Fancy beer: pinkies out or middle fingers up?

There’s been a lot of talk lately about beer becoming higher class/more expensive/more accepted/more like wine/more pretentious/etc. Most of these articles and comments seem to come from outside the beer community. I feel like more of us from the actual beer culture — as opposed to food writers, wine writers, and people who discovered beer last Tuesday — need to weigh in on this.

Here’s the type of thing I’m talking about. It’s not an isolated example and I hate to pick on this one writer, but it does encapsulate a lot of the gee-whiz-fancy-beer sentiment that’s been going around. Even though I’m a bit of a scumbag myself, I’d say beer going highbrow is a good thing to a certain extent, and I’ll explain why later…but there are a few things I want to say first.

Comparing beer to wine was old five years ago
Google “beer is the new wine” and you get 130,000 results. Stop it. Seriously. Beer is not the new wine. Beer is not the new anything.

Talking about “the winefication of beer” makes me insane. I understand that beer in a glass with a stem on it rather than YEEHAW FROSTY MUG is confusing for some people. I know some folks are used to a wine list but not a beer list. I get that most people think of good wine as expensive and all beer as cheap. For too many people, beer is still nothing more than that skunky stuff they played drinking games with in college. However, complimenting a beer by saying “it’s like wine!” or “this doesn’t even taste like beer!” is about as good a compliment as “you clean up nice” or “you look good for your age.” I know you mean well, but jeez.

We can also stop with lines like this, please: “And like wine, sour beers are best savored and explored, not downed.” Look, beer that tastes more like wine — non-hoppy, barrel-aged, containing actual grapes —  is not automatically classier, better, snobbier, tastier, or more deserving of respect than a fresh Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. As a beer bartender, let me tell you why wine-tasting beers are amazing: they enlighten wine drinkers that beer isn’t a duopoly of watery blandness on one side and rip-your-face-off-hoppy on the other side. Also, when done right, they sure can taste great. But wine is not some holy thing that improves beer by mere proximity to its grapes and barrels.

Beer was good before you or I got here
Beer becoming available in nice restaurants didn’t make beer good. The rise of beer bars so shiny you could take your date or your grandmother there didn’t make beer good. Wine and food writers discovering beer didn’t make beer good. Beer has been good for years.

Not all good beer is expensive, and not all expensive beer is good
Likewise, you shouldn’t have to go to an upscale place to get servers who understand their product. For instance, my local brewpub is a completely unpretentious place with very well-trained bartenders. Which leads me to…

Knowing a lot about something doesn’t make you a snob
Some people are starting to use the phrase “beer snob” to describe anyone who knows a lot about beer. Knowledge and snobbery are not synonymous.

If you think the most knowledgeable people in the beer world are snobs or hipsters, clearly you haven’t been to an industry event lately. We, for the most part, are not fancy ladies and gentlemen. We just want to drink tasty things.

Conversely, some of the most pretentious people on beer review sites, trust me, don’t appear to know much of anything. Using big words you learned on Beer Advocate or from Tasting Beer isn’t the same thing having as deep knowledge of a subject.

Are there beer people who are both knowledgeable and snooty? Sadly, yes…because there are all kinds of people who are both knowledgeable and snooty. All I can do — and all you can do, if your job involves both beer and dealing with the public — is try to drop knowledge when appropriate/asked for and not be a jerk.

Quality is not anti-American (or is it?)
A problem with good beer being seen as higher class now — and a problem I can’t see a solution for, to boot — is that it’s putting some people off. We are not reaching people who think good beer is the same thing as snooty beer and that consuming it will turn them into some sort of pinkie-raised yuppie asshole. If you ever look at comments on any mainstream article about the beer community — which you shouldn’t, because reading online comments will make you go blind — you’ll find that guy (or dozen) with the “shove your fancy beer up your ass, I’m gonna drink a Bud because I’m Just Folks” mentality. (One recent example is here)

This is so confusing. It’s like, “fuck eating something good, I’m gonna get Mc Donalds just on general principle! Because I’m not an asshole!” But we do that, too. Calling a politician “elitist” is one of the worst things you can say, and we base that on food more often than makes sense. Remember the reaming John Kerry got for Swiss cheese and Obama got for arugula?

