More than just cleaning out the attic

Sierra Nevada Brewery of Chico, California will be releasing a Trappist-style* ale, the proceeds of which will help reconstruct a monastery at the Abbey of nearby New Clairvaux from stones left by William Randolph Hearst and which originated from a monastery in Spain.


Now if that isn't a mouthful... sit back, grab a cold one and read about it, here.



*Of the 171 Trappist monasteries in the world, only 7 brew beer (six in Belgium and one in the Netherlands) and it is only these 7 that are authorized to brand their beers as authentic Trappist beers.

Video clips of the day

The first is titled "I am a Craft Brewer" and was put together by Stone Brewery and is a chapter in the Stone collector's DVD that they were distributing during San Diego Beer Week.






And now, the inevitable parody. (mild bleeped-out NSFWoH warning)





Exit question: Is this an earnest parody of the pretension that does exist in the craft brewing scene or are these people just ticked they weren't invited to participate in the first video?

Programming Alert

We were out of town just when San Diego Beer Week was cranking up so we've been a little slow to getting out and hitting up some of the events going on around town. As such, we've decided to give the staff the night off and head on over to the High Dive in Clairemont to hook up with B-Daddy of The Liberator Today for their Coronado Brewing Co. night. 6ish. Please join us if you are up for it.

And in other totally related news, Jeff Hammett, reporting for the West Coaster, is confirming that the outfit applying for the liquor license at the location on 30th Street in South Park is none other than Stone Brewery. Sweet. The legendary 30th Street bags itself another prime catch.

Exit question: Will they drop some of the pretension that exists at the mother ship in Escondido and install a TV or two for us sports-loving souls?

Programming Alert

We're back from Vegas and posting real-time for the first time since we left Friday morning. The alert isn't to announce our arrival but rather to get the word out on something we totally dropped the ball on before we left. Coinciding with our departure on Friday was the kick-off for San Diego Beer Week. And because the concept of a San Diego Beer Week is so excellent, it cannot be merely confined to one calendar week (call it spillage) as it will be going on until next Sunday.

Check out the event calendar at the WestCoaster, here for a listing of events this week.


And speaking of both beer and Las Vegas... this entire country is blowing up microbrew-wise and Las Vegas has only now discovered... Fat Tire Ale..

We put on our sleuthing shoes to come up with some places there in Vegas that served a generous line-up of microbrews. Because we had stumbled upon it by accident a few years ago, we headed straight for Pour 24 in New York, New York. "Paul", one of the bartenders told us that both The Pub in Monte Carlo and Burger Bar in Mandalay Bay would fit the bill of what we desired.

We can personally vouch for all 3 locations, so if you are in town and are jonesing for something other than a Corona or Bud Lite, those 3 aforementioned places will do you right.

OK. After weekend light on blog posts, we hope to get it cranked back up starting today, though we'd be absolutely lying if we told you it was "great" to be back.

Link of the day

Loyal reader and commenter, Sarah B., passed this along to us.


The American Festival on Saturday down on the Embarcadero here in San Diego from 10 A.M. to 8:30 P.M.

Beers from Ballast Point, Green Flash and Coronado Brewing Co., live music and classic cars. We think that about covers it.

What a great idea. Right, Left or completely indifferent, we think that sometimes the most important thing gets overlooked and that is the fact that as Americans we're free to speak our mind and to assemble peacefully to enjoy some of the stuff that a free and vibrant society produces as opposed to what the government produces as per our Vice President.

We're definitely going to be there for at least a portion of it and we hope you can make it as well. See ya down there.

Link of the day

*

A chance meeting at K and B wine cellars a couple weeks back had us chatting with Ryan who is the co-publisher of the WestCoaster. Ryan and the rest of the gang over there hope to churn out a (monthly?) publication that will be the only one of its kind to be devoted exclusively to the microbrew scene here in San Diego.


Ryan seemed like a really great guy and the passion he had for this venture was undeniable. Writing about beer in your hometown? What's not to like about that?


Anyway, you are hereby directed to get on over to their website, here. Check it out and leave a comment to let them know they are being supported.


* Picture above is of the Oktober Hess Festival at Hess Brewing this past weekend.

All things considered, we'd rather be in Denver (UPDATED)

(please scroll down for update)

Although, we suppose we can settle for an absolutely gorgeous fall Saturday in San Diego... we're willing to make that sacrifice.

The Great American Beer Festival is going down this weekend in Denver where judges will be tasked with sampling 3,594 beers from 522 U.S. breweries in 79 different categories. Foreign breweries need not apply.

