SF Beer Week 2012 Recap

I did the terribly over-emotional recap here last year, and I stand by it. I could write the same thing again, with a little more familiarity and a few more friends, but the idea is the same. Every year, I get to live through ten days that remind me how lucky I am to be a part of what I believe is the strongest craft beer community in the country, and I am so grateful for that opportunity.

I won't be writing any big features on the events I attended, namely because I didn't take any photos this year. Last year I tried to jump around as much as possible and thought about how I would "cover" something; this year, I decided to live in the moment and let the week guide me wherever made sense. I'm so glad I did. There are all sorts of brilliant beer bloggers out there that covered them much better than I would have anyway, and hopefully by now you've gotten an opportunity to relive some of those events through their recaps.

I would like to discuss a couple of my highlights, however, and the comments section is there if you'd like to discuss yours as well.

SF Beer Week Opening Celebration, or what I will always refer to as either The Gala or Beer Prom - Many of you will remember that I was mildly vocal regarding my disappointment at last year's opening event. The more vulgar among you might recall that I was sort of a dick about it. I could not be happier with the improvements that were made this year.

The location was great, and while some people might disagree, I'm glad the VIP tickets are done with. For a massive event such as this, it just seems unfair to put a luxury tax on the "special" beers, which is what happened last year. People who wanted first crack could line up early, and they did. I arrived around 5:40 and was pretty far back in line, but I was through the doors by 6:10 at the latest and the hall was nowhere near filling up. There were over 60 breweries in attendance and I only made it to a handful. If I did have to wait in a line, it was less than ten minutes, and it's worth noting that only happened to me a couple of times for a couple of very special beers that I knew would have long lines. Aside from the lack of bathrooms (which is a significant problem and does need to be dealt with for next year), I think this year was a spectacular hit. I hope it's at this location again next year.

My other criticism would be a lack of seating. It seems silly at a three hour beer festival, sure, but by the end, every ounce of sitting-friendly space was taken up by people who just needed to get off their feet for a second. A few chairs or benches spread out around the place would have been a nice addition (if nothing else, certain areas seemed to be a little traffic-clogged toward the end of the night).

Congratulations to the organizers of this year's event - you clearly listened to the community after last year and all that thoughtfulness really came out in the party. Everyone I was with had an incredible time and we're still talking about it two weeks later.

Sour Sunday - the unofficial name we've all given to Triple Rock and Jupiter's sour events. My word, what a great day. We started at Triple Rock and we were a few minutes late to the party. The line was long, but only took us 25 minutes or so. It was one-in, one-out by that point, but I think that's a good decision. It was crowded inside without being terribly unmanageable. All of the American sours were pushed onto the patio upstairs, which led to some interesting traffic jams. The patio is beautiful and is my favorite thing about Triple Rock, but since many of us were really there to try the hard-to-find American beers, we mostly camped out and got terribly cozy. $20 for entry snagged you four full pours, and everyone I spoke to was offering a small tasting before you committed to using one of your precious tickets.

After we left Triple Rock, we headed to Jupiter for the end of their event. There was ample space on the back patio, so we cozied up and filled our bellies with pizza. (The more ambitious among us continued on to the Mission Rosamunde for the rest of the evening. That pizza was necessary.) The lovely Kelsey of Drake's poured me a barrel-aged version of Drakonic, which would lead to me snapping it up everywhere I could find it for the rest of the week. I am a creature of delicious habit.

And perhaps the best thing about Sour Sunday, for those of you who know the two of us personally, is that Eric took the greatest photo of myself and Jeff ever. I'll be framing it.

Photo credit to Beer and Pork

Butchers and Beers - Please do yourself a favor and check out Brian's excellent photos and writeup over at Bay Area Craft Beer. This is the sort of event that I would love to see more of in San Francisco. Yes, there was unlimited beer, yes, there was unlimited (and exquisite) food. But the star of the show here really was the education we all received. I'm not used to spending my Monday night sharing a room with 50 food nerds who are actually in it to learn something. We watched and asked questions as Ryan Farr expertly butchered half of a 300 pound pig - beers in hand, of course.

If you ever have the opportunity to see a Ryan Farr breakdown, make it a priority. He's funny and conversational, all while educating you on the process and showing a clear amount of respect for the job he's privileged to perform every day. All questions were answered without disrupting the process. And, of course, the food is just ridiculous. I've certainly eaten my share of crispy pig fat for the year. (Not that it's going to stop me.) The beer was fantastic, the crowd was lively. I wish there had been a little more seating - I showed up right as the event was scheduled to start and all the tables were claimed already, and none of the guests saw fit to rotate off of their tables as the night progressed. I'm sure I'd be the same way, but it did make eating a little difficult. Luckily the pork was tender enough that a knife was never, ever called for!