If you don’t want to buy beer (or wine, or food) with prices in the top 1% or 10% or 50% of what’s available, don’t. There are plenty of other tasty options, and frankly not all of the most expensive beer is stuff I want to drink anyway. If you don’t want to go to a bar you see as pretentious, don’t. On most days ending in Y, I prefer a casual environment to an upscale one myself. But the existence of upscale places isn’t an affront to my beer-drinking humility.

Making quality beer the new normal would be good, right?
We’ve determined no one likes a snob — that implies someone who is condescending and possibly mean. And I hope I’ve convinced you that “elevating” beer does not need to mean snobbing it up. Either way, I think what is happening with the upscaling of beer is going to make it an all-occasion beverage with a wider customer base, and that’s hard to argue with even if you’re not the white-tablecloth type.

Example: I work at a bar that is viewed by some as overpriced and pretentious, but I’ve got plenty of customers who would still think beer is icky if every beer bar felt like a dive. Not because nice furniture makes beer taste better, but because they simply don’t go to lower-brow bars. (More room for me!) On the other hand, some of my customers generally prefer a more casual atmosphere but come to my workplace anyway because we’ve got the beer they want and we’re not dicks.

You should be able to go out to a high-end restaurant and have great, well-cared-for, food-appropriate beer to match instead of HAVING to order wine or a cocktail. I want people to see beer’s possibilities as a special-occasion beverage. I want to get rid of the idea that wine is for classy people and beer is for hooligans. That’s as outdated as thinking beer is for men and wine is for women. (Don’t get me started.) That said, I also want every dive bar to have beer worth drinking served through clean lines.

While I’m making a wish list, I want more people with fat purses to spend some of it supporting the beer industry. I want to stop hearing about anywhere in the world where beer is taxed differently than wine and I want everyone that will ship wine to be able to ship beer. (And that was the closest I’ll ever get to comparing wine and beer.) If it takes some beer having a certain kind of marketing or a certain price tag or availability in certain dining/drinking environments to rid the world of derogatory stereotypes about the type of person who drinks beer, that’s fine with me. Elevate me, baby! (Wasn’t that a Pixies song?) Let’s drop this classist Joe Six-Pack bullshit. To do that we have to bring rich kids into the fold…but we do NOT have to let them take over.

A final anecdote
Last year at the Craft Brewers Conference, some brewery people I’d been hitting the town with told me they were were headed back to their rooms to dress up for the beer awards that night. Oh shit! All I’d brought to San Diego was my usual uniform of jeans and beer t-shirts. I milled around the hotel lobby, starting to panic as a few industry people arrived in gowns and ties. When I saw a Bay Area brewer I knew walk into the lobby in shorts, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap, I ran up and asked if he planned to change his clothes.

“Yeah,” he deadpanned, “I’m going to take my sunglasses off my shirt and put them on my hat.” Turns out there were plenty of people at this event who looked like they’d come directly from Tornado. (*raises hand* Guilty.)

Let that be your takeaway if you like: a wonderful aspect of the beer community is that it’s okay to get fancy and it’s okay to keep it super casual, as long as you’re drinking something you like and having a good time. I hope there’s always room for every single one of us.

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Preview: The Hog’s Apothecary’s teaser taplist

Have you been waiting all summer for The Hog’s Apothecary to fill the gaping beer hole that radiates out from Macarthur BART? Yeah, me too.

The place is now in its soft opening, which means give the brand-new staff a break while they figure things out and maybe call to confirm hours before you make a trip, though it sounds like Wednesday-Monday 5-10pm is a safe-ish bet. The grand opening is definitely September 25.

Beer director Sayre Piotrkowski approved me posting the preliminary draft list, but stressed that this is only some of the 33 taps that will be in use soon and he’s saving some great stuff for the grand opening. So if you don’t see your favorite local brewery, don’t freak out yet.

(Click the image to enlarge)

Beer! We like beer.

Beer! We like beer.

