Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

  • Home
  • About
  • Editorial
  • Birthdays
  • Art & Beer

Socialize

  • Dribbble
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Powered by Genesis

Sierra Nevada’s Berkeley “Torpedo Room” To Open In November

October 1, 2013 By Jay Brooks

sierra-nevada
Sierra Nevada earlier this year announced they’d be opening in taproom in Berkeley. The new taproom, to be called “The Torpedo Room,” is apparently on track to open this November.

torpedoroom_logo

From the press release:

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. is targeting early November to open its Berkeley, Calif., space, coined the Torpedo Room. The intimate venue—whose name is inspired by the brewery’s innovative dry-hopping device, the Hop Torpedo—fits into a mixed-use building on Fourth Street between University Avenue and Addison Street. The Torpedo Room can host approximately 45 craft beer drinkers for educational tastings of unique and limited Sierra Nevada beers, as well as the occasional craft-centric event dedicated to beer science.

“Our brewers develop creative, flavorful beers at an impressive pace,” said Ken Grossman, Sierra Nevada’s founder. “They’re usually small batches, and it’s those beers folks will find in the Torpedo Room. We think it’s exciting—using rare offerings to showcase who we are and to talk about the science behind our beers. We really hope visitors take part in the dialogue.”

The Torpedo Room will feature 16 taps, and draught beer will be served in taster flights. Guests will also have the option of filling growlers to go, as well as purchasing six-packs, cases and individual specialty bottles. Light snacks will accompany beer flights, but there is not a full menu.

“West Berkeley fosters a great, progressive culture,” Grossman said, “and that includes a lot of ambitious food and drink. We’re eager to be part of the Bay Area craft scene while still staying close to our home base in Chico.”

Here’s what the building looks like now.

torpedoroom_building

And these are artist’s renderings of what it will look like when the build-out is complete, from the outside.

torpedoroom_frontleft

And here’s what the interior is expected to look like.

torpedoroom_interiorsouth

Filed Under: Breweries, News Tagged With: Bars, Bay Area, Berkeley, California

Beer In Ads #987: The Flower Seller

September 30, 2013 By Jay Brooks


Monday’s ad is for Rheingold Beer, from 1955, and features Miss Rheingold from that year, Nancy Woodruff. She’s cozying up to a bunch of blue flowers, which she’s holding against her face, with an urban flower-seller and his outdoor shop in the background. That’s quite a wide smile she’s beaming at us in her all-pink outfit, more than five years before Jackie Kennedy made pink chic.

Rheingold-1958-2

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, History

Ten Healthy Reasons To Drink Beer

September 30, 2013 By Jay Brooks

health
Today’s infographic, 10 Healthy Reasons To Drink Beer, was created by Brittany McKinnon, a graphic design student from Brooklyn, New York. The only downside is this is the largest version of the poster I could find.

10-healthy-reasons-to-drink-beer

Filed Under: Beers, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Health & Beer, Infographics

Porter’s Porter Bottling Day

September 29, 2013 By Jay Brooks

porter-icon
A few weeks ago, for my son’s 12th birthday, we brewed his first batch of homebrew and documented the day as Porter’s Porter Day. The beer was ready to be bottled last weekend, but we only got around to it yesterday. It went surprisingly smoothly.

DSCN3320
Porter having some fun while sterilizing the bottles, which Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing was kind enough to donate.

DSCN3328
Both Porter and his little sister Alice were on hand to help.

DSCN3349
Alice seemed to enjoy filling the bottles.

DSCN3344
I worked the capper, but everybody contributed to the effort.

DSCN3350
Porter kept the bottles flowing, from the drying rack to his sister.

DSCN3356
But Porter also took his turn filling bottles, too.

DSCN3357
While I was really the only one who could use the capper.

DSCN3395
Eventually, we ran out of beer and filled the final bottle.

Our yield was about 8 gallons, which filled 57 sixteen ounce bottles, which are now bottle-conditioning in the beer cellar. In a few weeks Porter and I will be on the Brewing Network’s Sunday Show and I’ll taste the results, along with the rest of the adults on the show. Fingers crossed, hopefully it won’t suck. But either way, it’s been great fun homebrewing with my son.

Filed Under: Beers, Events, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Family, Homebrewing, Personal

Beer Vs. Wine Infographic

September 29, 2013 By Jay Brooks

beer-vs-wine
Today’s infographic is a smackdown between beer and wine to discover who wins the battle royale of alcoholic beverages. It was created by Alex Hillsberg for Finances Online. The infographic itself, Beer Vs. Wine, goes through pros and cons, pluses and minuses and random factoids of each, before drawing its conclusion as to which is the superior drink.

beer-vs-wine-infographic
Click here to see the infographic full size.

Filed Under: Beers, Just For Fun Tagged With: Infographics, Wine

National Drink Beer Day

September 28, 2013 By Jay Brooks

drink-beer-day
You may have heard the news that today is “National Drink Beer Day,” a worthy addition to the canon of beer holidays, and as far as I can tell was created as recently as 2012. That’s when the National Drink Beer Day Facebook page was created, at least. Both the Facebook page and the website for National Drink Beer Day offer no insights or indeed any information whatsoever about the holiday’s origins or purpose. No matter, it seems to have captured peoples’ imagination and the day appears to have caught on. One thing I’ve learned in the 35 years that I’ve been collecting holidays is that anyone can make up a holiday, the real trick is acceptance, getting people to observe and celebrate it. But who wouldn’t want to celebrate drink beer day, something most of us already do on a daily basis the other 364 days of the year? So it’s no surprise that National Drink Beer Day and I, too, will mark the day by — wait for it — drinking a beer!