I sincerely hope events like this are part of a larger trend in our beer culture. Everyone walked away full, happy, and having learned a little something new.

Sau and Brau - Two days after my dinner of unlimited beer and pork, I went to a dinner of unlimited beer and pork. I am nothing if not consistent. The good folks at Drake's certainly know how to throw a party! I realized far too late that the first of the three hours was a happy hour, offering unlimited pours of Drake's regular beers. The lovely Kelsey offered me an extra drink ticket to make up for what was ultimately my own misunderstanding, a much appreciated gesture.

Is there anything to say about Drake's barrel-aged beers that hasn't been said? These are folks who are just doing everything right. The Drakonic brewed with Tcho and Blue Bottle was fantastic. The Brett beer (whose name escapes me at the moment) was fantastic. I can go on and on and sing the praises of every single thing I tried. Seating was more than adequate, the food was great, and the atmosphere was terribly friendly and fun. My dining companion and I made fast friends with the strangers at our table and we had a lovely evening. I hadn't originally planned to attend since San Leandro is a little difficult for the car-less among us to reach, but I'm so pleased that I had the opportunity.

SF Homebrewer's Guild at Pi Bar - For years, many of us have been saying "man, there really needs to be a homebrew club in San Francisco". A few have loosely tried to get plans together that fell through one way or the other. But finally, Chris Cohen sucked it up on behalf of all of us and put a ton of work into actually making it happen. There will be many more events of this type, and when they come up, you should jump on them immediately. The ludicrously low price of $15 gets you in the door and allows you to sample all the homebrew you could ask for, as well as pizza and salad to soak up all the booze in your belly. (In my case it was soaking up the morning's hangover. Day Ten was a rough one for some of us.)

At any homebrew event, there's going to be some bad with the good. We're experimenting and there's no one to set the rules; they can't all be winners. That being said, I am absolutely stunned at the variety and skill displayed by homebrewers in this city. The keg of Flanders Red in the corner (which is partially brewed by my friend Eric, but there is no bias in that statement) was stunning. Gail of Beer By Bart brought a couple of the most fun sours I've tasted in ages. Powell Avenue Brew knocked it out of the park with the selections they brought (and I will absolutely be stealing the "use butternut squash" idea when I brew a pumpkin beer later this year). Chris' hibiscus rye saison made me want to go home and brew a clone immediately. I almost didn't mention those highlights, because it seems like a damn shame to not mention all the things I really enjoyed. I was just overwhelmed by the generosity and excitement of our homebrew community - people didn't bring "what they had", they brought what they were proud of. As a homebrewer myself, I could not have left feeling more inspired.

Watching the evolution of SF Beer Week over the years has just been fascinating. Some events are seriously getting out of control - the crowds are bigger than ever and in a tiny little city with tiny little bars, it's going to be interesting to see how we can move forward. The compulsion to make things bigger and better is certainly admirable, but we're working with a finite amount of space sometimes. I cannot believe the amount of work that people put in - paid and unpaid - to bring all of this together. This ten day party doesn't organize itself!

So thanks, folks - the events I've listed above are just a drop in the bucket of what I attended, not to mention the literally hundreds of events that were out there. Now that I've had a week to live off that continuously compounded hangover, I'm already anticipating next year. Cheers!

Worlds Crossing: Come check out what I've been up to!

Over at my design blog, I've posted our thoughts on the state of beer tracking and what might be done to fix the current system. Head on over and share your thoughts!

Beer Tracking: A Better Way

Almanac Beer Co.

I have never been as excited for a beer release as I have been for Almanac Beer Co.'s Summer 2010 Vintage. Don't get me wrong, there are beers that I look forward to every year - Anchor's Our Special Ale holds a very unique place in my heart and I rush out to buy two magnums as soon as it's released. Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout is stunning. Abyss, Bourbon Barrel Quad, Parabola - look. I buy bottles, I drink one, I cellar another, I get all tingly a year or two later when I get to open it. I follow all my favorite beer vendors on Twitter so I know exactly when I'll be able to run over and greedily snatch up my share.


