Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

More CBC Photos

By

As my grandfather was fond of saying, “the faster I go, the behinder I get.” I’ve only now gotten around to going through the rest of the photos that I took in Austin, Texas while attending the 2007 Craft Brewers Conference. They’re all pretty random, but they’re now posted at the photo gallery if you’re interested in seeing them.

The White brothers from White Labs bookending Chuck, from Green Fash Brewing, Natalie Cilurzo, from Russian River Brewing, John Harris, from Full Sail Brewing, and Vinnie Cilurzo, also from Russian River.

Greg Koch, me, and Justin Crossley, from the Brewing Network, along with Steve Mosqueda from the Drinking and Writing podcast and Pete Crowley, from Rock Bottom in Chicago.

For many more photos from the Craft Brewers Conference, visit the photo gallery.

Boonville Beer Festival

By

Saturday was the 11th annual Boonville Beer Festival, held as usual at the Mendocino Fair Grounds in Boonville, California. Over the last few years, this festival has really become one of the “must attend” fests of the year, and this time was no exception. I didn’t hear the final attendance figures, but it must have been another record year. I did hear that despite ordering almost double the festival glasses as last year, they still ran out early and had to resort to dixie cups for late-comers. It was also Cinco de Mayo and the festival tried to celebrate the Mexican holiday, as well.

The Anderson Valley horse-drawn coach transported VIPs from the brewery to the festival.

During the opening of the festival, we were serenaded by the traditional Humboldt Firkin Tappers. For a video of their performance, see the photo gallery.

Anderson Valley Brewery owner Ken Allen.

Brian Hunt from Moonlight Brewing.

Adrienne, in her watermelon wheat hat, and Motor, who podcasts at Beer School.

Brian Hunt from Moonlight Brewing, Aron Derosey from Beach Chalet , Jeff Barkley (also from Moonlight) and Melissa Myers from Drake’s.

Vinnie Cilurzo does a celebrity endorsement of 21st Amendment’s IPA in a can. Watch the commercial at the photo gallery.

In another bit of shameless promotion, Shaun O’Sullivan from 21st Amendment gets Matt Brynildson, from Firestone Walker, to wear the watermelon wheat pimp hat.

Claudia, Yuseff Cherney, from Ballast Point, Jeff Bagby, from Pizza Port Carlsbad, and his assistant brewer.

For many more photos from the festival, visit the photo gallery. At the photo gallery there is even video of the Humboldt Firkin Tappers and Vinnie drinking beer from a can. And if you’re a fire bug like me, there is also many photos of the bonfire, including what it looks like when a beer bottle melts.

The Opening of CBC

By

The opening Welcome & Keynote Address took place bright and early Thursday morning, right after the first round of seminars, which began at 8:15 a.m.

Brewers Association founder Charlie Papazian opened the conference in Austin, Texas, Thursday morning.

BA Director Paul Gatza went over the statistics and sales and growth numbers for the craft beer industry.

Then Texas populist Jim Hightower entertained the audience with tales of Austin weirdness and left us with this great quote about why people live in Austin. “We’re here because we’re not all there.”

Matt Brynildson from Firestone Walker Brewing accepting the Russell Schehrer Award for Innovation in Brewing from Steve Bradt of Free State Brewing.

Brynildson addresses the crowd.

Bradt giving the Brewers Association Recognition Award to Don Barkley, who accepted it on behalf of Jack McAuliffe, founder of New Albion Brewing Company, who was unable to be present.

Keynote speaker Vinnie Cilurzo, from Russian River Brewing.

CBC Brewers Reception

By

The BA hosted a Brewers Reception at Stubbs Bar-B-Que in downtown Austin Wednesday night before the official start to the annual Craft Brewers Conference. There was great food and beer from local breweries. Some highlights were the Rye Pale Ale from the Real Ale Brewery here in Austin and a nice barleywine, though I can’t recall who made that one.

A local sign proclaims Austin as Beer Land, Texas.

The reception was held outdoors in this great open space with a stage on one end and bars and buffet tables ringing the area.

Brian Dunn (owner of Great Divide) and his new director of brewing operations, Brit Antrim, with Joanne Carilli from White Labs.

cbc07-04
Steve Hindy (Brooklyn Brewery), Kim Jordan (New Belgium), Dave Keene (The Toronado in SF), Eddie Friedland (former owner of Philadelphia’s Friedland Distributing) and Vinnie Cilurzo (Russian River).

Ralph Olson, the Big Cheese from HopUnion. If you look carefully in between his “Sponsor” and “Exhibitor” badge you can see his officially “the Big Cheese.”

Horst Dornbusch and his wife, Ralph Olson and Jeannine Marois, who puts on the Le Mondial de la Bière.

Charlie Papazian leads a toast the memory of Linda Starck.

Daniel and Julie Bradford and Amy from All About Beer magazine.

The Rolling Boil Blues Band took the stage in the last hour of the reception.

Which got the crowd up and dancing.

