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Beer In Film #30: All Beer TV Visits Anderson Valley

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Today’s beer video is from All Beer TV, a production of SaboresTv in Argentina. As such, most of it’s in Spanish. The show features a visit to Anderson Valley Brewing in Boonville. But even though it’s in Spanish, don’t worry. Stick with it, at around the 1:30 mark, brewmaster Fal Allen starts speaking, in English, so you’ll be able to figure it out. You may get more out of it if you’re bilingual, but either way he’s the one talking for most of the 24-minute video.

ALL BEER TV 10 MP4 1024 PAL Download from Saborestv on Vimeo.

Winter Brews Festival In Concord January 25

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The 5th annual Winter Brews Festival, produced by the Brewing Network, will be held this year on Saturday, January 25 from Noon to 4:00 p.m. It will be held again in Concord, at Todos Santos Plaza, just two blocks from the Concord BART station. This year’s festival looks to be their best ever, with over fifty breweries confirmed to attend, including a few that we don’t often see in the Bay Area, such as Societe Brewing from San Diego, Jester King, from Texas, and our own Faction Brewing showcasing their beer at one of the first fest’s they’ve attended. Come give Rodger Davis a hard time; you know you want to!

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Tickets are currently on sale, and can be purchased online through Eventbrite. Here’s all the details from the press release:

The Brewing Network’s Winter Brews Festival returns to Todos Santos Plaza in Concord on Saturday January 25, 2014 from noon to 4pm to celebrate its fifth year as one of the best craft beer festivals in the Bay Area, and the only winter brews fest!

Nestled between the weekend of the NFL Playoffs and the Super Bowl, this event will showcase dozens of craft beer samples from more than 30 world class breweries; most of which call the Bay Area home. Attendees will enjoy unlimited tastings from breweries such as 21st Amendment, Faction, Firestone Walker, Jester King, Heretic, Ninkasi, Sierra Nevada, Societe, and Stone.

This year, the Winter Brews Fest will be bigger than ever—with more food, more music, and more beer! There will even be non-beer options such as world class mead from Moonlight Meadery out of New Hampshire. Sponsors of the event include the 21st Amendment and White Labs, and proceeds will benefit the local environmental non-profit, the Coral Reef Alliance.

Tickets are now on sale and are $35 pre-sale or $45 at the gate and include unlimited pours and a commemorative glass for the first 1,500 tickets sold. Designated Drivers get in free, however this is a 21 and over only event.

The event is conveniently located just two blocks away from the Concord BART station so mark your calendars for a craft beer infused day for a wonderful cause.

If you haven’t been to this festival before, it’s one of the better Bay Area beer festivals. Here’s some photos from last year’s event to give you a flavor for it.

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Food will also be available for purchase.

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Did I mention there will be music? This year Forrest Day and Lucas Ohio & the Shamblers will be performing.

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See you there!

Pizza Port To Release Their Beer In Cans

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Pizza Port, a.k.a. Port Brewing, announced today through a press release from Ball Corp. that they will be releasing three of their beers in cans this week throughout their home market of San Diego, California. From the press release

For the first time in its 26-year history, Pizza Port will be entrusting its hand-crafted passion to a new, more portable can package. “It was a natural evolution for us,” said Pizza Port co-founder Gina Marsaglia. “Our consumers like to be outside and want to take great beer with them. The can is a portable and sustainable way for them to do that.” Vince Marsaglia, her brother and co-founder of Pizza Port Brewing, adds, “Our highest priority has always been to deliver the best quality beer to our consumers and aluminum cans help us keep our beer fresh by keeping out light and oxygen.”

Beginning this week, three of Pizza Port’s most popular beers will be available in recyclable cans throughout San Diego County. The labels will include Chronic Amber Ale (known as ChronicAle), Ponto Pale Ale and their very “sessionable” Swamis IPA that has the hoppy-ness of an IPA but is still very drinkable.

