Oakland’s newest beer store is set to open today. Beer Revolution, located at 464 3rd Street in Oakland, just off Broadway. Co-owners Rebecca and Fraggle plan to open the doors today at Noon. Stop by and check it out. Better yet, pick up a few bottles to let them know you support better beer stores.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, SF Beer Week starts tomorrow. It feels like we’ve been working around the clock — and in the case of a few that’s literally true — to get this party started. I can hardly believe it myself. We’re past 200 events at this point, and all of them are great-looking, not a dog in the bunch. That’s roughly a one-third increase in events. I’ll be doing my best to get to two or three events each day. If see me out and about, please say hello.
I stopped by Russian River Brewing today, because my friend Pete Slosberg told me last week that he would be there for the first bottling of Consecration in the new proprietary 375ml bottles. Pete was there with a few volunteers, including Peter Estaniel, from A Better Beer Blog.
The new bottle was developed for exclusive use by Russian River Brewing, along with North Coast Brewing and the Lost Abbey. So for now, those will be the only breweries you”ll see using this new bottle.
This is the third beer to be bottled by Russian River in the new bottles. The first two were Supplication and Temptation.
In other exciting Russian River news, the brewery is about to go off the grid, and go completely solar. One-half of the production brewery’s roof has solar panels already installed and the second half has the frames laid down, waiting for the panels. It may go live as early as this weekend and should power all of the brewery’s electricity needs.
Below is a short video of Consecration moving through the bottling line.
Below are some photos from today’s visit to the brewery.
Here is a slideshow of the Consecration bottling. 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.
Marin Brewing released their newest beer, an herbal beer made in collaboration with San Anselmo herbalist Dr. Yen-Wei Choong. He runs the Yellow Emperor Natural Healing Center and Zen Garden and has been involved with Chinese herbs all his life. For the last twenty, he’s been working on just the right combination of herbs to improve beer, and make more balanced from the perspective of Chinese medicine.
Brewmaster Arne Johnson started with his E.S.B. as the base beer. To that, he added 38 pounds of the proprietary mix of Chinese herbs that Dr. Choong created. The nose was subtle herbs, almost gruit-like. The flavors were soft and also subtle, in a good way. The herbs were there but never overpowered the beer, and in fact the two integrated together quite well. It was smooth and easy drinking, almost like a session beer, though I believe the beer is around 5.5% a.b.v. A tasty collaboration.
Marin Brewing owner Brendan Moylan, Dr. Yen-Wei Choong and Brewmaster Arne Johnson.
For now, the beer is draft only and will be at several events and places during SF Beer Week. They’ve submitted a label for approval, so it may be available in bottles eventually.
Today begins the 8th annual Strong Beer Month once more, with six new extreme beers each at 21st Amendment and Magnolia throughout February. Try them all, and you get to keep the commemorative glass. To see a list of the twelve beers, check out the Strong Beer Month website. This year’s theme is the wild west and specifically High Noon.
One of the highlights of The Brewing Network’s Winter Brews Festival, held earlier today at Linden Street Brewery in Oakland, was Rosa, a sour beer brewed by the new Sacramento brewery, Odonata, recently started by former Sacramento Brewing’s Peter Hoey and Rick Sellers, formerly with Draft magazine. Here’s a short video of brewmaster Peter Hoey talking about Rosa.
If you live in the Bay Area and have nothing going on tomorrow morning (or have Tivo), I’ll be on television in the early morning to promote SF Beer Week. It will air around 8:45 during the three-hour KRON 4 Weekend Show that’s on from 7:00-10:00 a.m. The exact time will depend on how the show develops, then they’ll cut to us at a remote location. I’m told it will be a very short segment, something like 3-4 minutes during which time I’ll try to taste the host, Henry Tenenbaum, on three beers paired with cheese, sausages and ice cream. And at the same time, I’ll try to talk about what he’s sampling and also discuss SF Beer Week, too. I expect it will be a lot like juggling while riding a unicycle. Did I mention I don’t know how to juggle? Or ride a unicycle or that matter. So tune in to watch me make a fool of myself or do Bay Area beer proud. Either way, it should be good for a laugh.
UPDATE: My sister-in-law Kit made a video of the spot and I’ve uploaded it to my YouTube Channel.
Today is the 46th birthday of Pat Hagerman, co-founder of ReelBeer.com, one of the first beer portals to establish a presence on the internet. I’ve known Pat for a lot of years in a variety of enterprises. Pat also has a son, Jack, who’s a little older than Porter so we’ve seen him at birthday parties from time to time, though it’s been a little while. These days, I usually run into Pat at beer events, though I suppose technically he’s also my boss since for a while I’d been filling in for Stan writing the Real Beer Blog, though happily now Stan’s back. Join me in wishing Pat a very Happy birthday.
Pat (at right) with Tom Dalldorf in New Orleans for the Craft Brewers Conference in 2003.
A self-portrait of me and Pat at Falling Rock in Denver at the 2005 Great American Beer Festival.
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.
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.