This, though? This is different. I'm (mostly) proud to call Jesse Friedman a friend. (Ego-checking Jesse throughout this post is about to become really important.) When I first moved to the city, his blog was one of my favorite sources to learn about new breweries in the area and hear about exciting beer events that I should attend. I've watched him go from beer lover to homebrewer to "guy who just might be opening a brewery" to "guy who opened a brewery" to "guy who might quit his job" to "holy shit, guy who just quit his job". I hope that transition is as dizzying to him as it is to me.

I've been anticipating this beer since the first time he poured me a barrel sample. And let's be clear: that barrel sample was poured out of a previously-emptied water bottle. It was flat and it wasn't ready. It was also magnificent, and made it very clear that we were going to be seeing an excellent product. He and Damian debuted a version at SF Beer Week this year, and I was privileged enough to try the spoils of one barrel at The Summit. The beer had a little while longer to go, though, through a little more aging, some serious blending (check out the differences in color from the different barrels at their blog), down to the bottle and the kegs that you see now. I've had this beer in five variations - original barrel, SFBW-friendly barrel, bottled, kegged, and sour kegged - and while it's different from version to version, I'd have a rough time choosing favorites.


Their bottle release event at City Beer Store was highly anticipated in a way I don't think any of us were really prepared for. My friend Jeff and I showed up early - early, early, as in "tapping the keg at 6, so we'll be there at 4:30" early - and got the last seats. We posted up against the front wall, grabbed ourselves a non-Almanac, and waited it out. The place became one in, one out before 5:30 even hit. Special tickets were being handed out to designate how many bottles you could buy as the line grew larger and larger outside. Most of my friends, like the angry little snowflake pictured below, had to stand outside and paw at the window while we tried to consume all the sour beer we could get our hands on.


It's an awful picture, but it makes me laugh so much that it gets included here.

It's a great beer. As much as I'd like to bust Jesse and Damian's balls and make some joke about how I'm disappointed after all that wait, I just don't have it in me. It's an incredible beer. They were also kind enough to make a super limited run sour version, made with Rodenbach's sour strain, which won't be bottled but is available in very limited kegs. And my god, it's good. It's a perfect example of how very different a beer can be when you make some very small changes. Just look at the difference in color between these two (the rosy one on the left is the sour):


And just look at how happy this beer makes people.


Bottles are available at the usual suspects - City Beer, Healthy Spirits, Whole Foods (Potrero) and Beer Revolution, just to name a few, but a full list is available on their website as well. They've thrown a couple of parties so far, but if you're looking for your last chance to try the sour version, you'll just have to show up to Shotwell's tomorrow night. We're throwing a great big party for them complete with treats from Wise Sons Deli, Kitchen Side Car, and Nosh This. They'll have both versions of this beer available for you to try, and there's a rumor that your favorite redheaded occasional bartender might end up behind the bar to ration out all of the goodness for you.

The fun kicks off tomorrow at 6, but if you can't make it, do yourself a favor and stop by one of the many locations around town to snatch up a bottle or five. I'm so proud of these dudes, I could just burst. But don't tell them that - I've got a quasi-surly reputation to try and uphold.

Mission Cheese, Week 1

In addition to bicycles and beer, there's a pretty big list of things that are always on my mind. If I devoted half as much brain power to the energy crisis or climate control as I do to figuring out where in my apartment would be ideal to hang pancetta, I feel like I'd have that Nobel prize in my hands within a matter of weeks. It came as little surprise to me when four people emailed me within the same day reminding me that Mission Cheese was opening.



The Mission has a handful of good cheese options already. The selection at Bi-Rite is top notch, and a shocking number of neighborhood markets carry great, local cheeses. The Mission Cheese motto is different - they're a cheese shop, sure, and you can absolutely walk in and grab half a pound of whatever suits your fancy to take home, but that's not really the point. When you walk in the door, there are smiling faces greeting you behind the bar, and barstools on the other side so you can sit and chat. This is a place where questions are far beyond okay, they're encouraged. I talk a lot about the intimidation factor of food, beer and wine - looking at a giant list of options you don't understand can be really hard to handle. Mission Cheese seeks to alleviate that, and it does so stunningly. Don't know what something is? They do. And at $4 per generous taste, you can afford to find a whole slew of new favorites.



I came with a group of five, and we assembled a collection of randomly chosen cheeses to try. We chose to make our own, but there are also themed boards pre-determined if you'd like to sample without going through the whole list on your own. Going with friends certainly encourages the sense of community (and enables you to steal their cheese), but I think it would be equally fun to sit at a barstool and pester all the lovely employees with way too many questions. Yes, I've got my next trip planned.



