Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Stone To Release Collaboration Video

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Stone Brewing, at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time, will be releasing their latest video project, Stone Skips Across the Pond, a record of their collaborations with two breweries. [NOTE: the video, once released at 1:00 p.m. PST, will be available at Stone’s Blog.] If you just can’t wait to see some of it, check out the trailer.

The first collaboration is with Nøgne Ø, the Norwegian craft brewery. After brewing there, the Stone team heads to Scotland to brew yet another collaboration with BrewDog.

I had an opportunity to screen the video last night, and it’s a fun short film at just under 30 minutes. It was filmed again by Redtail Media, the same team that created I Am A Craftbrewer. The production values are amazing. The film stars not just Greg Koch, but also his business partner Steve Wagner and head brewer Mitch Steele, some amazing landscapes, terrific looking food, some beer you’ll be jealous you didn’t have along with the brew crews at both Nøgne Ø and BrewDog. Looks like it was a fun time. It’s a great window into the camaraderie among brewers, regardless of national boundaries, in the craft beer world

Next Thursday, Part 2 will be released, followed by parts three and four on each subsequent Thursday. For now, enjoy part one.

Beer In Ads #14: Call For A Valley Brew

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Monday’s ad is one I have a reproduction of hanging in my office, a gift from my friend Steve Altimari, who is the brewmaster at Valley Brewing in Stockton, Calif. Valley Brewing sells the posters and uses the image in some of the promotional materials, but it’s 50s advertisement from the old El Dorado Brewery, a brewery that had been in Stockton from 1855 until it closed for good in 1955. You gotta love old cheesecake.

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Session #35: New Beer’s Resolutions

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Our 35th Session is hosted by Christina Perozzi & Hallie Beaune, authors of the recently published beer book, The Naked Pint. For now the announcement is currently up on Beer For Chicks, but soon enough, the Session will be on The Beer Chicks, a new website by Perozzi & Beaune. But back to their Session topic — “New Beer’s Resolutions” — which they describe thusly:

So we want to know what was your best and worst of beer for 2009? What beer mistakes did you make? What beer resolutions do you have for 2010? What are your beer regrets and embarrassing moments? What are you hoping to change about your beer experience in 2010?

Hmm, that’s a lot to swallow. Ba-dump-bump. Rimshot!

Rim Shot  Cool Sounds sound bites

Best and worst beers of last year? I certainly had plenty of great beer throughout 2009. The new Utopias? Life & Limb? Pliny the Younger? Black Tuesday? Dark Lord? Tasting directly from the barrels at Russian River? I don’t think I could pick just one favorite. A worst beer? I tend to forget the bad as soon as it’s gone. I’d rather focus on the great beer. Beer mistakes? Undoubtedly, at least I hope so. As Joyce said, “a man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” Beer regrets? I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention. Embarrassing moments? For a second year in a row, I didn’t make it all the way through the Keene tasting at Brouwers, the day after the Hard Liver Barleywine Festival.

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“What are you hoping to change about your beer experience in 2010?” Okay, that’s a question I can sink my teeth into. This is probably going to sound odd, but I think I’d like to drink more beer in 2010. As it is, I drink almost every day. But usually it’s at home, afternoons and usually later in the evening with dinner. With a second grader and a kindergartner that need to get picked up every day and shepherded around to music lessons, etc., it’s not exactly easy to be out drinking every night. But in a sense that’s where the magic happens. Setting is important.

Me and Bruce Paton
In 2010, I want to do this more. Just be out more, drinking with friends.

So that’s my hope. To share a beer with more people this year, get out of the house more. Spend more time in bars, restaurants and breweries. That’s one of my New Beer’s Resolution, to drink more beer. Join me?

Bruce Paton & I drink the first beer of the day
Drinking my first beer on New Year’s Day at Barclay’s in Oakland with Bruce Paton, the Beer Chef. My first beer this year was Moonlight Toast, which I followed with Moonlight’s Christmas beer: Santa’s Tipple.

You can also see some more photos in this slideshow from today’s quick trip to Barclay’s.

