Guardian and the Independent. Congratulations to Ben.
Here’s a fun piece he did for the Publican that includes a quiz to determine what kind of beer snob you are.
Urthel is Cooking in San Francisco
Save the date! Beer Chef Bruce Paton’s next beer dinner will feature brewster Hildegard van Ostaden and the Urthel beers of Brouwerij de Leyerth from Belgium. Hildegard made the first Imperial IPA in Belgium and as far as I know the first double outside of the U.S. It will be another four-course dinner, though Bruce is still working out the menu. I’ll get it up as soon as it’s available. It will be held at the Cathedral Hill Hotel on Monday, January 8, beginning with a reception at 6:30 p.m. Call 415.674.3406 for reservations. Make your reservations soon, because this dinner should fill up fast and you won’t want to miss this one. I met Bas and Hildegard in Denver a couple of years ago and they’re wonderful people, who make some very excellent beers. They’re part of a new breed of Belgian brewers who have taken some of their inspiration from their American counterparts.
Hildegard and Bas van Ostaden, owners of the Belgian-based Brouwerij de Leyerth.
1.8
Dinner with the Brewmaster: Urthel
Cathedral Hill Hotel, 1101 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, California
415.674.3406 [ website ]
Anchor Christmas Party
Earlier tonight Anchor Brewery held their annual invitation only Christmas party. As usual, it was a great time with good friends, good food and, of course, great beer. While the potato wedges were the most welcome addition to the evening’s food, the best combination was an all-meat chili made with Anchor Steam beer to which I added crumbled Maytag Blue Cheese and paired with Old Foghorn Barleywine Style Ale.
The leading lights at Anchor: Fritz Maytag, John Dannerbeck and Mark Carpenter.
Guests at Anchor’s annual Christmas party.
A self-portrait with my good friend Bruce Joseph, who does the distilling at Anchor Distilling.
Former Publican Judy Ashworth and Christian Kazakoff, head brewer from Triple Rock.
Celebrator publisher Tom Dalldorf and beer writer Angie Wagner.
Staff and writers of the Celebrator Beer News.
My beautiful, supportive and tolerant wife Sarah and me.
The lovely Jen Garris looking even more lovely than usual.
The gleaming copper kettles.
Caught enjoying the yummy frittes.
R.J. Trent, former brewer, who just opened the newest BevMo on Van Ness Boulevard and Jeremy Cowan of He’Brew, whose newest beers lately have been wonderful, especially the 10 Monumental Jewbelation and Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. (a rye-based Imperial IPA).
Braille Beer
Duesseldorf’s famous Uerige Obergärige Hausbrauerei, known more simply as Zum Uerige, makes one of the finest Altbiers in the world. And now they’re the first with another beer milestone.
Imagine if you couldn’t see the beer you were drinking. You’d have to take the word of whoever put the beer in front of you as to what it was. But now Uerige’s alt beer label will be printed in braille, allowing the blind to know exactly what bttle of beer they’ve got. In a short item by Ananova, Joanna Zimmer, an activist for the blind, was thrilled by the news. “For blind people every drink is actually a lucky dip. You often have no idea what’s about to go in your mouth. But with this bottle you are clearly told what it is — and that’s fabulous.”
As far as I know, this is the first beer for the blind. B. United imports several Uriege beers into the U.S. No word yet as to when or if the braille labels will be here in the United States.
Cooking with Beer
There’s a nice, short little article with some suggestions on cooking with beer this holiday season in today’s News Tribune from Tacoma, Washington. There’s nothing particularly new there, but it’s certainly nice to see the effort. Anything that helps spread the word of how well beer works with food is appreciated.
Costco Appeal Date Confirmed
I have now been able to confirm that the date for the Costco appeal has been moved up and will take place the week of March 5-9, 2007. I got a copy of Judges Edward Leavy and Richard R. Clifton’s order from the Washington State Liquor Control Board. The order is dated November 30 and appears to resolve several motions. Most of them are procedural, but the Appellant (Washington state and distributors) did move for partial dissmisal of the appeal, presumably a part of the original appeal they now feel they cannot win. Unfortunately the order doesn’t specify which. The biggest pieces of the order are the court denying Appellant’s motion for a stay pending appeal and the court expiditing the schedule for the appeal to be heard in March instead of waiting until May. Curiously, that change was on the court’s own motion, meaning neither side requested it. But it greatly changes the dynamics of the state legislature’s involvement.
Saint Arnold Takes on Texas
Houston Brewery Saint Arnold, named for one of the patron saints of brewing, is trying to persuade the Texas legislature to change the state laws regarding the sale of beer at breweries. Under current law, breweries cannot sell packaged beer at the very place where it’s brewed and bottled.
CEO Brock Wagner said of his intentions, “if we succeed with our law change, [we’ll be] able to sell six-packs to people when they visit the brewery.” That doesn’t seem too unreasonable, but the strangeness of alcohol laws cannot be underestimated, nor can many state’s reluctance to take any progressive steps that could be interpreted as endorsing, supporting or — gasp — encouraging adults to engage in legally permissible activities. As a result of neo-prohibitionist agitation and activism, few alcohol laws have been relaxed or modernized in recent years. It will be interesting to see if Wagner and Saint Arnold can be successful.
Costco Appeal Moved Up to March?
Miller’s BrewBlog is reporting that the Washington State Liquor Board appeal of Judge Marsha Pechman’s ruling in favor of Costco earlier this year in the Costco Case has been moved up and will take place March 3-9, 2007. But a stay she imposed was supposed to give state lawmakers until May 1, 2007 to change Washington’s beer and wine laws through new legislation, so I don’t know what that will mean to those efforts.
I can’t find the order changing the schedule at the Ninth Circuit’s website, so I can’t confirm that’s what is happening. I have a call into the state’s Liquor Board to see if I can confirm the news from them and will update this post when I hear back from them.