The cheese menu alone is reason to go, but I've heard that their sandwiches are top notch as well. News on the block today was that their beer and wine license finally came through, so you should expect to see me as a regular fixture there within a couple of weeks.

When I started writing today, I IMed a friend saying "I'm trying to write a blog post about Mission Cheese and it's real difficult to come up with words beyond CHEESE SIX BLOCKS FROM MY PLACE, Y'ALL." And that's pretty much what it comes down to for me - this is a great neighborhood spot. Grab something to go to take to the park, sit and enjoy a beer with a cheese board, sit on the patio with friends on a nice day. Whatever you do, just make sure you go there soon. Because if you don't, I promise you, I will do everything I can to eat all of the cheese before you arrive.

The Summit/Beer & Nosh Tasting Dinner

You know how it goes, right? First there's SF Beer Week, when you do really well for seven days, but then you get The Plague or something and you're sick for a week. Then you go to Vegas. Then you're employed again for the first time in five weeks. Then your boyfriend's mom comes to visit, then your friend moves in with you while she finds an apartment, then your mom comes to stay with you for 11 days, then it's your birthday. Then it's April, nearly two months after you've had one of the best dinners of your life, and even though you call yourself a "beer blogger", you never had the common decency to talk about it.

No? Just me? Well, try to imagine.

I missed Jesse's SF Beer Week dinner the year before. God only knows why. After seeing the pictures, I vowed that I wouldn't miss whatever he was doing this year. Our budget restricted us to choosing one of the two instead of going to both (the other dinner was at Flour+Water). The Summit's dinner fell on Valentine's Day, solving the "How to be romantic AND participate in seven straight days of beer" issue - we were set.


Don't let the words "Tasting Menu" fool you; this was a lot of food. I'm pretty sure we were there for at least three hours. Beer dinners like this are my absolute favorite format - each of these beers had a representative there to talk about where the beer came from, how it was made, what it was inspired by. It's an opportunity to educate everyone about what they're drinking, whether someone is a seasoned beer consumer or just willing to try new things. I firmly believe that education can do nothing but help in the world of beer and food. My beer life changed dramatically when I shifted from just buying six packs and instead going to visit breweries, trying to meet people, and really committing to the idea of how a bunch of grains turn into something roasty, or hoppy, or floral.


I have to say, I was most excited about trying the Almanac Summer 2010 Blackberry Ale. I had a small barrel sample months and months ago out of a squeezy plastic bottle at City Beer Store when Jesse dropped by to share samples; even warm and flat it was clear that this was going to become an outstanding beer. I arrived too late to try it at the Gala, but was mildly comforted by knowing I'd have access to it at the dinner. This was the first beer of the night and while it's hard to choose favorites, it came in very high on my list.

Other standout beers for me were the always excellent Drake's Brett Butler and the SF Brewers Guild California Common - but I can't reinforce enough that I have no complaints about the beer list. The Firehouse Brewing Belgian IPA, inspired by Houblon Chouffe, is a lovely take on Belgian yeast with a California twist, and I've never had a variation of Speakeasy's Payback Porter that I didn't like.


Its pairing was a Scallop and Citrus Ceviche. Those big orange pieces on the plate? That's ale carbonated citrus. How is it possible, if science allows such a thing, that all citrus doesn't come ale carbonated? Travesty. The carbonation lightens the texture and once you bite into it, it's sort of a gentler Pop Rocks for adults. I can come up with silly descriptions all night, folks, but just know that it was delightful.


My table highly enjoyed the "Edible Garden" of espresso mole and pancetta. The pancetta was divine, and while the dry mole was a little disorienting to me, I really enjoyed the flavor.


Despite an adventurous palate and a love for everything that's within a degree or two of "edible", there is no denying that I'm a midwestern girl from a meat town, and when I see braised ANYTHING on a menu, I get excited. The vadouvan braised shortrib course was a huge hit for me. The lentils and carrots had a nice balance of sweetness and earthiness, and paired with the falling-apart shortrib, this was probably the hit of the night for me.


It had stiff competition, of course, from a pastry filled with Tallegio cheese, paired with a Double IPA.


The foie torchon was a little too much for me. A very, very generous serving of foie gras, served on a round of brioche and drizzled with a duck egg sabayon. The flavor was divine, but a little rich for my tastes. Paired very smartly with the Belgian IPA, however, which had the right amount of hoppy and sweet to cut through the decadent fullness of the foie.


