Today was Drake’s 1st annual Beer Festival & Washoes Tournament in San Leandro. The festival involved 19 beers all made with the same hop — Summit — but with each brewery free to use whatever malt, yeast and water they wanted. Essentially, these were all single hop beers. I was fortunate enough to judge the beers and it’s certainly very interesting to see what different brewers will do with the same recipe and the same hop.

Rodger Davis, head brewer at Drake’s enjoys a pint of his own.

The judges. Clockwise from bottom left: Judy Ashworth, Bill Tarchala, me, Craig Cauwels of Schooner’s, David Hopgood of Stone, [I never did catch his name] and Paul Marshall, who ran the competition.

Brenden Dobel of Thirsty Bear, Rodger Davis from Drake’s and Arne Johnson from Marin Brewing.

Rodger Davis again, Dave Keene from the Toronado, Melissa Myers (also from Drake’s), James Costa from Moylan’s and beer enthusiast Motor.

The Washoes Tournament gets underway.

Craig Cauwels from Schooner’s and James Costa from Moylan’s.

Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River and Rich Norgrove from Bear Republic.

Alec Moss from Half Moon Bay Brewing with Vinnie Cilurzo and Dave Keene.

Christian Kazakoff and festival winner Daniel Del Grande from Bison Brewing.

Dave Keene and me.