The 19th annual holiday beer tasting at Pacific Coast Brewing in Oakland is this Saturday from Noon to 4:00 p.m. Sad to say, I’ve never managed to make it to this one but everybody tells me it’s a great event.
12.8
Pacific Coast Brewing’s Taste of Holiday Beers (19th annual)
Pacific Coast Brewing, 906 Washington Street, Oakland, California
510.836.2739 [ website ]
After the great success of Noonan’s last beer dinner featuring Arne Johnson’s beers from Marin Brewing, they’re hosting another one, this time featuring Denise Jone’s beers from Moylan’s Brewing from my hometown of Novato. It will be a four-course dinner and should be well worth the $79 price of admission. It will be held at the Noonan’s Bar & Grill in Larkspur (across from the ferry landing) on Thursday, November 15, 2007, beginning with a reception at 7:00 p.m. Call 415.342.1592 for more information and reservations.
Reception: 7:00 PM
Northern California Artisan Cheese Plate, including Vella Farms Daisy Cheddar, Laura Chenel Chevre, Point Reyes Blue and Joe Matos St. George
Beer: Moylan’s Brewery Celts Golden Ale and Moylan’s Brewery Dragoons Irish Stout
Dinner: 7:30 PM
First Course
Seared Sesame Crusted Ahi Tuna with frisee, red onion, soy ginger viniagrette
Beer: Moylan’s Brewery White Christmas Witbier
Second Course:
Autumn Vegetable Soup with huajillo chile broth
Beer: Moylan’s Brewery Moylander Double IPA and Pomegranate Wheat Ale Granita
Third Course:
Roasted Niman Ranch Pork Roulade with pignoli & wild mushroom stuffing, red cabbage, potato pancake, sweet onion white wine reduction
Beer: Moylan’s Brewery “Moylanfest” Oktoberfest Marzen
Fourth Course:
Granny Smith Apple & Triple Cream Brie Turnover with port candied cranberries & fig chutney garnish
Beer: A trio of Moylan’s Brewery barrel aged beers: Old Blarney Barleywine, Ryan Sullivan’s Imperial Stout and Hopsickle Imperial Ale
Denise Jones behind the bar at Moylan’s.
11.15
Moylan’s Brewing Beer Dinner with Denise Jones
Noonan’s Bar and Grill, 2233 Larkspur Landing Circle, Larkspur, California
415.342.1592 [ event website ]
Thursday night in Marin was delicious, with Brendan Moylan’s newest venture, Noonan’s Bar & Grill, which like Marin Brewing is also located at Larkspur Landing in Larkspur, hosting a beer dinner conceived by head brewer Arne Johnson. Arne put the menu and the pairing together, working with Noonan’s chef Jose Flores.
Arne Johnson sporting his four gold medals won the previous week at the Great American Beer Festival with Brendan Moylan, owner of Marin Brewing.
All of Arne’s pairings were good, but none worked quite as well as his dry, chocolately Pt. Reyes Porter with the pork mole empañadas with fresh cotija cheese.
Brendan Moylan with chef Jose Flores, explaining how he prepared some of the dishes.
The main course; Petaluma duck breast with pale ale braised beet greens, sage & queso fresco polenta and ancho chili orange sauce paired with Arne’s Imperial IPA, White Knuckle. The big hop beer did a great job of stripping the heat from the dish, which is great because I’m a hot spice wuss.
Rodger Davis, formerly of Drake’s, Beer Chef Bruce Paton and Arne Johnson.
After the dinner, Arne opened some special bottles from his personal stash.
It’s definitely beer dinner season, and that’s a very good thing. The next one in the Bay Area will feature Arne Johnson’s beers from Marin Brewing Co.. It will be a four-course dinner and should be well worth the $69 price of admission. It will be held at the Noonan’s Bar & Grill in Larkspur (across from the ferry landing) on Thursday, October 18, 2007, beginning with a reception at 7:00 p.m. Call 415.342.1592 for more information and reservations. I’ll see you there.
Reception: 7:00 PM
A Trio of Tostada: Nopalitos, Mixed Seafood Ceviche, Beef Salpicon
Beer: Mt. Tam Pale Ale
Dinner: 7:30 PM
First Course
Avocado/Cabbage Salad with margarita marinated prawns and citrus vinaigrette
Beer: Tiburon Blonde
Second Course:
Pork Mole Empañadas with fresh cotija cheese
Beer: Pt. Reyes Porter
Third Course:
Petaluma Duck Breast with Pale Ale braised beet greens, sage & queso fresco polenta and ancho chili orange sauce
Beer: White Knuckle
Fourth Course:
Oàxaca Molten Chocolate Cake, served ala mode with coconut ice cream
Beer: Barrel Aged Quad
Arne and me at another Brewer’s Dinner, this one at last year’s GABF.
