Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Beer Birthday: Crazy Dave Heist

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Today is also the 55th birthday of “Crazy” Dave Heist, former owner of Hoptown Brewing in Pleasanton, California. Dave was brewing at Santa Cruz Aleworks for a time, but is now happily retired, at least for the time being. Join me in wishing Dave a very happy birthday.

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Out in front of The Bistro in Hayward at the 2008 Wood Aged Beer Festival. From left: Jeremy Cowan, owner of He’Brew, Judy Ashworth, Dave Heist, and Zak, also from He’Brew.

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“Crazy Dave” at the Mammoth Lakes Bluesapalooza in 2007.

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Kenny Gross and Dave last year at the Bistro’s Wood Aged Beerfest.

Damaged Lagunitas Brewing Equipment At The Dock

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You may recall that earlier this month, the Lagunitas Brewhouse [Was] Destroyed At Sea. Lagunitas owner Tony Magee, through his Twitter Feed, just posted a number of new photos of the equipment as it arrived at the Port of Stockton this weekend. I’d say my usual “enjoy,” but it’s a little on the painful-to-see side.

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The Lauter Tun at the Port of Stockton.

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The most-damaged side.

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A close-up of the damage.

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And this is a shot of “the crane what done it,” that is smooshed the brewhouse lauter tun.

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And yet another damaged piece of equipment.

Lagunitas Brewhouse Destroyed At Sea

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Ouch. As many of you probably know, Lagunitas Brewing is in the process of installing a new 250-barrel brewhouse, but there may be a bit of a delay. Apparently the brewhouse was on its way to California, tied down on the top of the deck in the Caribbean, when a storm hit the cargo ship. As it “rolled back and forth by more than 40 degrees a crane came loose from its chains and crushed the brewhouse. The 30′ diameter lauter tun caught the blunt of the attack, and appears to be a total loss.”

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Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale

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No, that’s not a judgment call on my part. I love Lagunitas. But that is the name of their new seasonal ale for 2011; Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale. They’re calling it that because the new beer is a temporary replacement for their popular — and usual holiday seasonal — Brown Shugga’, which they won’t be able to brew this year due to the installation of their new 250-barrel brewhouse.

From the press release:

It is a sad day at Lagunitas when we have to tell you that our favorite seasonal — Brown Shugga — will take a year off and come back in full force in the fall of 2012 after the installation of our new brewhouse.

A brand new beer that’s sure to please is our “Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale”….. it’s our BrownShugga’ substitute.

This beer is a Dry-Hopped ‘Cereal Medley’ of Barley, Rye, Wheat, and Oats…. full of complexishness from the 4 grains, and weighing in at 7.6% abv, it is mondo-dry-hopped for that big aroma and resinous hop flavor.

The entire project has a self-deprecating air about it, including the label notes, which are always written by Lagunitas founder Tony Magee. To wit:

This sad holiday season we didn’t have the brewing capacity to make our favorite seasonal brew, the widely feared BrownShugga’ Ale. You see, we had a couple of good years (thank you very much) and so heading into this season while we are awaiting a January delivery of a new brewhouse we are jammin’ along brewing 80 barrels of IPA and PILS and such every 3 hours. A couple of months back we realized that since we can only brew a mere 60 barrels of Shugga every 5 hours, that we were seriously screwed. For every case of Shugga’ brewed, we’d short 3 cases of our daily brews. The new brewhouse will help insure that this kind of failure never happens again. It’s a mess that we can not brew our BrownShugga’ this year and we suck for not doing it. There is nothing cool about screwing up this badly and we know it. Maybe we can sue our sorry selves. There is no joy in our hearts this holiday and the best we can hope for is a quick and merciful end. F*@& us. This totally blows. Whatever. We freaking munch moldy donkey butt and we just want it all to be over ….

My guess is that the new Lagunitas Suck Holiday Ale will be so good that we’ll all forgive them and Santa will not bring them all a lump of coal this Christmas. They do seem to be appealing to Santa’s better nature but putting a yummy-looking Santa cookie on the label. Perhaps they’ll leave some of them out on Christmas Eve so when Santa comes down the brewhouse chimney, he can eat himself.

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Bistro IPA Festival Winners 2011

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Family commitments kept me from attending this year’s Bistro IPA Festival, but owner Vic Kralj was kind enough to send me the list of the winners. Craig Cauwels’ IPA, from Schooner’s in Antioch, California, was chosen best in show at the 14th annual IPA Festival yesterday at the Bistro in Hayward, California. The full list of winners is below.