As we've stated before, although craft beers only make up about 4% of the overall beer market, once you go craft beer, you never go back. Proving that is the fact that during this economic slump we're in, overall beer sales in America fell 2.7% by volume, however, craft beer sales rose by 9%.

“In good times, beer is good,” said Vince Marsaglia, vice president of Grain to Green, a Carlsbad company that operates the Pizza Port brew pubs and the Port/Lost Abbey brewery in San Marcos. “In bad times, well, it’s still a good thing.”

When the results get posted, we'll update with how the San Diego beers fared.

P.S. Go to the link above for some fun facts and addresses of some of San Diego's prominent breweries.




(UPDATE #1): San Diego breweries did themselves proud by winning 15 medals with Pizza Port responsible for 7 of those medals. Pizza Port also won Large Brewpub and Large Brewpub Brewer of the Year (Carlsbad) as well as Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year (San Clemente).

And congrats to Karl Strauss, who ironically, won their very first medal (Gold) with their Red Trolley Ale in the Irish-Style Red Ale category.

Full results, here.

Beer, regulation and freedom in America

C'mon people. You know it's never far from our mind and while we think (we know!) we ran this video from reason.tv a while back, it looks to be updated.

Pick up a bottle of Sam Adams, America's first significant micro-brewery, and look at the portrait of Adams where you will also find two descriptives, "Brewer" and "Patriot". We ask you, dear readers, are there any higher callings?

Before we air the video from reason.tv on the history of beer brewing in America, here's Matt Welch with some great insight into the nature of regulation and who, despite conventional wisdom, is really hurt by excessive regulation.

One of the common misconceptions about libertarian enthusiasm for deregulation is that it's some kind of (presumably paid-for) philosophical cover for wanting the very richest Corporates to be even richester. Speaking as a libertarded conspiracy of one, my favorite bedtime deregulation stories are about stuff like beer, air travel, and talking about politics on radio and TV, where after you lifted restrictions that in retrospect sound like they came from another planet, people do what the normally do when left alone—create all kinds of interesting new artifacts, businesses, and even ways of life. Regulations so often piss me off because they so often fall disproportionately on the backs of the little guy, while the big guy—even/especially the one whose misconduct precipitated the regulation in the first place—walks off with a well-lobbied exemption. Generally speaking, the fewer activities are illegal, the freer us opposable-thumbs types are.

Welch is right. What he is talking about here is regulatory capture where the big corporations are able to influence legislation and regulation to their own benefit and at the expense of competition and the proverbial little guy that does not have the resources to escape the detrimental effects of regulation.

This is very similar to what we said about the rich not being like the rest of us in response to Doc Zero's piece on the folly of attempting to soak the rich via higher taxes and expecting to raise a corresponding amount of revenue. The rich have the assets to be more agile, mobile and hostile than the rest of us with respect to the tax code. They shift around economic activity, they move from state to state, they lawyer-up, so to speak, to avoid having to pay what they believe are onerous taxes.

When Jimmy Carter signed away the last vestiges of the Volsted Act in the late 70s, he unleashed an inevitable tsunami tide of creativity and innovation in the beer world to where the United States is the most decorated country on the planet in international beer competitions. And similar to what it did with the car culture and music back in the 60s and then micro computing in the 70s and 80s, California is at the tip of the American spear with respect to craft brewing.

This is what happens when a people imbued with a spirit of hard work and outside-the-box thinking are loosed of the chains of excessive regulation: hot rods, rock and roll, PCs, the Internet and... great beer!

When you travel around Southern California and visit the breweries here, whether it's the relative artisan opulence of Stone Brewing Co. or the seemingly outlaw operations of Green Flash and Port Brewing tucked away in non-descript business parks in North County, one cannot help but feel that spirit of rebellion and liberty that coursed through the veins of people like Sam Adams.



Lagunitas, Bear Republic and Russian River - three outstanding Northern California breweries are prominently featured.



P.S. As the video stated, for all the boostering of the craft brew industry that we do, it does not even constitute 5% of the market here in America. Fear not, though, as we have never, ever heard anyone say, "Yeah, I tried that whole micro-brew thing and I think I'm just going to go back to drinking Bud Light." It simply does not happen. Once you go there, you never go back.

We shall overcome.

This is what we fought a revolution for?

A real brew-haha has beer lovers in the City of Brotherly love frothing over with anger.

To one side, the suds uproar is borne out of typographical errors, hard-to-spell beer names and archaic, Prohibition-era liquor laws. To the other, it's a simple matter of making sure bars and beer manufacturers aren't scamming the system.