10.18
Marin Brewing Beer Dinner with Arne Johnson
Noonan’s Bar and Grill, 2233 Larkspur Landing Circle, Larkspur, California
415.342.1592 [ event website ]
The tagline from one of my favorite graphic novels, The Watchmen by Alan Moore, is “Who Watches the Watchmen,” which itself is taken from one of the Roman writer Juvenal’s Satires. The notion of who keeps honest the people entrusted to keep people honest is as relevant today — and possibly more so — as it was in First Century Rome when Juvenal first penned the phrase. With blogs this is done quite simply, with the blogosphere policing itself, in effect, as we endlessly comment on one another’s work. This often leads to a healthy exchange of ideas and is personally one of my favorite aspects of writing online.
Back in July, I picked up on a item from the Oakland Tribune in which staff food writer Steve Dulas wrote about making pancakes with Olympia Beer, insisting it must be Oly or nothing. I didn’t think it would make much of a difference, and said so in my own post about Oly Pancakes.
Over at SF Weekly there’s a regular blog called The Snitch written by Joe Eskenazi and at the same time he also questioned the Oly mandate and tried making the pancakes using different beers for comparison. At the time I wrote my post, I commented on both the original piece from the Oakland Tribune along with The Snitch’s take. As what goes around, comes around, the Snitch today made my critique the story of the day.
In Joe’s original take on this story, he felt that Arthur Guinness would roll over in his grave should anyone have the temerity to try using his Irish stout for making pancakes. I took exception to that and this time around The Snitch tried making pancakes with Guinness, just to see if Artie’s ghost would indeed haunt him, and the results are as funny as they are illuminating. I just love the circular nature of the internet, it reminds of … well, pancakes. Well done, Joe, now I’m hungry again.
Last year I wrote that Tony Magee, the iconoclastic owner/brewer of Lagunitas Brewing has been a big Frank Zappa fan most of his life. That’s still true and he’s kept his promise to keep releasing Frank Zappa beers as the anniversaries of each album comes to pass. First it was Freak Out and now Lagunitas has released Kill Ugly Radio, which was apparently the name Zappa wanted to call his second album. The record company said no, and instead it was known as Absolutely Free. The new beer was also made with the permission of Zappa’s widow, Gail Zappa (who runs the Zappa Family Trust). Like the last one, the label uses artwork from the album.
When the Celebrator panel tried it for the New Releases section of the latest issue, here’s what we thought of the beer:
Like a cacophony of Zappa’s music, there’s a lot going on in this beer. In some ways it’s a bit like a saison on steroids with the peppery, zesty spices you’d expect, but with a very big hop presence. Perhaps a little unbalanced, but then so was Zappa. Again, like Zappa, it’s big and eccentric with a lot of tangents of flavors, in the end a fitting tribute. Highly Recommended for fans, merely Recommended for people who don’t get Zappa.
Click on the label for a larger view.
A few weeks ago while helping Moonlight with their hop harvest, owner/brewer Brian Hunt broke out something I’d never seen before: hop tea. Now I’ve seen regular hop tea before, I’ve even bought some at the health food store and tried it, but this was something totally different. Brian told me the idea grew out of an experiment he was doing to see how hops reacted at different temperatures, which he presented at “Hop School” a few years ago. He discovered in the process that he could make a delicious hop tea and that it varied widely depending on the temperature of the water. Here’s how it works:
There appears to be four main factors that change depending on the temperature of the water. These are:
Intrigued by all of this and quite curious, Brian brought out seven examples of his hop tea made with water of different temperatures: 60°, 120°, 130°, 140°, 160°, 180° and 185°. They’re shown above from lower to higher temperature, left to right.
As you can see, the lower the temperature, the more green the hops are and the water remains less cloudy. At the higher temperatures, the hops are stripped of their green, becoming brown, and the water also becomes more brown. Also, as the temperature increases, the hops lose their buoyancy and begin to sink in the water. Although you can’t see it in the photo, the hotter the water, the more hop bitterness and at the upper range, tannins begin to emerge. Here’s what I found:
Trying each of the tea samples with Tim Clifford, who writes for Northwest Brewing News.
Brian was kind enough to let me take a small bag of fresh hops with me so I could recreate his experiment at home. I had enough for four samples and made tea at 100°, 140° and 160°. Using two dozen hop cones made the jars look light so I used three-dozen in the last jar, also using 160° water. I tasted them with my wife, hoping to get a civilian opinion, too. Here’s what we found:
It seems like either 140° or 160° is the right temperature. Lower than that and you don’t get enough hop character (I’m sure that’s why the hops remain green) but above that the tannins become too pronounced. It appears you have to already like big hop flavor or you’ll hate hop tea. I found it pretty enjoyable and even refreshing though it’s still probably best in small amounts. You do seem to catch a little buzz off of it, which doesn’t hurt. I’m sure the amount of hops is important and more research may be needed on that front. Brian tells me that hop pellets can also be used though I doubt the jar of tea looks as attractive using them. They have the advantage of being available year-round, of course. If you use pellets, you need only about a half-ounce for each pint jar.