I didn't make it over to Humphrey Slocombe this year to try the beer ice creams, so it was a special treat to know I was going to be having a beer float made with one of my favorite beers. I also had the pleasure of having Jake and Emily, who were responsible for making the ice cream, as my dinner companions for the night. The espresso and the balsamic in the ice cream, combined with the TCHO-infused Speakeasy Porter, just knocked this dish out of the park for me. I could have eaten my serving and everyone else's at the table. I'm not ashamed to admit there was bowl-licking.


It is truly embarrassing that it took me so long to get this dinner written about, but it is a testament to the strength of the menu and the beer list that these memories are still so vivid for me so many weeks later. Jesse's SF Beer Week dinners are always a standout, and it was a particular treat to enjoy his beer at one of them. Cheers to the chef, the brewers, and the many volunteers that made this night possible - it was a perfect way to spend Valentine's Day.

Also see Jesse's very good writeup with far superior photos here.

Reflections on SF Beer Week

I attended 19 beer events over the course of seven days. That's 19 events all within a five mile radius of my house.

I skipped the last three days of SF Beer Week because I was so sick I could have infected all the thousands of you that kept on going right through the 20th. With 19 events, I think it's safe to estimate that I consumed roughly 97,000 beers within 168 hours time. This estimation is rough, of course, but I assume yours are similar.

Joking aside, let's talk for a moment about how lucky we all are to have a week like this to participate in. I've never been a part of a beer week in another city. I hear Denver is great, I hear Philly is great. Everyone I know that's been to Oregon during beer month tells me how much I'd love it. I'm sure I'll make it out to all those cities eventually, but for the moment, I'm happy to revel in what we've got right here.

I'd like to get a little personal and nostalgic for a moment. I moved to San Francisco on September 1st, 2008. I had no money, literally living off of a loan that in the pre-credit crisis era was able to be maxed out on things like rent and burritos that could be stretched to last three days. (Say what you will about Taqueria Cancun; when you've got a broken collar bone and you're living at 18th & Mission, you can make one last for breakfast, lunch and dinner and maybe even breakfast the next day.) I knew one person. He only knew me. The social situation was, let's say, sparse.

I made it a little worse for myself by insisting on being a freelancer. Being a freelancer performs two opposite tasks simultaneously: You meet a ton of people, and you become friends with absolutely none of them. I've racked up more professional contacts in this city than I could start to list, but friends took a little bit longer to find.

Before San Francisco, I made legitimate stabs at building a life in Kansas City, New York City and Cincinnati, three cities with excellent access to craft beer. I've lived with accessible Bell's, Brooklyn, Boulevard - if you can get it between Colorado and Maine, I've probably lived somewhere I could pick it up. When I moved to the west coast, I wasn't excited about moving to some crazy beer mecca. Cincinnati's beer scene was exploding just as I was about to leave with incredible bars and people that cared so much about showcasing their more-than-a-century-old brewing philosophy. Moving to San Francisco made me a little heartbroken, to be honest, for all the beer I'd be losing in my day to day life.

You don't have to go back to 2008 and slap me; I don't need it. You could gently tell me how much I was about to learn and how much my life was about to change, though.

Moving to a completely new area of the country prepped with a really solid knowledge base from somewhere else just turns you into a kid in a candy store. I wandered into Shotwell's, nee Inner Mission Beer Parlor, about two months into moving west. Within a few months I had tried everything on the menu. It wasn't enough. Corner stores, brewpubs, nerdy beer blogs - give it to me.

Somewhere along the line, I got "into" the beer world. I don't know how it happens. You make some friends on Twitter. You start to recognize people because you're always at the same events. You share information, you retweet. You write about beer every once in awhile. Someone sees you talking to people about beer often enough and they decide you know your stuff; soon enough you're being introduced to distributors and brewers. Somewhere along the line, nothing is enough. Never satisfied, never done learning.

It has been an absolute pleasure to party with all of you for the past week. Is it really nerdy that most of my real life friends directly or indirectly met me through the Internet? I don't care. My word, what a party this week was. I have learned to stop blushing when someone introduces me as "At JRizzo". I shared beers - in some cases, quite literally - with so many of you. I wasn't alone anywhere. I'm no longer faceless in this city, and I have beer to thank.

