It’s Fe-Brew-ary! At long last that phonetic convention we all use to remember the proper spelling of February has come in handy to make a creampuff of a joke. In addition to facile word play, the second month of the year means two things: strong beer month and the annual San Francisco Beer Week. It’s 28 days of high octane brews with a week of unmitigated celebrating for all things beer thrown in for good measure.
From the 10th through the 19th, SF Beer Week will run beautifully amok, featuring tap-takeovers, unlimited pours, food pairings and dinners, special releases, meet-the-brewer, educational events, and more. In terms of total area, San Francisco is a diminutive city, but within its relatively petite confines you’ll find a densely packed collection of venues to host the afore mentioned festivities. That, coupled with severely inflated tech salaries that give people the financial leeway to guiltlessly drop money on such things, creates a dizzying array of beer-bashes to choose from. Things could get real ugly given a full 31 days. Even a leap-year might get sideways enough to crash Twitter for a few hours.
For my money (what little there is), I tend towards anything with an educational bent, or the what I feel like I can skew in that direction on my own. Mostly I do this because it’s just the way my brain is wired; research, writing, the curating of facts, and what to others seem insufferable and inconsequential minutiae, are what I love most. I’ve been this way my whole life. Anything I have ever taken an interest in has become an object of study. By turning this attitude on Beer Week, and beer drinking in general, I can curb my tendencies towards excess, and avoid fellow beer lovers who strive for it. I would love to hit every all-you-can-drink party throughout the week, but I’ve matured (somewhat lamentably) enough to know that of the 50 plus beers I might be able to try in one place, I’ll stop remembering them at about 15. What’s more, I won’t get bombed enough to think it’s a good idea to start yanking pretzels off the necklaces of strangers who just want to collect commemorative glasses and funnel as many double IPAs as they can. I don’t judge or begrudge that as a Beer Week endgame, but if I go to a talk on sours that is accompanied by a few tastes, odds are strong I’ll meet some like-minded people, learn a little something, and leave reasonably buzzed.
That said, the marquee events that I’ll not be attending without the aid of a benefactor or a press pass both include unlimited pours. Drunken debauchery may be an element at either, but shouldn’t rule the day. A great way to bookend your Beer Week Experience would be to hit these:
- The Opening Gala at Pier 48. Over 125 breweries are helping to kick things off. This is sure to be equal part shit-show and best-night-ever, but at between $80 and $120 a ticket, I’ll save my money for something a little less raucous and sidestep possibly falling over a railing into the bay.
- The Celebrator Beer News 29th Anniversary Party and Fund Raiser for the California Craft Brewer’s Association. 30 plus breweries will be pouring their best stuff for a crowd that is heavy on industry insiders. The more modest $60 price tag includes food, making this the event to pull the trigger on if you don’t mind paying for it and commuting to the East Bay. Though it does not have an explicitly educational element to it, this is the kind of event where if you keep your ears open and your mouth shut between sips, you will walk away knowing more about craft beer than you did when you arrived, and having met many of the people who make this whole thing go ‘round.
My other two if-money-were-no-object events of choice would be either of the off-flavor courses being offered. Diacetyl? Solvent-like? Buttery flavors in my beer? These are things I know in name alone. I should be thankful that I am not getting spoiled or poorly made beer regularly enough to be personally acquainted with off-flavors, but in my pursuit to be a more educated beer drinker, they are things I should experience first hand and learn to properly identify. If you are inclined to sleep with the enemy, there are a couple of options: A two day, advanced off-flavor course at The Beer Hall, presented by Master Cicerone Rich Higgins, the other at the Drake’s Dealership in Oakland given by cicerone.org. At $85 and $49 respectively, they’re a lot of money to go willingly go taste bad brews, but for a monied beer geek, either would likely be an eye opening experience.
In thinking about off-flavor courses, I began to wonder how they find all the bad beer. Do they actively seek it out and save it for the occasion? I’ve been imagining cicerones bellying up to the bar, ordering pint before exclaiming, “My God, man! This tastes like shit! Can we buy the keg?” Maybe they walk around in search of unkempt looking beer bars and asking questions like, “What have you got that’s chunky and smells like asparagus?” Are they intentionally making small batches of off flavor beer and letting draft lines foul? My guess is that it’s something else entirely, and one of the first things they address will be where they sourced the study materials.
As for the events I’m choosing to attend, most have the educational element I favor. Some of those will put me in proximity to special releases happening that same day. One is just to see friends that are in town for the week. Some of the following may change. I might have to skip something, I might make an impromptu trip to this place or that. So long as I come away from the week feeling as though I’ve gleaned something new from my experiences and not drank myself into a coma or new pant size I’ll be happy. After all, it’s only beer.
My Beer Week Schedule
Friday, February 10 – Lament the fact that I won’t be at the opening gala. Console myself with a couple pints of strong beer (can’t let Strong Beer Month slide by the wayside) at the Magnolia Pub, while keeping in mind that crowds the size of the one to be found at Pier 49 that night are dreadful, and that fear of missing out is for people in their twenties.
Saturday, February 11- Go get my learn on with Ferment Drink Repeat. $20 bucks to try eight beers and have owner/brewer and nationally ranked beer judge Kevin Inglin drop some delicious science on those of us thirsting for knowledge and some his exceptional brews. FDR is probably my favorite brewery in the city right now. I could go on at length telling you why, but will save that for another time. Just know this is an essential stop on the San Francisco brewery circuit.