Tom Dalldorf does his Pete Townsend impression.

Fantastic Fourth Firkin Fest

By

Today one of the most fun festivals in the Bay Area took place, the Firkin Gravity Festival at the Triple Rock Brewery & Alehouse in Berkeley. This is the fourth year for this event and it’s great to have an event like this that spreads awareness of these beers. There were two dozen firkin beers from around California. A firkin is a cask that’s the size of a quarter keg, but measured in British volume, meaning it’s 9 imperial gallons (which is roughly 10.81 U.S. gallons). All the beer was cask conditioned and dispensed using gravity taps rather than hand pumps.

There were some mighty fine real ales there today, not least of which was the one brewed by our host Christian Kazakoff, Triple Rock’s Bad Monkey … No Banana. Some other stand-outs included a cask Pliny the Elder, Firestone-Walker’s Bourbon Barrel Stout and Stone’s Russian Imperial Stout. Iron Spring’s Casey Jones Imperial IPA and Marin’s IPA on cask were both also memorable, as was Grant Johnston’s English-style beer. Farmhouse had a nice cask Porter and Lagunitas put last year’s Gnarlywine to the wood.

Outside Triple Rock in Berkeley.

Triple Rock’s head brewer Christian Kazakoff.

Shane, Steve and Melissa, brewers one and all.

A row of firkins at the fest.

Arne Johnson (Marin Brewing), Christian Kazakoff (Triple Rock) and newlyweds Claudia and Rodger Davis (21st Amendment & Drake’s)

By early afternoon, the alehouse was truly packed. It was a great turnout and nice to see so many people supporting real ale.

Christian again with a trio from 21st Amendment.

Laurelwood at PDX

By

A friend of mine (thanks, Shaun) was going through the airport at Portland and happened upon the new temporary space for Laurelwood at the airport and thought he’d share some photos. It’s certainly nice to see better beer making inroads at airports. There are several other rumors of breweries planning spots at airports all over the map, which is a great trend for those of us who do some traveling.

This way to Laurelwood.

Not everyone — gasp — wants a beer when they fly so there are also coffee and pastries available.

And a case filled with bottled beer for those of us who do.

Clinking Voyeurism

By

Another “Here’s to Beer” effort to try bringing people back into the beer fold is “Clink,” within the social networking website MingleNow. There, members are encouraged to post photos to the site of friends clinking their glasses together. So far, a few hundred have been uploaded, many similar to this one.
 

 

Anheuser-Busch is the exclusive advertiser at the Clink portion of MingleNow, but that of course won’t stop the clinking glasses or bottles being filled with all manner of different beer. In one of my favorites currently at the site, a trio of Oktoberfest attendees enjoy mugs of Spaten.
 

 

Unfortunately, in their drive to entice younger people, most of the photos have a voyeuristic feel to them that I’m not entirely sure brings out the best in beer. Some of the photos do appear to be genuine expressions of friendship and good times shared over a pint, but a majority are exactly what you’d expect, mere titillation, especially as evidenced by the most popular photos which are voted on by MingleNow’s 300,000+ members. There are also contests for submitting pictures, such as one running now where you can win a VIP Trip to the Bud Light Aspen Spring Jam, a four day live concert festival.
 

 

As a recent BusinessWeek article put it, A-B is in “pursuit of the elusive 25-year-old Everyman. There’s the struggle to recalibrate how the brewer sells big brands in stupendous volumes amid the vicissitudes of an uncooperative and fractionalized market.” MingleNow focuses on the 21-35 nightclub demographic, which is ideal for A-B’s purposes though really it’s the 21-25 age bracket that gets most of the attention. ClickZ News and BizReport also have their own take on this story.

So my initial reaction is that this part of Here’s to Beer phase 2 push is much more helpful to Anheuser-Busch in recapturing the youth drinker than to beer as a category. It does little that I can see to realize the supposed goal of increasing beer’s share among all alcoholic beverages. Unless I’m missing something, can’t you clink a wine glass or tumbler of whiskey just as easily? As Silicon Valley business blogger Tom Foremski notes, “beer has helped build social relationships for centuries—maybe online social networks can now help build sales of beer.” Maybe, but I get the distinct impression that nobody thought through how this is really going to help persuade people to order a pint of beer instead of something else. Again, like the new Here’s to Beer website, Clink is not without it’s charms but hardly seems capable of changing anybody’s mind about the respect that good beer deserves.

The Celebrator’s 19th Anniversary Party

By

Sunday was the 19th Anniversary Party for the Celebrator Beer News. It was held at Trumer Brauerei in Berkeley, California from 4 to 8 p.m. There was a really good turnout for the party and a lot of friends and colleagues were there, which was great fun. Also, there was some terrific beer from twenty breweries, some terrific food from brewer Jeremy Sowers Emergency BBQ and three bands. This is just a few of the photos I took at the party, for more pictures, visit the photo gallery.