As you can see, the current focus is local and other California beers, mostly under $7 a glass. You may see some beers from the Pacific Northwest later but you’re not going to find imports or East Coast breweries. The emphasis is on freshness. I heard a couple people say “Why’s there so much Craftsman?” Because Craftsman (my favorite LA-area brewery when I lived in LA) is awesome, duh ;)

I didn’t eat anything, but early reports are that the food is delicious. I hear there’s a whole pig in the walk-in. I’ll report back in a few weeks. Side note for old-time Beer Revolution regulars who remember Nick & Jen’s weekend BBQ’s on the patio: Nick is in the kitchen at Hog’s now.

Follow The Hog’s Apothecary on Facebook for the latest.

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Heretic settles down in Fairfield

Homebuyers looking for a price break aren’t the only ones moving to Fairfield. Heretic Brewing Company has been making beer there since May, leaving behind its alternating proprietorship arrangement with E.J. Phair in Pittsburg.

I followed chief Heretic Jamil Zainasheff around the brewery recently and got a some exciting updates. Here’s the tl;dr for you short-attention-span folks: Heretic’s new brewery is really nice, the taproom is open, and there’s a Heretic/Mitch Steele/Mike McDole collaboration beer coming your way. Read on for details…

Aeriel view of Heretic's new digs.

Aeriel view of Heretic’s new digs.

Big and getting bigger
It’s obviously not as sizeable as the Anheuser-Busch plant 7 miles down the road, but Heretic’s new facility gives them a lot of room to grow. They have the option to buy the whole building someday, and the mirror-image (Evil Twin?) building across the way. A capacity of 50,000 bbl is not out of the question.

The brewery now houses three 120-bbl (3780 gallon) conical fermenters. For scale, each one could hold all four of the smaller fermenters they used in Pittsburg. (The smaller fermenters made the move to Fairfield, too.) They’re called Bamforth, after brewing professor Charles Bamforth, and Larrabee, after a distributor friend who was super helpful to Jamil back in the day. The third still needs a name.

heretic conicals

Baby bears…

...papa bears.

…papa bears.

Lookit this promising collection! Heretic plans to do more barrel aging and sour beers in small-format bottles and 750s. Speaking of sours, Heretic has also been hosting brew days for  The Rare Barrel.

heretic barrels

come to mama…

I was too awed by the 1000 square foot cold storage to even remember to take a picture of it. It’s bigger than my apartment (or a raquetball court). Pallets are stacked up 3 levels high. Unlike almost every brewery coldbox I’ve ever been in, there’s currently a lot of free space…we’ll see how long that lasts.

There’s going to be lab space where Heretic will do quality control, and an air-conditioned break room — Fairfield gets hot, and so does every brewery. There are also some features that the average Joe might not appreciate but which make the Heretic crew very happy. For instance, Jamil’s face lit up showing me the loading dock, which he called “the sweetest thing in the world.” The old brewery didn’t have one and he estimates it saves them hours a week.

In fact, talk to Jamil about the brewery for a while and you will hear plenty of references to things they’ve carefully tweaked to save hours and/or money, like how Heretic staffer Warren went DIY on the grist case and saved the company $6000. There are breweries growing recklessly as we speak. Heretic isn’t one of them.

Have a pint (or a growler)
Heretic’s taproom is now open Tuesday through Friday 3-8pm and Saturday and Sunday noon-5pm. It’s got 16 taps (not all in use yet), bottles to go, and growlers for sale.

The bar — another Heretic DIY project — is covered in photos of brewery employees, friends of the house, and brewhouse construction. The photos will be fun for anyone to look at, but for Jamil, it symbolizes what beer drinking is really about. Motioning to the bartop, he proclaimed, “I have all these friends because of craft beer.”

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I hear Heretic beer tastes better underwater…

Upcoming collaborations
Sometime around Christmas, Heretic will brew a collaboration beer with two heavy-hitters: beer author and Stone brewmaster Mitch Steele and award-winning homebrewer and Brewing Network personality Mike “Tasty” McDole. (This will not be a Stone beer, just Mitch brewing with some friends up north.) The recipe and other details are still in the works, but Mike recently told me it’ll probably be something hoppy. Shocking ;)

 Jamil hasn’t forgotten his homebrewing roots, either. He plans to set up a homebrew-sized system in the brewery and invite non-industry folks to help him use it. Then the beers — technically not homebrews since they were made commercially — can legally be served at the taproom. Talk about one-offs!