Being at FDR puts me in proximity to Laughing Monk, who are releasing a couple of barrel aged beers that day, including a Belgian Tripel with peaches and aged in Wente Chardonnay barrels (I’m not generally a Belgian guy, but that one has really peaked my interest). Speakeasy isn’t too much farther down the way, and they doing an oak aged, unfiltered version of their Pop Gun Pilsner which also sounds promising. Beyond that I’ll have to resist my urge to push on into the night and catch the bus home to save my energy for Sunday.
Sunday, February 12- SF Beer Week’s Annual Battle of the Guilds. Brewer’s guilds from San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco will come together at Sessions at the Presidio pouring 45 different beers. Guilds are an often overlooked and unheralded part of the craft beer movement; they put together the events we love so much, and generally speaking, work their tails off behind the scenes. I’m particularly excited about this one, knowing I’ll get to see some good friends who are in town for the occasion. The beer could all be garbage (guaranteed it’ll be the farthest thing from it) and I’d still peg this as the likely high point of my Beer Week experience. Most of the time I skulk around the city alone, a half-drunk lone-wolf stalking fermented prey. I’m grateful to know I’ll have some old friends with me on this day.
Monday, February 13- Weekday outings can be rough for a guy with a day job, so I’m doing my best to keep them simple. On this evening I’ll make my way to the Woods Cerveceria on 18th St. They’re doing Medieval Beverages that night, pouring meads and gruits. The food historian in me is properly geeked for this one; I’ll be giving myself a crash course in medieval ales (really focusing on gruits) in the week beforehand, starting with Beer in the MIddle Ages and the Renaissance by Richard W. Unger.
Time permitting, I might stop by the Social Kitchen and Brewery on my way home for their annual Brett Fest, and have them break me off a piece of some of that funky stuff.
Tuesday, February 14- I’ll likely keep it close to home this night and see what’s happening in the Sunset. A quick trip around the corner gets me to the Sunset Reservoir Brewing Company, and little further down the way I expect the Lawton Taproom to have some Seven Stills beer flowing. From there it’ll just be another couple blocks to the newly opened Woods Beer Co. Outbound post, where they’ll have a special Trouble Coffee infused stout and a coconut pale ale going. Having plotted that out, the better move is to start at Woods and work my way closer to home. As in life, flexibility in Beer Week is key.
Wednesday, February 15- Likely a night off, but a great one to hit would be The Bruery’s Wild and Sour Takeover at The Old Bus Tavern. OBT is one of the best places in the city to eat and still highly underrated, and The Bruery, in my experience, just doesn’t know how to make a bad beer. A perfect pairing for a beer and bite.
Thursday, February 16- The Eagle Rock Brewery takeover at the Social Kitchen and Brewery sounds promising and is close to home, making it the most likely candidate for me. The always awesome Harmonic Brewing is having a band and food pop-up that night in addition to beer specials, and though I probably won’t get there, Old Devil Moon will be pouring the best of breweries from the North Bay.
Friday, February 17- Triple Voodoo Yeast Profile Demonstration. Yeast plays a huge role in beer, yet its nuances remain something of a mystery to most. Save for being able to taste the flavors in Belgian strains, and knowing a bit about the differences between lager and ale yeasts, the little beast that makes beer beer is something I’ve left tragically unexplored.
Using the same base wort, Triple Voodoo is making five different batches with five yeast varieties. What a great opportunity to sit down with a flight and really put some thought into beer’s most crucial ingredient. With the exception of seeing my friends at the Battle of the Guilds, this is the night I’m looking froward to more than any other.
Saturday, February 18- The California Historical Society is showing “Brewers by the Bay” a documentary film about the history of craft beer in San Francisco, followed by a Q&A with director Jared Stutts. This would be a great chance to find some people who share my interest in the historical aspects of this whole endeavor.
All the same, if I haven’t decided to pull the trigger on the Celebrator party by this point, I’ll likely find a place to have a few last day brews and quietly reflect on the week. And by that, I mean I’ll probably put my loftier academic goals aside and get irresponsibly drunk after restraining myself for the previous eight days. There is a ton of good stuff to choose from, like Barrelhead Brewing’s Bacon, Bourbon, and Barleywine pairing, the Woods Beer Bus Tour which will take you to all five Woods locations, and City Beer Store’s Sea of Sours (sours are figuring even more prominently this year than last it seems). Ferment Drink Repeat’s Beers Off the Beaten Path progressive beer and food tasting will take people to four different locations in some of the lesser frequented neighborhoods in San Francisco, offering a different bite paired with an FDR beer at each location.
I don’t know what I’ll be drinking or where I’ll end up, but this will be my day to go big.
Sunday, February 19- Nothing. I’m taking a day of rest as the good Lord intended. There will still be a lot going on, but my liver and wallet will likely be ready to tap out by this point. So will the kegs at The Willows where their kick the keg party will include 50% off full size pours all night. That’s the kind of deal that could bring even the most weary beer drinker out for one more night of indulgence.
Whatever you end up doing, I hope you have fun, drink a lot of good beers while making an effort to learn something, and for Christ’s sake, don’t drive drunk. Lyft is everywhere, the busses cheap. Use them. If you have ideas about places I should hit, things that are not to be missed, or stories about your own Beer Week adventures, I’m all ears.
Cheers.