If you try to make Hunt’s Hop Tea on your own, please let me know your results. And please do raise a toast to Brian Hunt’s ingenuity.
Thursday, September 13, marked the 25th of anniversary of the signing of the California bill — AB 3610 — which removed the “tied house” restriction then present in California prohibiting any person or company from brewing beer and selling it directly to the public. The new bill allowed beer to be sold where it was brewed, as long as the brewer also operated a restaurant at the same location. It was only the second brewpub law passed in the country at that time. The bill was written by then-state legislator Tom Bates, who is now the mayor of Berkeley.
California was home to three of the first five brewpubs in America. The second brewpub to open America (and the first in California) was the Mendocino Brewery in Hopland, California, which opened in August 1983. Mendocino Brewing has moved to a new facility in Ukiah and the Hopland location is now a bar, but the company is still going strong. The third brewpub in the U.S. was Buffalo Bill’s in Hayward, California, which opened in September 1984 and still a brewpub. And the fifth was Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley, California, which opened in March 1986. It’s also the only one still owned by the same people who started it.
Triple played host Thursday to a ceremonial signing of the bill by Tom Bates, who authored the original legislation. They also presented a proclamation — which I helped write — signed by state legislator for District 14, Loni Hancock.
CSBA lobbyist Chris Walker reads a letter congratulating California small brewers from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Representative Loni Walker presents the state proclamation to Triple Rock owner — and CSBA president — John Martin.
A close-up of the proclamation, which originally sough to declare the week beginning September 13 as California Craft Beer Week. Next year, with more lead time, we hope to make that an officially recognized holiday week for California.
The brewpub bill’s author, Berkeley mayor Tom Bates, holds up a photo that ran in the Oakland Tribune 25-years before, of him celebrating the signing of Assembly Bill 3610.
Then John Martin presented Mayor Bates with a specially made beer by Triple Rock brewer Christian Kazakoff. Wanting to make a truly California beer, Kazakoff brewed a California Common, better known as a steam beer. They called the beer AB 3610, in honor of the bill.
The commemorative beer’s label art.
Then mayor Tom Bates presented a framed copy of the original AB 3610, inviting everyone present to sign the mat.
Everyone there also got a small glass of the commemorative beer and Mayor Bates led a toast to California’s beer industry.
Sunday was picking day at Moonlight Brewery in Windsor, California. Having recently returned from Hop School in Yakima, Washington, I was eager to see once more the old-fashioned, slow way of picking hops. Brian Hunt invited me to help him and several friends and neighbors to help with this year’s harvest. I’ve helped out before, but this year was particularly fun because I had just witnessed the industrial hop processing in America’s Hopbasket, Yakima, Washington, and was interested to see the contrast between the two methods. I took over 500 photos of hops while in Yakima and hope to have those up shortly so you can see the entire process from ground to glass.
Moonlight Brewery owner Brian Hunt with a vine of hops freshly cut from his hopyard.
For more photos from this year’s hop harvest at Moonlight Brewery, visit the photo gallery.
This Thursday, September 13, marks the 25th of anniversary of the signing of the California bill — AB 3610 — which removed the “tied house” restriction then present in California which prohibited any person or company from brewing beer and selling it directly to the public. The bill allowed beer to be sold where it was brewed, as long as the brewer also operated a restaurant at the same location. It was only the second brewpub law passed in the country at that time. The bill was written by then-state legislator Tom Bates, who is now the mayor of Berkeley.
California was home to three of the first five brewpubs in America. The second brewpub to open America (and the first in California) was the Mendocino Brewery in Hopland, California, which opened in August 1983. Mendocino Brewing has moved to a new facility in Ukiah and the Hopland location is now a bar, but the company is still going strong. The third brewpub in the U.S. was Buffalo Bill’s in Hayward, California, which opened in September 1984 and still a brewpub. And the fifth was Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley, California, which opened in March 1986. It’s also the only one still owned by the same people who started it.
Join the California Small Brewers Association Thursday as we drink a toast to the law that changed our beer landscape for the better.
From the press release:
On September 13th at 5:00 pm, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates will join brew pub owners to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the signing of the California law that legalized brewpubs. The bill — AB 3610, authored by then-Assemblyman Tom Bates — was soon replicated around the country, creating the national brewpub industry and introducing millions of people to good beer.
The September 13th event will include a ceremonial “bill signing” by the owners of Bay Area Brew Pubs, an honor to Mayor Tom Bates for writing the legislation, and a special beer brewed just for the occasion by Triple Rock Brewery.
“In the early 1960s, I spent time in Germany as an officer in the U.S. Army. When I got home, I realized you couldn’t get a good beer in the United States,” said Mayor Tom Bates. “When a group of entrepreneurs and beer enthusiasts approached me about changing State Law to provide a market for smaller, craft breweries, I jumped at the opportunity. Every time I travel around the country, I am amazed to see the wonderful legacy of my legislation.”
9.13
Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Brewpubs!
Triple Rock Brewery, 1920 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, California
510.THE.BREW [ website ]