You can follow Heretic on Facebook or Twitter, or better yet, visit the new taproom or email tours@hereticbrewing.com to book a brewery tour. Sip, spread heresy, and drive safe.

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SF Photo Sunday: Southern Pacific Brewing

SoPacA Saturday evening winds up Mission-side at Southern Pacific Brewing. SoPac’s been open a shade longer than a year and a half and the mostly West Coast-styled beer lineup (as well occasional barrel-aged releases and a nice interpretation of a Munich Helles) is starting to come into its own, complemented by a nicely curated set of guest taps. I find the beers here pair well with the unpretentious atmosphere and a basket of garlic sage fries.

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East Bay Beer round-up 7/30/13

I can’t keep up…but sometimes I can try to catch up.

This month, local beer people were aflutter about the new Mikkeller Bar SF. I hesitated to join in the hype, but the place actually is pretty cool, so I wrote about it. The nerds among us (guilty) are extra-amped about the flux capacitor, which Mike Reis at Serious Eats expounded on here.

Speaking of Mike Reis, the beer guy at Abbott’s Cellar when he’s not pursuing his lucrative freelance writing career (chuckle), he and the lads of Henhouse Brewing were honored by Zagat’s “30 Under 30″ list. You should be following Collin McDonnell from Henhouse on Twitter, too.

Brewer news! Derek Smith, who most recently brewed at Black Diamond for many years, is now at Moylan’s. If you read this in time you can go to Barclay’s tonight and ask him how it’s going.

Brewery news! Ale Industries (where I work part-time) is moving to Oakland! Fruitvale, to be exact — or Jingletown, if you’re artsy. 21st Amendment is looking around the East Bay, too.

The rumors are true: John Martin (Drake’s, Jupiter, Triple Rock) is opening a large beer/pizza joint in uptown Oakland.

The SF Brewers Guild has a new member, Headlands Brewery. You should also read about the painting on the stairs at 21st Amendment.

Our neighbors to the south are having Silicon Valley Beer Week right now, so check it out.

Pine Street Brewery, which I believe is currently brewing at Devils Canyon under an alternating proprietorship, is looking to build a brewery and has launched a crowdfunding effort. Jay Brooks has more on this.

Do you like holidays? IPA Day is back on August 1.

Crooked Stave is going to start local distribution! I’m also excited about the Bay Area getting the beers of Gigantic Brewery (Portland). We’ve got plenty of good local beer but new faces are always fun.

There is going to be a Bacon and Beer festival in San Francisco in August. ‘Nuff said.

There is a sea of bad beer writing in food and mainstream publications, but the New Yorker did it right with this piece on sour beer. Word.

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Build Pizzeria brings another beer option to Berkeley

Build (the official name is BUILD Pizzeria Roma but I don’t like shouting) opened in April in downtown Berkeley, a stone’s throw from BART, Triple Rock, and plenty of other things I love. I don’t get out much so I first got around to investigating last night. You may have heard about the pizza and fancy cocktails, but you’ll be shocked — shocked! — that I’m going to talk about the beer.

Build me a glass of beer, please

Build me a glass of beer, please

Build is hitting the Meet the Brewer concept hard, especially for a place that isn’t a dedicated beer bar. Firestone Walker kicked it off in June,  Speakeasy showed up last week, Bison last night, and 21st Amendment will be there next Wednesday. It’s not a big beer geek scene and brewery employees are actively encouraged to work the crowd (perhaps someone at Build read this blog post). This bodes well for new faces exploring local beer. The events are listed as running from 5-7pm but I doubt any of them will end at 7 on the dot. The early start time gives you ample time to hit Build and then a second spot if there are multiple events you’d like to attend that night.

There’s no beer board, which threw me off for a minute when I walked in. The taps are discreetly labeled. The printed menu I looked at listed all California beers except for an Allagash, with prices in the $5.50-$6.50 range for what looked like a 12-ish ounce pour. Here’s the list: 21st Amendment Bitter American, Ale Industries Rye’d Piper, Allagash White, Almanac Honey Saison, Bison Chocolate Stout, Calicraft Oaktown Brown, Drake’s Denogginizer, Firestone Walker Union Jack, Heretic Evil Twin, Linden Street Urban People’s Common Lager, North Coast Pranqster, Speakeasy Big Daddy, Payback Porter, and Tallulah, Sierra Nevada Kellerweis, and Trumer Pils. This was slightly different on my visit due to the extra three Bison beers on tap (Honey Basil, Hop Cuvee, and Belgian Tramp).

