SF Beer Week

If anybody's in the city right now I would HIGHLY recommend cellarmaker today. i see a dankness (collab with sante adairius) is excellent.

 

Congrats to ESBC for Hammerhead DIPA taking GOLD at the IPA Festival today. Another LA brewery. Right on.

 

Picked up some Power Plant yesterday at WFLB, two hours fresh ! Good stuff David,

Cheers,

 

I was down over the weekend for younger, and part of SF beer week. The one constant was everything was packed, but i was able to make it to City Beer Store for the SARA tap takeover. It took forever to get in as it was a "1 person in, 1 person out" event and no one wanted to leave once they were in, however I was able to get in and try most all the beers I wanted. I felt bad for the hundred people behind me though as beers kicked quickly and I'm sure some people that waited over 2 hours didn't get to try anything.

Not exactly the best run event because there were no taster limits, people got screwed pretty badly. I love City Beer store and usually stop in when I'm in town, but holy shit was it expensive this time. $8 for 6 oz seemed insane to me, but I don't live in SF so maybe that's just how it is.

Other than those minor quibbles, enjoyed my time in the city per usual.

 

Wow. Reading that made me really happy I wasn't able to go. I really wanted to make it in Saturday for Cascade and SARA but had to make the drive down to Kernville to pick up my Citra bottles. I wonder how bad it's gonna be tonight when Societe and Alpine are in the house...

Also...Did anyone make it out to the Rare Barrel/Bruery/Societe Reunion party last night? Curious to hear what they had on tap.

 

I don't think there's really any other way for City Beer to do it. There are only like 10 seats at the bar and other than that, people just randomly get drinks and go back to where they were. Not sure how you could limit the tasters without some elaborate system and cutting people off or telling them to leave is usually not going to end well. I think if anything, you could fault them for having Cascade and Sante on the same day since they were packed immediately upon opening, making it impossible to avoid a big, slow line for a later event.

Agreed on the prices, tho. I got 4 tasters to split with the GF; had $30 in my hand assuming they were like $6 or so since they were so small, but was very surprised to hear the price tag was $32.

 

Walked to City Beer on Sat, saw the line for Sante, kept walking to Cellarmaker. Simple pleasures in life.......

 

My wife and I went to the Gala on Friday night. We got in line about 5:30pm (open at 6pm). Once open, the line moved fast. Once in the Herbst Pavilion, it was well organized with very few long lines. They divided the pavilion into North Bay, East Bay, etc. As usual at any beer festival, we met a lot of nice people and drank too much. Shocking!

Some of my thoughts on the beers:

Surprises

• Pizza Orgasmica - 2012 Barleywine (very smooth for a barleywine)
• Social Kitchen & Brewery - Bomb Quad (very fruity with a lot of cherry - love the name)
• Pacific Coast - Old Oakland Strong Ale
• Freewheeler - Cask Stout (lighter stout, but nice flavor)
• Altamont - Scarcity (best DIPA at the Gala)

Met Expectation

• Discretion - Black Lager (along with Faction are in my top list of breweries in the Bay Area)
• North Coast - Grand Cru Barrel Aged (smooth, flavorable, nice balance between the base beer and barallel)

Disappointments

• Sierra Nevada - only had Hop Hunter and one other beer. I already had Hop Hunter prior to the event. Expected more of a selection.
• Beer Republic - I got to the them late in the night, but the selection seemed to be heavy on IPAs.

From a festival standpoint, it was a lot of fun and worth going. From a beer standpoint, it wasn't as a good as the SN Single, Wet and Wild and Firestone Walker Invitational.

 

I was at Cellar Maker earlier in the day on Saturday. There was no event there and there was a line to get in as well as being crowded standing room only inside. Is that normal for the weekend?

 

Cellarmaker can get crowded, it can be random. I was fine on Sat Eve near 6pm. Went back yesterday as they opened, got a seat at the bar, and it was not at all crowded for the first hour, and I was sipping on the sweet sweet, Red Wine Jezabel the whole time. Same beer line up as their anniversary party, but with 1/4 the crowd!

But, dude, Imperial coffee and Ciggs is event enough for that Sat.

 

Seemed like no one was drinking imperial Cofee and Cigs and everyone was drinking the DIPA colab with SARA.

 

Cellarmaker is always busy, but I have never seen a line before. I'm sure it was just because of beer week. If there was a line at City Beer early, I could see some people bailing for Cellarmaker.

Edit: also that collab (I See a Dankness) would have brought a crowd.

 

Bruery had-
Wine 2
Oude tart cherries
Geriatric hipster
Jardinier
Seven swans

First 3 kicked in the first hour. And it was taking people about that long to get a drink. Was like 7 rows deep surrounding every inch of bar. It was packed tight, I knew there would be a lot of people but geeeeezus....

 

Clipped this from an IG post. I bet this place (Good Karma) is packed too:

 

Jesus. Those prices are ridiculous too. How much does SARA usually charge for their pours and how many ounces?

 

A whole new meaning to fruit punch shots. There better be hard alcohol in there for that price.

 

IG = instagram?

There was a half-block line at 6p for a space with about 25-person capacity. I didn't even see those prices, but that stupid-long stationary line was enough to keep on walking.

 

Yes

 

I walked halfway down the block towards City Beer, saw the ridiculous line, and said hello Cellarmaker!