Pacific Coast Holiday Tasting Results

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Before Christmas, I attended the 21st annual holiday tasting at Pacific Coast Brewing in Oakland. It was my first time at the long-running event and I had a terrific time. Owner Steve Wolfe and brewmaster Don Gortemiller were gracious hosts and I spent the afternoon with several friends and colleagues. I also didn’t realize just how much food would be served — which I should add was a welcome development — with the fifteen beers. Having done this for decades, they have the process down. Every fifteen minutes a new beer was poured and in between a new dish was made available for noshing.

Steve Wolfe & Don Gortemiller, a bit lighter
Pacific Coast Brewing’s Steve Wolfe with brewmaster Don Gortemiller.

Don and Steve chose all the beers with an eye toward serving the most special beers they could get their hands on, and ones which were appropriate for the holiday season. Nine of the fifteen were holiday seasonals, and three were anniversary ales.

Mario, me, Steve Wolfe, Don Gortemiller & Mike Pitsker
Mario Rubio, from Brewed For Thought, me, Steve Wolfe, Don Gortemiller and Mike Pitsker, from the Celebrator Beer News.

Every attendee was provided with an elaborate scoring sheet along with some guidelines on how to score each beer. Most people in the brewpub seemed to take scoring the beers very seriously. At the end of the tasting, the completed sheets are collected and tabulated. Brewmaster Don Gortemiller released the results of the 2009 tasting a few days before Christmas. This year’s winner was the Double Jack from Firestone Walker Brewing in Paso Robles, California. Deschutes Black Butte XXI came in second and third place went to the collaboration between Dogfish Head Brewery and Sierra Nevada Brewing, Life & Limb. To see the full tally, check out the results on Pacific Coast’s website.

Beer #8: Firestone Walker Double Jack
This year’s winner, Firestone Walker Double Jack.

Below is a slideshow of the Pacific Coast Holiday Tasting. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

Lagunitas Tweetup

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Yesterday I attended my first Tweetup, organized by Ashley Routson — a.k.a. The Beer Wench — and Fred Abercrombie from Ünnecessary Ümlaut. Though we’ve attended at least one beer event together, I’d yet to meet either blogger. So this seemed like a good opportunity to do just that, and also drink some tasty beers and meet some more like-minded tweeters. In case the term is new to you — it was to me — a Tweetup is a get together in the real world that’s organized using Twitter.

Tweetup organizer Ashley, a.k.a. The Beer Wench, with Ron Lindenbusch, from Lagunitas
Tweetup organizer Ashley, a.k.a. The Beer Wench, with Ron Lindenbusch, from Lagunitas.

The Tweetup took place at Lagunitas Brewing in Petaluma, Calif. Between 40 and 50 tweeters attended the event. It was a lot of fun. I’ve been to Lagunitas countless times, but it’s a great place to hang out. Ron Lindenbusch gave a tour to the many people there who’d never been to the brewery. I ambled around the brewery, talking to people I knew there, and snapping photos of the brewery because … well, you can never see too much brewery porn in my opinion. It was another great example of Twitter bringing people together instead of keeping them apart, as many of Twitter’s critics have argued it does.

Me and The Beer Wench
Me and The Beer Wench.

Below is a slideshow of the Lagunitas Tweetup. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

I’m Virgin America, Fly Me & Drink Craft Beer

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Though it’s been available on Virgin America (which since 2017 is owned by Alaskan Airlines) for a little while now, 21st Amendment Brewery formally announced yesterday that their canned IPAwas being served on Virgin flights in the U.S. From the press release:

Great craft beer on planes is finally reaching the blue skies, as the 21st Amendment Brewery is set to launch their Brew Free! or Die IPA in cans aboard Virgin America Airlines. Starting now Virgin America will serve complimentary Brew Free! or Die IPA in First Class and Main Cabin Select and the beer will be available for purchase in the Main Cabin for $7.

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While not the first canned craft beer on an airline, this is terrific news both for 21st Amendment and also beer loving passengers. It certainly makes me want to choose to fly Virgin wherever possible.

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21st Amendment co-owners Shaun O’Sullivan and Nico Freccia

Stone To Seek Brewing Opportunity Abroad

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Greg Koch and Steve Wagner, the founders of Stone Brewing after tweasing (twitter teasing) the news for weeks have announced a bold, audacious plan. After resisting sending their beer overseas, they’ve decided instead to consider opening a brewery there instead. So they’re initiating an open call from municipalities or even nations abroad to see what they might propose to entice them to take over an existing brewery or build a new one somewhere in Europe, Asia or wherever. In the video below, Greg and Steve explain the idea.