Time will tell how often the taps rotate — my guess is not that often except on Meet the Brewer night, since there’s a list in the bound, permanent-looking full Build menu — but either way it’ll be nice to have a beer option right next door to the movie theater. More importantly, I suspect Build will be able to broaden the beer horizons of people who aren’t already huge dorks wondering about things like tap rotation.

Happy hour is Monday-Friday from 4-6pm, with a sub-menu of $3 beers and selected cocktails closer to $5 than $10. The $3 beers may not include your favorites on the 16-beer draft list, but then again they may: North Cost Scrimshaw, Sierra Nevada Kellerweis, Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye, and Heretic Evil Twin.

There are also 12 wines on tap and, for those that can hold their liquor, the bar staff and cocktail menu conjure up phrases like “mixologist” and “bar program.” I’ll let someone who knows something about hard stuff tell you about that, but I can attest that the beer cocktail I sampled was quite delicious.

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now if only I could make those TVs disappear

The space is bigger than I thought it would be, and on the swankier side. It also supposedly has a huge basement that is going to be turned into a club later on. The only drawback to the layout is that there isn’t a lot of space between the bar and the tables, so if you’re more than one-deep at the bar you’re always in a server’s way. If you’ve got a group, get a table.

Obviously the main reason for normal people to go to a pizza place is the pizza, and I haven’t tried much of that yet. The little Mediterranean slices (whole olives!) getting passed around indicates that the menu of wood-fired Italian-style pies is promising. The schtick is that you get to build your own pizza, hence the name, but the East Bay Express’ review suggests that maybe chefs are better at this than you are. Further, um, “research” will be required. At the bar.

Details:

2286 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, near Downtown Berkeley BART

http://buildpizzeria.tumblr.com/

https://www.facebook.com/buildpizzeria

 

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Photo Friday: Shotwells

6275571634_fa1a66380f_bTypical scene for this (underrated) Mission District beer bar on a weekend evening. Good tap and bottle selection, knowledgeable barkeeps, never too crowded but definitely not dead. The off-the-main-thoroughfare corner location always reminds me of my favorite low-key Chicago haunts from back in the day. What’s not to like?

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Mikkeller SF lands in the ‘loin

The ambitious new bar Mikkeller Bar SF technically opens today at 5pm at 34 Mason in San Francisco, kicking off what its Facebook page admits is “one of the longest soft openings in history.” This bar has been eagerly awaited by many beer nerds since 2012, and usually I’m too crowd-averse to visit such a highly-anticipated bar early in its existence. But I got to sneak in early on Thursday night, and I ain’t complaining.

Resting my beer on a bar so sturdy it will outlive us all

Resting my beer on a bar so sturdy it will outlive us all

As you may already know, Mikkeller SF is a project from local publican Chuck Stilphen (co-owner of Trappist, Trappist Provisions, and my workplace ØL) and Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, (co-founder of Denmark-based roving brewery Mikkeller and several beer spots in Copenhagen). The SF bar is being managed by local beer veteran Bob DeMoisey, who you may know from previous stints at ØL (he hired me — thanks boss!), the Trappist, and Triple Rock. The food is being masterminded by chef Michael O’Brian, formerly of the super-awesome beer bar Churchkey in Washington, DC. With that cast of characters — and don’t forget the highly-qualified bartenders — you know Mikkeller Bar SF isn’t gonna suck.

The beer

People have been asking whether the bar will only have Mikkeller beer, and the answer is no. There is plenty of Mikkeller beer on the menu, of course, including some house brews with names saluting the Tenderloin neighborhood. (I enjoyed a TenderBrown. Tee hee. Yes, really.) I counted about 40 taps, a mix of beer-nerd classics like Rodenbach Grand Cru, up-and-comers like Prairie, and one-offs I’d never seen before.

Decision-making paralysis incoming!