“By putting their exceptional beer in Ball cans, Pizza Port further confirms that aluminum cans are a premium packaging option for many of the best craft brewers in America,” said Rob Miles, senior vice president of sales for Ball’s global metal beverage packaging business. “Aluminum cans from Ball are helping craft brewers differentiate their products while realizing efficiencies in operating costs and energy savings.”

Here’s the three beers to be released in cans:

Swami’s India Pale Ale
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Chronicale
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Note: Curiously, a number of years ago Lagunitas was turned down when they submitted their amber ale under the label Kronik, which seems awfully similar. They were told it was rejected due to the drug reference, though I remember joking at the time that “Bud” was okay. Today it’s called Censored.

Ponto S.I.P.A.
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Beer Birthday: Arlan Arnsten

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Today is the 48th birthday of Arlan Arnsten, who until very recently was the Vice-President of Sales for Stone Brewing. He was born in 1965, the same year Fritz Maytag bought the Anchor Brewery, with whom he also shares a birthday. Coincidence? Maybe, but he doesn’t think so. Arlan’s been with Stone since 1997, and has been a huge part of their success. He’s a terrific person to share a beer with and an indefatigable poster boy for craft beer, although he’s now looking into other pursuits. Join me in wishing Arlan a very happy birthday.

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Arlan at GABF in 2006.

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Arlan with Stone co-owners Steve Wagner and Greg Koch at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego in 2008.

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Arlan manning the Stone booth in Las Vegas in 1999 (photo purloined from the Stone Brewing website).

Sonoma County Gets Crafty With Beer

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Today’s infographic is local to me, and concerns my home county of Sonoma. Entitled Sonoma County Gets Crafty With Beer, it shows how Sonoma has been growing lately in terms of the number of breweries and their overall production. Even though the infographic was created in 2013, two more have actually opened and we now have 20 breweries within our borders. I recently sat on a panel discussion at the Sonoma County Beer, Cider & Spirits Conference, which was put on by the county’s economic development board. We certainly live in a great place for beer.

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Click here to see the infographic full size.

Sierra Nevada’s Berkeley Torpedo Room Opens Today

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The new Torpedo Room that Sierra Nevada Brewing created is officially open to the public today, beginning at 11:00 a.m.

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Located at 2031 4th Street in Berkeley, just behind the Grocery Outlet almost underneath the University Avenue off-ramp.

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The interior was created using mostly recycled materials, and there’s even two hop torpedoes behind the bar.

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Hop torpedoes, of course, are what the Torpedo Room was named for. I love the beaker display and the painting hanging on the wall above it.

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The Torpedo Room will feature 16 rotating taps, including some rare ones that used to be available only in the tap room at Chico.

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They won’t serve pints, only tasting flights, although they sell a full complement of Sierra Nevada packaged beer.

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The hours for the Torpedo Room Tuesday through Thursday, from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and on Friday and Saturday, 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.. They’ll be closed on Sundays and Mondays. It’s a cool, comfortable, intimate space. Check it out when you’re in Berkeley.

Cerveceria MateVeza to Open Restaurant & Small Brewery in Oakland

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MateVeza announced today that they’ll be opening a new restaurant and brewery in Oakland next June, assuming approvals from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the City of Oakland come in a timely fashion. This will be the second Cerveceria MateVeza location, after their 18th Street location in San Francisco. The Oakland location “will feature Argentinian cuisine” and will also house a small brewery. It will be located at 1701 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, which is approximately one block from the Fox Theatre, and about a block and a half from Broadway. You can see it’s position on the map below.

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And here you can see the location on the far left, with the Fox Theatre on the right, down the street about a block. Some nuts and bolts released by the brewery: the new location will be “approximately 2,300 square feet,” and they’ll be “brewing on a 1 BBL (31-gallon system), ” with “15 beers on tap with the majority brewed in house. MateVeza bottles and growlers of the beers brewed in house will be available for purchase to go.” They will also “feature El Porteño empanadas and other local” food. Apparently, the building is currently occupied by Fred Brown, who owns and runs Rocsil’s Shoes at 1701 Telegraph Avenue. When he retires, MateVeza will take over the lease. “MateVeza founder and brewer Jim Woods plans to brew ‘Fred Brown Ale’ as the inaugural batch of beer at their new location.”

