This Sunday, Vinnie Cilurzo, founder and brewmaster at Russian River Brewing, turned forty. His wife Natalie pulled out all the stops and made it a two-day celebration, beginning with a barbecue at the production brewery.
We arrived a little early, and Vinnie and Terrence Sullivan, assistant brewer at Sierra Nevada Brewing was there with kegs of a beer that Vinnie brewed in Chico, and they were now filling into wine barrels to store in the barrel room for aging. The beer is for a special project for next year, and I can’t say more than that at this point.
We brought our kids along and happily so did Terrence and his wife. Their son Riley and Porter got along immediately and were thick as thieves playing in the barrel room and the rest of the brewery.
We dropped the kids off at Grandma’s, put them to bed, and rejoined the party, which had moved to the brewpub, where we caught up again with Natalie and Vinnie.
Natalie had a bunch of great cupcakes made, including several custom ones with a few logos you may recognize.
The band playing was one of Vinnie’s favorites, The Famous, a San Francisco band. They even did a special song for the occasion, Pliny the Elder.
Vinnie and me toward the end of the evening. The next day, we had brunch at Willie BIrds, near the brewery. After that, the party resumed back at the brewpub, but sadly without us. It was time to get the kids home.
Below is a slideshow of Vinnie’s 40t birthday 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.