Greg Koch, co-owner of Stone Brewing, and Greg’s girlfriend Susan, presented Celebrator publisher Tom Dalldorf with a montage poster of Stone Brewing moments in the Celebrator.

Dan Del Grande, from Bison Brewing, brewed the new Reunion Beer, a charity for Multiple Myeloma (a type of bone cancer) by former Pete’s Wicked Ale employees Pete Slosberg, Virginia MacLean and Alan Shapiro.

A perky Kathryn with Judy Ashowrth and Melissa Myers, from Drake’s Brewing.

Party host Tom Dalldorf with Portland beer writer Fred Eckhardt.

For many more photos from the party, visit the photo gallery.

Photo Gallery: 14th annual Toronado Barley Wine Festival

By

Saturday was Day One of the 14th annual Toronado Barley Wine Festival in San Francisco. The festival will run until the next Saturday, February 24. But the first day is when the crowd descend and the beers are judged. As usual, I was one of the early arriver’s even though my judging round — the finals — wasn’t scheduled until at least noon. It was great to see so many friends and colleagues and just hang out. I spent the day there sipping barley wine and other beers and left around dinner time.

All of the beers at this year’s festival.

Ditto, this time from the side.

Now that judging takes place across the street, the Toronado’s backroom is available for many more customers.

And this year, a few of the beers were available in the back room, too, to help alleviate the crush at the main bar.

Baron Brewing’s Jeff Smiley and Kate Geiser down from Washington.

Judging the final round of nine barley wines. After all seven judges sampled each of the finalists, we were able to eliminate three from pack fairly quickly. Then two more fell after a lot of discussion. The remaining four were all excellent in their own ways, and haggling over the order was quite spirited, though happily there was no bloodshed this year. We had some difficulty deciding whether or not our potential third and fourth place beers should get a tie for third or one third and an honorable mention. Ultimately we chose a tie because they were both excellent beers but quite different expressions of the style. We had pretty good consensus on which beers we felt should be first and second, but not necessarily the order. Eventually, we talked our way to a decision we were all happy with. (Thanks to Gregg Wiggins for taking a few shots with my camera.)

After the winners were announced, a group of homebrewers gave Toronado owner Dave Keene an award to show their appreciation for his hosting such a great event for the past 19 years.

Back on the other side of the street, I caught up with friends at the bar. Here, Judy Ashworth, Matt Salie (with Big Sky Brewing) and Judy’s daughter Laurel.

Justin and Daniela (from the Brewing Network) and Shaun O’Sullivan (from 21st Amendment).

An accordionist serenaded Toronado patrons in the back middle room.

Former Stone brewer Lee Chase with Susan and Greg Koch (co-owner of Stone Brewing).

Trappist Beers & Chocolate Dinner

By

Bruce Paton, the Beer Chef’s, 3rd annual Beer & Chocolate Dinner paired ten Trappist beers from six out of the seven monastery breweries authorized to call themselves Trappists by the International Trappist Association (ITA). In addition to hors d’oeuvres accented with chocolate (paired with Orval and Chimay Cinq Cents), there were four courses. The first course was a delicious lobster bisque infused with milk chocolate and crème fraiche and paired with Westmalle Dubbel and Chimay Premiere. When they started bringing the bowls of bisque into the dining room, the air was thick with the aroma of lobster, but when you tasted it the chocolate really came through as the dominant flavor.

The table I sat at was Chef Bruce’s table, too, so we got some great insight on how he chose the pairings, found the ingredients and prepared the dishes. Next up was breast of squab with sweet potato chocolate flan and natural jus paired with Achel and Westmalle Tripel.

The third course was Angus beef short ribs braised in Chimay with parsnip puree dark chocolate port wine reduction served with Chimay Grand Reserve and Rochefort 8. The beef was so tender you didn’t need your knife. Also, the parsnips were all but completely overwhelmed by the chocolate flavors, which complemented the meat perfectly.

Guests at the dinner, from left. Cornelia Corey and Ray McCoy (Beer Drinkers of the Year 2001 and 2003, respectively), Bryan Harrell (the Celebrator’s man in Tokyo) and Portland beer writer Fred Eckhardt (who pioneered the beer and chocolate dinner way back in 1988)

The dessert course billed was an “Exploration of Chocolate Delights” which in this case meant three very different chocoholic desserts. There was a lemony chocolate cheesecake, a chocolate mousse with white chocolate pieces in it and a strawberry wearing a tasty white chocolate tuxedo. These were paired with Rochefort 10 and De Koningshoeven Quadrupel. The De Koningshoeven is only one of the seven Trappist breweries in the Netherlands (the rest are all in Belgium) though it is better known by its European name, La Trappe. The only Trappist beer not represented was, of course, Westvleteren, which no longer distributes its beer outside the monastery.

Beer Chef Bruce Paton with his two great passions, food and beer. Thanks Bruce for another terrific dinner. Look for a Valley Brewing dinner at the end of April and a Allagash beer dinner in late May.