But Mental Floss had another way to observe the new holiday, and posted a fun list of 25 Amazing Facts for Drink Beer Day. You’ve probably heard many of them before, but it’s fun to see them all in one place. Pick one and drink a toast today to celebrate National Drink Beer Day.

  1. After he won the Nobel Prize, Niels Bohr was given a perpetual supply of beer piped into his house.
  2. The Code of Hammurabi decreed that bartenders who watered down beer would be executed.
  3. At the Wife Carrying World Championships, first prize is the wife’s weight in beer.
  4. A cloud near the constellation Aquila contains enough ethyl alcohol to fill 400 trillion trillion pints of beer.
  5. Coined in the early 1900s, the word “alcoholiday” means leisure time spent drinking.
  6. The builders of the Great Pyramid of Giza were paid with a daily ration of beer.
  7. During WWII, a bear named Wojtek joined the Polish army. He transported ammunition and sometimes drank beer.
  8. Fried beer won Most Creative Fried Food at the 2010 Texas State Fair.
  9. The top five states for beer consumption per capita: 1. North Dakota, 2. New Hampshire, 3. Montana, 4. South Dakota 5. Wisconsin.
  10. Germany is home to a beer pipeline. Taps in Veltsin-Arena are connected by a 5km tube of beer.
  11. Thomas Jefferson wrote parts of the Declaration of Independence in a Philadelphia tavern.
  12. Cenosillicaphobia is the fear of an empty glass.
  13. At the end of Prohibition, FDR said, “What America needs now is a drink.”
  14. Winston Churchill called the concept of Prohibition was “an affront to the whole history of mankind.”
  15. George Washington insisted his continental army be permitted a quart of beer as part of their daily rations.
  16. Oktoberfest originally started as a festival celebrating the 1810 marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig.
  17. At spas in Europe, you can literally bathe in beer as a physical and mental therapeutic treatment.
  18. In the 1990s, the Beer Lovers Party ran candidates in Belarus and Russia.
  19. J.K. Rowling invented Quidditch in a pub.
  20. Beer helped Joseph Priestly discover oxygen. He noticed gases rising from the big vats of beer at a brewery and asked to do some experiments.
  21. A Buddhist temple in the Thai countryside was built with over a million recycled beer bottles.
  22. The moon has a crater named Beer.
  23. Beer soup was a common breakfast in medieval Europe.
  24. At the start of Bavarian Beer Week in Germany, an open-air beer fountain dispenses free beer to the public.
  25. In the 1980s, a beer-drinking goat was elected mayor of Lajitas, TX.

Mental Floss also has another worthwhile beer list one telling the stories of 10 Things Created Over a Couple of Beers. Hopefully, everyone should be able to find a good reason to enjoy a beer today in those two lists.

national-drink-beer-day

Filed Under: Beers, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Holidays

Oktoberfest Facts

September 28, 2013 By Jay Brooks

oktoberfest-banner
Today’s infographic is still another poster about Oktoberfest, which began seven days ago in Munich, Germany. This one is called Oktoberfest Facts and was created by Easy Jet Holidays, a travel website.

Oktoberfest-easyJet-Holidays
CLick here to see the infographic full size.

Filed Under: Beers, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: Business, Germany, Infographics, Oktoberfest

Beer In Ads #986: Sometimes I Wonder If You Like Me For Myself … Or Just My Shape

September 27, 2013 By Jay Brooks


Friday’s ad is for Michelob, from 1968. Using the double entendre tagline “Sometimes I Wonder If You Like Me For Myself … Or Just My Shape.” Are those false eyelashes on the bottle meant to make it look more female? And is that a tear dripping down its side, or merely a bead of liquid?

michelob68bottle

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Anheuser-Busch, History

Mastering The Lagunitas Butterfly Bottle Opener, Pt. 2: Advanced Moves

September 27, 2013 By Jay Brooks

lagunitas-circle
Not sure how I missed this, but a couple of years ago Lagunitas posted a video showing techniques for Mastering The Lagunitas Butterfly Bottle Opener. Shortly thereafter, they posted a second video showing advanced techniques for using their butterfly beer opener.

Filed Under: Breweries, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: California, Humor, Northern California, Video

Oktoberfest Munich Infographic

September 27, 2013 By Jay Brooks

oktoberfest-banner
Today’s infographic is still yet another poster about Oktoberfest, which began six days ago in Munich, Germany. This one is titled simply Oktoberfest Munich and was created by Destination, a travel website. It features several factoids and then compares two other prominent Oktoberfests, one in Brazil and the other in Cincinnati.

Oktoberfest-Infographic-Large
CLick here to see the infographic full size.

Filed Under: Beers, Breweries, Events, Just For Fun Tagged With: Infographics, Oktoberfest

« Previous Page
Next Page »

Find Something

Northern California Breweries

Please consider purchasing my latest book, California Breweries North, available from Amazon, or ask for it at your local bookstore.

Recent Comments

  • Bob Paolino on Beer Birthday: Grant Johnston
  • Gambrinus on Historic Beer Birthday: A.J. Houghton
  • Ernie Dewing on Historic Beer Birthday: Charles William Bergner 
  • Steve 'Pudgy' De Rose on Historic Beer Birthday: Jacob Schmidt
  • Jay Brooks on Beer Birthday: Bill Owens

Recent Posts

  • Beer In Ads #5228: All Together For Newark April 21, 2026
  • Beer Birthday: Steve Parkes April 21, 2026
  • Beer In Ads #5227: It’s Here! Bock Beer By Bosch April 20, 2026
  • Beer Birthday: Drew Beechum April 20, 2026
  • Beer Birthday: Des De Moor April 20, 2026

BBB Archives

Feedback

Head Quarter
This site is hosted and maintained by H25Q.dev. Any questions or comments for the webmaster can be directed here.