It all came to a head after an anonymous complaint that a Philadelphia bar was selling beer that had not been properly licensed with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, an agency created after Prohibition in 1933 to regulate the sale of alcohol.

That tip led to raids last week at three upscale bars, where police confiscated three quarter-kegs and 317 bottles of beer that were not believed to have been properly registered with the state. Raids at Memphis Taproom in Philadelphia's Kensington section, Local 44 in west Philadelphia and Resurrection Ale House downtown caught the couple who run them by surprise.

"I feel like there are a lot of typographical errors that caused this," said Leigh Maida, who received calls from staff around midday March 4. "The laws were really developed before there were so many kinds of beers."

Question: Why? Why is it the law to have to register beer at one’s establishment?

Under Pennsylvania liquor law, manufacturers of malt or brewed beverages must pay a $75 annual fee to register each brand. About 2,800 beers are now registered in the state; manufacturers submit applications to the liquor board, showing the agreement they have with the wholesaler.

Answer: Money grab. There is no societal benefit to these laws. Incidentally, often times small brew pubs that will carry just one type of beer from each brand/brewery, that $75 registration fee represents a full 50% of the cost of a keg of beer from that brand. 50% for the privilege of carrying that particular brand.

In the recent raids, a tipster contacted the state, saying the bar owners were selling unregistered beers, said Sgt. William La Torre, commanding officer of the Philadelphia office of the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, which enforces the liquor laws. Statewide, police say there are typically fewer than 10 complaints a year about unregistered beer.

Maida and her husband, Brendan Hartranft, don't know who filed the complaint. They believe the problem largely results from archaic liquor laws and misunderstandings about formidable beer names that often get abbreviated.

The tipster should be shot.

The liquor code, they say, is no match for beers with names like Dogfish Head Raison d'etre and a dark ale called 't smisje BBBorgoundier. The rigid code also isn't able to account for when they abbreviate Allagash White Beer to "Allagash Wit" on their menus.

At one bar, Maida had a beer listed as "de dolle Oebier gran reserva;" the beer itself was "de dolle oerbier," but the police had it spelled as "de rolle oebier," she said.

"The laws were really developed before there were so many kinds of beers," she said.
These are obviously crimes against humanity that must be dealt with in the harshest and most irrational manner possible.

Maj. John Lutz, director of the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, said police are working with the board to try to figure out which of the recently seized beers are registered.

So far, 72 of the 317 bottles seized were being returned after police determined they were registered, Lutz said. No charges have been filed in the ongoing investigation.

"We're trying to sort out the whole labeling issue," Lutz said. "Anything that was just a spelling mistake, hopefully we've caught."

As part of their follow-up to last week's raids, police seized about 12 cases of beer from a distributor in northeastern Philadelphia, he said.

But with the growing number of breweries nationwide, enforcement of the state's liquor laws has become more challenging.

Words (almost) fail us. We have an obvious bias on this matter (a small government bias in case you were wondering) but this is just good ol’ fashioned harassment, plain and simple. It’s difficult to imagine the police force of a big city like Philly doesn’t have any more pressing issues than proof-reading menus and bar bills.

Again, there is absolutely no societal benefit to these laws. They bring nothing to the table save ensuring a revenue stream to the state and bar owners and managers making sure the wait staff can spell correctly.

Congratulations to Pizza Port and Jeff Bagby

Take that Colorado! B-Daddy here. I wanted to show off some hometown pride on a blog whose first name starts with beer. Jeff Bagby's Pizza Ports (of Solana Beach, Carlsbad and San Clemente) took home 9 medals from the Great American Beer Festival held in Denver over the weekend. Highlights of San Diego county's awesome performance can be found in the local fishwrap.

Our intrepid traveler and alleged vacationer from blogging, Dean, has some serious 'splainin to do. He was in the Denver area over the weekend and nary a peep about this extravaganza. Especially considering the fact that Dean was the one who took us to Pizza Port in the first place. B-Daddy especially enjoyed the double fermented Hefeweizen and was glad of having the youngsters available to drive home. Dean even bragged to me on the phone how he threw down on some hapless package store dude who had the temerity to try bragging about Colorado microbrews to our erstwhile blogger. That phone call was the first time I had heard the term hop-head used to describe IBU lovin' beer swillers, not that other thing.

Some highlights. Besides winning for various varieties of it's beers, Pizza Port won the "Large Brewpub of the Year." San Diego County is making a name for itself in brewing, as Dean has previously posted, winning 14 medals overall. That is more than all but three other states.

The county's gold medal winners, for you shopping or dining pleasure:

Breakwater Brewing, Oceanside: Raspberry Creek, fruit or field beer.