I get so much joy out of telling people stories about our beer scene. A non-beer-drinking friend (I've got them, yes) came by to see me at 21A on Imperial Jack night and wanted to know what the big event was. I told her the whole thing - the first brewing of Imperial Jack, who Richard is, why ESB is so special, what this beer is about, how it came to be entered into the World Beer Cup. Stories I've heard over sharing pints with the people who make the beer as well as the people who love it. Stories that make this city's beer scene more than good beer, more than creative beer, more than just a list of places to grab a pint. I take so much pride in knowing all of those things. I sat at the Beer and Nosh dinner at The Summit and someone opened a door for me to spend three minutes describing the science and use of Brettanomyces, and they cared. They listened. We learned together.

People are always asking how I know this person or that person, how I know what beer is where, how I know where the cool events are. Just saying "Twitter" sounds so silly, doesn't it? I'll figure out how exactly it works sometime, but for now, it's certainly not hurting anything.

Nineteen events. I'm still sorting through all of the photos, and god knows I'll never be able to list all the beer. If I tried less than 100 different beers this week, I'd be shocked. They were all real. Someone made every single one of them. They aren't competing; they're friends. Beer community, you're a card.

Thank you to everyone for the laughter, for the hugs, for the sips of your beer, for the glasses of water, for the immediate @ responses when one of you posted about a fascinating beer that made me rush across town to try it. Singling out my favorite event is impossible, but Breweries of Tomorrow, The Summit, MK/Heart Cask Night, Lost Coast at South End, Local at Shotwell's, Breckle's at Anchor, and Russian River at Pi all hold pretty dear places in my heart.

Over the next couple of weeks I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of great recaps roll in. I'm looking forward to your thoughts, to weeks worth of discussion, and to a whole year to anticipate doing this ride all over again. Cheers, y'all.

Breweries of Tomorrow Recap

The Breweries of Tomorrow nanobrewing festival was one of my most anticipated events of SF Beer Week. Organized by Brian of All Over Beer and Bay Area Craft Beer and held at Social Kitchen & Brewery, the point of this event was to highlight my very favorite trend in craft beer: nanobrewing.

"Breweries of Tomorrow" was a particularly clever and spot-on name for the event. These are breweries led by homebrewers on speed. People like me roll into Brewcraft every few months and get a couple pounds of malt extract - people like them write business plans and design logos. These are homebrewers who are really, really good at it. Having nine of them showcased at an event is so exciting because it means within the next few years, we're going to have at least nine new full-scale production breweries to fawn over.

A great aspect of SF Beer Week is how many events are centered around meeting brewers. There are people behind your beer, friends - smart people who love beer the way you do, they just get paid to make it. The new nanobrewing trend is exciting not just because they're going to upgrade to microbrewing soon enough, but because you get to watch that whole process happen. These breweries are evolving and changing ten gallons at a time. The beers showcased last night are results of trial-and-error, and by this point they're all nearly perfected.

When I ran into Brian at the gala on Friday, he expressed concern that there might be a really sizable crowd. He was right.



I arrived half an hour early and was about the twentieth person in line. By the time the doors opened at 5:00, the line had gotten completely out of control. I know a lot of people ended up coming by and weren't able to get in - when the place hit capacity, it became one in, one out. It was certainly crowded, but by no means unmanageable. The setup worked really well - three tables, three brewers at each table.

Pours were... let's say, "generous". My word, there was a lot of booze. As a result, though, people needed to visit tables far less frequently, so getting a beer was never a problem. There was a steady flow of people moving at all times from what I could tell, but I never waited more than a minute to get a beer. Step up, get a beer, find somewhere to post up for a bit while you drink your beer.



This was, by far, the best deal of Beer Week. $15 gets you a commemorative glass, two beer tickets for the Social brews, and access to all the nanobrew you want. With the generous pouring, $15 scored a really, really ridiculous amount of beer. I don't know a single person that walked away unhappy (or sober). Oh, and there were water kegs! Dear, sweet water kegs. Thank you for being there for me.



Reviewing all the beers seems a little silly, because what everyone should really do is look up times when these brewers open their doors and go visit to talk to them about what they're making and where they're going. I will say that standouts included Daddy's Chocolate Milk from Elizabeth Street Brewing, Pacific Brew Labs' Hibiscus Saison, Local Brewing Co's Sutro Tower Stout, the Belgian Strong from Beltane and the Bitter from Bosworth. Those being singled out, however, I didn't have a thing all night that I disliked.



I really hope this trend continues. I hope this event happens every year, and I hope we see new nanobrewers stepping up to join in. The nanobrewing trend has felt a little cultish up to this point - you're in the know or you aren't. Breweries of Tomorrow provided great publicity for the little guys and hopefully gave all nine brewers a push to get those distribution licenses even faster. Seriously, we love your beer. Let's see it on shelves.