Beer Birthday: Ken Allen

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Today is also the birthday of Ken Allen, former owner of Anderson Valley Brewing. Ken sold the brewery and retired to Belize, at least during part of the year. Join me in wishing Ken a very happy birthday.

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Owner Ken Allen, former AVBC salesman Ed Chainey, me, Ralph Woodall, from HopUnion and Ken’s former wife.

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Celebrator publisher Tom Dalldorf (whose birthday is also today) with Ken at the 2006 Boonville Beer Festival.

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Ken, with Larry Bell, from Bell’s Brewing, along with Ed and Carol Stoudt, from Stoudt’s Brewing, at the Craft Brewers Conference in Austin, Texas, in 2007.

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Ken with new Anderson Valley Brewery owner Trey White at last year’s CBC in Chicago.

Beer In Art #124: Rasmussen Ximenes’ The Last Supper

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This week’s work of art is by a Brazilian artist who now calls Petaluma his home. Rasmussen Ximenes painted The Last Supper as part on a local contest entitled ArtSlant, in which it was a second round winner. Feeling the pride of his new home, he included the local brewery’s beer in his painting: Lagunitas IPA.

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I saw the original painting recently, which is temporarily in the offices of Lagunitas in Petaluma. Though, as you can see below, the frame has now been painted purple.

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You can read more about Ras Ximenes, a.k.a. Moco, at his web bio and also see more of his work at his gallery.

Q&A With Jack McAuliffe

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Last week, you may recall, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Jack McAuliffe, founder of the first modern microbrewery in America; New Albion Brewery. That was the week after the annual Craft Brewers Conference, which was held this year in San Francisco. At CBC, the elusive Jack was in town for his first appearance at a public beer event in a very, very long time. He was going to do a Q&A session along with a short talk by Maureen Ogle, author of Ambitious Brew, and Jack’s daughter, Renee DeLuca, who writes online at the Brewer’s Daughter. As an amateur beer historian, and lover of the subject, seeing the man who built the first microbrewery from scratch back in 1976 was simply something I was not going to miss. I arrived early and got a chance to meet Jack for the first time. Needless to say, it was a great treat.

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Jack and me at CBC.

After a talk by Jack’s daughter Renee on social media, Maureen discussed “The Long View of the Big Picture,” lessons learned from failed breweries and what the ones who survived did to keep going. Then the session was turned over to jack, who answered questions from the audience for a good half hour. I recorded Jack’s Q&A and you can listen to it below. Enjoy.

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The New Albion Brewery Site 30 Years Later

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This has been one amazing week. During yesterday’s unexpected lunch with craft beer pioneer Jack McAuliffe at Russian River Brewery, Jack invited us to have him show us around the old site of the New Albion Brewery in Sonoma, California. Needless to say, we didn’t have to be asked twice and readily accepted Jack’s kind offer.

We met at high Noon at the Swiss Hotel on Sonoma Square. After a quick lunch and a few pints of beer, our convoy of two cars headed out into the industrial park wilds of Sonoma, with Jack and his friend Pat leading the way. After a few minutes driving, we pulled off the road into a warren of tin buildings with scrap metal in organized heaps, including the recognizable midsections of several jet airplanes. We turned around, parking out on the public road, and Jack went in to ask the landlord — still the same man Jack rented the property from in 1976 — for permission to show us around. He came back a few minutes later, waving us in.


Arriving at the old brewery site.

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This is the building where the New Albion Brewery stood over thirty years ago.

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Despite its proximity to the entrance, this was not the front of the brewery building, in part because Jack didn’t rent the entire building, just a portion of it.

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This was essentially the front of the brewery building.

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Jack indicating that this was the front door to the brewery.

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Vinnie Cilurzo, from Russian River Brewery, and Jack McAuliffe in front of the old site of his brewery.


Jack McAuliffe showing us around the old site of his New Albion Brewery.

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The view of where the brewery building stood from the road.

Jess Kidden has scans from Brewers Digest issues in November 1979 and October 1980 where you can contrast the building today and what it looked like 30+ years ago.

What a wonderful afternoon. Having the opportunity to spend time with the father of the modern microbrewery and have him show us where it all began was just amazing. Seeing the history and hearing Jack reminisce about that time in his life was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Thanks again Jack, and cheers to Vinnie and Natalie for letting me tag along.