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Last Day To Register For The CCBA Northern California Meeting

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In case you’ve missed all of the reminders and e-mail blasts, today is the last day to register for the California Craft Beer Association‘s Northern California General Meeting, which will take place October 29 at the University of California Davis Conference Center, located at 550 Alumni Lane, Davis, CA 95616. You can register online via Eventbrite, and check out the schedule of the day’s itinerary.

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All Hopped Up For The Cure 2013

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Yesterday I had lunch at Russian River Brewing, invited by co-owner Natalie Cilurzo as one of a small group of friends who had at least one thing in common: we’d each lost someone to breast cancer. For me, it was my mother when I was 22, and she was only 42. Each year, the Santa Rosa brewpub rolls out its biggest charity effort of the year to raise money for the local Sutter Breast Care Center. The entire month of October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the brewpub is festooned in pink and several great prizes are auctioned throughout the month.

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This is the eighth year they’ve made the All Hopped Up for the Cure charity effort, and last year they raised $76,000 for breast cancer. SO far, they’re on target to beat that total this year. Here’s Natalie Cilurzo writing on the brewery’s blog about this year’s charity drive:

So here we are and it’s already October, my favorite month of the year. Aside from it being beautiful in Sonoma County, we host our annual month-long fundraiser for the Sutter Women’s Health Care Center of Santa Rosa, which brings me great joy! All of the money we raise/donate goes directly to help uninsured or underinsured women AND men in our community receive life saving screening and treatment for Breast Cancer. Recently we have become acquainted with several recipients of our fundraising efforts. Some of their lives have been changed or even saved by the services offered by Sutter. Check out our special Breast Cancer Awareness Month page on our website during October for more info on raffle items, how to get this year’s cute shirt and other interesting things!

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This Saturday will be the final blowout of the month-long charity drive — a costume party — when the auction winners will be revealed. But there’s still time to help their efforts, both with donations and buying raffle tickets for the auction items. The big ticket item, a pink Genuine Buddy 50cc scooter, you can try to win for $10 a raffle ticker, or 3 for $25. The winner of the scooter will announced at 10 p.m. Saturday night.

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There are a few other terrific items being raffled, too. For instance, there’s a custom-made guitar by local luthier Tom Ribbecke of Ribbecke Guitars. To win the guitar, it’s also $10 a raffle ticker, or 3 for $25.

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There’s also a pink bicycle, an Electra Beach Cruiser, “graciously donated by The Bike Peddler in Santa Rosa.” Tickets for the bike are only $1 per raffle ticket, or 6 for $5.

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There’s also some cool t-shirts, designed by local artist Laurel Gregory.

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Gregory also created a pink painting of a Pliny the Elder bottle that will be auctioned Saturday.

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The scooter will be announced at 10 p.m., but the rest of the items will have the winners for them announced throughout the evening. So come and enjoy an evening at Russian River and help raise money for a very worthy cause. There will also be music, by Brothers Horse. In addition to Russian River’s regular beers, the special release Framboise for a Cure 2013 (bottles of which are sold out) will be tapped at 5:00 p.m. The beer uses Temptation as its base beer, to which 800 pounds of fresh raspberries are added (30 pounds per barrel), and then it’s aged for several months in Chardonnay barrels spiked with brett, lacto, and pedio. There are only two kegs of it left, and they’ll keep selling it until it runs out. This is your last chance to try this year’s version. There will also be 23 special growlers, screened in pink ink, and full of the Framboise beer available for a minimum donation of $100.

Come on down Saturday night and get All Hopped Up For the Cure!

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