Decision-making paralysis incoming!

Here is a more legible photo of the taplist. I assume future menus will include prices, and that those prices will be similar to those at The Trappist, but I really don’t know yet.

This is also one of the few bars with a flux capacitor, allowing each tap to be poured at an individual temperature, pressure, and CO2/nitro mix.

The food

I don’t know how last night’s self-serve spread of meat and cheese will compare to what’s on the real menu, but let’s just say there’s a lot of promise in this kitchen (unless you’re vegan). One of the servers I know there shared her study sheet for learning about the charcuterie-intensive food that will be served. Can you properly define “pate” and “confit” and a host of other high-end culinary terms? Your Mikkeller bartender can.

The space

I normally don’t care what bars look like, but it must be said that Mikkeller SF is frickin’ gorgeous. It’s slick enough to work as a fancy-pants downtown office worker hangout but somehow still manages to be a comfortable place (maybe it’s the Danish influence adding some hygge).

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Imagine this is a good photo

The rumored downstairs “sour room” is still under construction but does in fact exist and has a fridge full of goodies already.

Coming soon

Coming soon

Mikkeller Bar is on a block that one could call either “gentrifying” or “sketchy” depending on your perspective, and boy am I not going to debate the pros and cons of this with anyone. I will confirm that you will likely encounter some of San Francisco’s less fortunate residents on your walk between the bar and your train or car. Use your city sense, and if you don’t have any city sense, call a cab.

The grand opening

As I said, the bar will be “softly” open — I think that just means “we’re new, give us a break while we get this down” — for limited hours for the next few weeks until its August grand opening weekend. Check Mikkeller Bar SF’s Facebook page for updates. Here’s the grand opening schedule, stolen from that same Facebook page:

  • August 9, Official opening Festivities kick off at 12 noon. Meet …(**insert names of cool people here**) Lots of awesome cool & rare beer will be tapped, etc etc. (draft and bottle list to follow…)
  • August 10, 11am, Brewers Brunch, Meet ..(**insert names of more cool people here**)
  • 6pm. the Christening of the Tivoli Sour Room, (in the cellar) lots of new lambics and sours.
  • August 11, Beer dinner with Chef Jakob Mielcke http://www.mhcph.com/ starts at 3 PM. (Pair 7 +/- course meal with all Mikkeller Beer, details to follow…)
Bars with murals: instant cool points

See you two again soon

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Photo Sunday: Ein Dunkles, bitte!

Das Boil

Munich Dunkel on the boil at Rick and Jen’s. It’s a fairly under-represented style that I’d love to see more of in the Bay Area. In the meantime, might as well brew our own…

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Drink beers and fight ALS on June 21

Of all the current trends in beer, using the power of tasty beverages to raise money for charity may be the one that’s hardest to tire of no matter how often it’s done. This Friday, you should get your butt to Iron Springs in Fairfax for its Ales for ALS event. Plus it is not a secret that I think we should all get our butts to Iron Springs more often.

ALS, which perhaps has more name recognition under its original moniker Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a terrible crappy illness with no known cure. Ales For ALS gives brewers a proprietary blend of Yakima hops to play with, and in return they donate some of the proceeds of their Ales for ALS beers to an ALS research organization. If you like geeking out on hop specs, you can learn more about the blend here.

Iron Springs brewed The Iron Horse Pale Ale for the occasion, a 7% beer with pilsner, Kölsch, and Munich malts. At 4pm on Friday, June 21, Iron Springs will also tap Ales from ALS beers from Russian River, Third Street Aleworks, Bear Republic, Drake’s, Sierra Nevada, and Triple Rock. There will be a food menu for the event to pair with all the beers on offer.

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If I wasn’t working I’d be there, so go have an Iron Horse for me. I recommend ditching work early to beat the worst of the traffic (like you need an excuse).

More info:

  • Here’s the Facebook event page
  • Read about Third Street Aleworks’ previous Ales for ALS event and the Russian River, Bear Republic, and Third Street beers made with the event hop
  • Read about Triple Rock’s two Ales for ALS beers and the friggin’ rock star (well, blues star) they were named for
  • This isn’t just a Bay Area effort. Here’s a full list of participating breweries.

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