Stone to open a Brewery in Europe? from stonebrew on Vimeo.

This is a very exciting project for Steve and me…and all of us at Stone Brewing. We’re going to be learning quite a bit with this endeavor, first and foremost: Will we be welcome? We’re approaching this with no assumptions other than we’d like to consider any and all options (other than having our beers contract brewed by another brewery, as that’s simply not our style). Many of the countries of Europe have great brewing traditions. Some countries are also currently experiencing a bit of a resurgence of small, independent (and independent thinking) breweries. As anyone knows that has visited the Stone Brewing Co. and our attached restaurant – the Stone World Bistro & Gardens – where we have more Guest taps than we do of Stone, we enjoy sharing the camaraderie of great craft beers. We look forward to joining in the fight in Europe by doing our part to add to the growing trend towards unique, flavorful artisanal beers, as opposed to the mass-blandification efforts characterized by megabrand sameness!

-Greg Koch, CEO

Beer In Ads #9: Regal Pale Skiing

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Today’s ad is most likely from the 1950s or early 60s, and is for Regal Pale Ale, a beer that was at least distributed in California as late as the 1960s, though I’m not sure where it was brewed and I can’t find my copy of American Breweries II under the mess that is my office. It’s been cold this week, not frozen tundra cold or even Pennsylvania-cold, but it has been California-cold with the kids delighting in seeing frost on the ground and watching me scrape ice off the car windows. That means ski weather, so I thought this ad of a skiing beer can cleverly using other beer paraphernalia to complete the picture was appropriate. I wonder what they considered the other great American beer?

Coincidentally, New Jersey’s legendary Heavyweight Brewing used the name Regal Pale Ale for the first of their OneTimeOnePlace (OTOP) series back in 2003.

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Anchor’s Annual Christmas Party ’09

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The lovely missus and I attended the annual Christmas party at Anchor Brewery, one of our favorite events of the year, and one of the few my wife regularly attends. Good friends, good food and great beer. I always start with a Liberty Ale — a perennial favorite — and also finally had a chance to try their new Humming Ale. The Humming Ale is brewed with an “unusual hop variety called Nelson Sauvin” and was brewed to commemorate the 30th anniversary at the brewery’s present location on Mariposa Street in San Francisco.

Me and the Missus at Anchor
Me and Mrs. Brookston Beer Bulletin all dressed up and somewhere to go.

Though there was some terrific food this year, as always, I can never get enough Maytag Blue Cheese. There was also a tasty brisket with sage mashed potatoes, and a veggie table that included some wonderful au gratin potatoes. But my favorite was Pumpkin Soup Shooters with toasted mini-turkey and cranberry Panini.

This year's Xmas Box Tree
The annual tree made from Christmas Ale mother cartons and decorated with bottles and bows.

The dessert was Spiced Gingerbread with dried fruit compote and Anchor Porter ice cream. The ice cream was so good I had seconds of just that, which I found paired really well with the Christmas Ale.

Below is a slideshow of this year’s Anchor Christmas Party. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

Utopias 2009

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On Thursday of last week, Boston Beer brewer Bert Boyce was in town o the last leg of a three-city tour of California to introduce the 2009 edition of Samuel Adams‘ Utopias. Boyce is originally from California, and I first met him while he was working at Drakes in San Leandro a several years ago. The beer dinner was held at Monk’s Kettle in San Francisco, and they did a great job both with the food generally and also pairing the beer with the dishes served.

Bert Boyce, Boston Beer brewer
Bert Boyce, Boston Beer brewmaster, addressing the crowd and talking about his beer.

The Utopias comes in a cool ceramic bottle, shaped like a copper color mash kettle (discolored in this shot)
But the pièce de résistance was, naturally, the Utopias. I confess I’d already tasted this year’s version, both from the barrel in Boston and also from the sample bottle that I was sent, but this beer is so good and so different from any other beer that I know that it’s hard to pass up an opportunity for some more, especially with a great meal to boot.


Below is a slideshow of the Topias beer dinner. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.