Lost Abbey, San Marcos: Carnevale, Belgian and French-style ale; and Duck Duck Gooze, Belgian-style lambic or sour ale.

Pizza Port Carlsbad: Beech Street Bitter, English-style India pale ale; Revelations, Belgian-style strong specialty beer; Cow Stout, sweet stout; and Reed's Wee Heavy, Scotch ale.

Pizza Port Solana Beach: Shark Attack, imperial red ale.

Rock Bottom, La Jolla: Longboard Brown, English-style brown ale.

Bottoms up San Diego.

Of microbrews and microclimates

San Diego’s topography has probably played about as big of a factor as any in shaping the unique character of this city.

The brush-choked canyons, mesas and hills that cover the landscape of San Diego, both the city and county, create secluded urban enclaves and offer naturally-occurring green belts and which also prohibits the urban sprawl that plagues the soul-crushing grid pattern of the L.A. basin.

O.K., so maybe soul-crushing is too strong of a term, but having lived in both areas for an equal number of years, we can attest to the physical characteristics of a region shaping the mood, vibe and hobbies of the people of that region. Because in what other city do you run the risk of falling off a bar stool and tumbling down into a steep ravine?

Anyway, this topography also creates several different micro-climates in the San Diego region. Good read out the U-T, here, on what you should and should not be planting this spring/summer

The other American Revolution

Microbrews, free markets and consumer choice…. Like we weren’t going to run this Reason.tv spot on the craft beer phenomena in this country.

Our ancestors brought their brewing techniques and traditions with them from Europe so that virtually any town or city of decent size had its own brewery, particularly in the Rust Belt and Midwest. Prohibition and the World Wars (diverted grain production for “food only”) wiped out this town brewery tradition in the U.S. but in 1979, a clerical error in the 21st amendment which ended Prohibition, was corrected and for the first time in a half-century it became legal to brew small batches of beer in your home.

Once derided for its fizzy yellow water, the U.S. is now a craft beer juggernaut, producing more styles of beer than anywhere else in the world and dominating international beer competitions.

This is an object lesson to the power of creativity and innovation that this great country possesses and which will always be unleashed with positive results for all if given the opportunity.

Several fine California breweries including Lagunitas (they brew a very good Czech-style Pilsner), Russian River (home of the insanely excellent Pliny the Elder IPA), Bear Republic of Racer 5 IPA fame and Stone Brewing Company in Escondido all get some air time in this video clip below.

Click here, if embed not working.

Looking at the man in an entirely new light

Then Jimmy Carter took pity on our wretched souls. In 1978 he signed Senate Amendment 3534, a portion of which gave each household permission to produce up to 200 gallons of tax-exempt beer each year

His boycotting of the '80 Olympics was looking pretty lonely - it's now got some company.

More good reading in preparation for exercising our 21st amendment rights this weekend, here.

Beers of our Fathers

All those classic beers of the 60s and 70s that dear old dad used to knock back after mowing the lawn in his black socks are making a comeback. Pabst Blue Ribbon and Schlitz have been reportedly flying off the shelves though Schlitz has yet to appear in San Diego. So… what’s the deal?

Article here suggests it is a backlash in a sense to the popularity of craft and micro brews and what some may see as some beer snobbery, an attitude one would not normally associate with beer. Another theory advanced by the article is a yearning for simpler times in this era of uncertainty. We don’t know about that… seems things couldn’t get much more uncertain in this country than the 60s and 70s but waves of nostalgia tend to wash away more unpleasant aspects of the memory bank.

We’ll throw in a healthy dose of ironic-chic as a factor. You know that kid with the black horn rim glasses, jet-black hair, pierced ears, Chuck Taylor high tops and cuffed jeans at the coffee shop….wearing a Led Zeppelin t-shirt? Yeah, saw him throwin’ down a Hamm’s the other night at the pub. Go figure.

And one more: Buy American! Don’t think for a moment that All-American icon Budweiser being bought-out by the Euros at InBev doesn’t have some cultural repercussions. It may have been a crappy American beer. But it was our crappy American beer, dammit!.

San Diego? Believe It.

Our buddy Dave took home First Prize in the “Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer” division on Sunday at the Del Mar Fair’s Home Brew competition. Dave’s offering, a Christmas-time beer “Mull It Over” bested some 40+ other entrants. The irony is that Dave doesn’t even like that particular beer and his entry of “MIO” was a not-too-clever way to simply unload it on some unsuspecting judges, so we will take some credit and pride(?) in telling Dave at our office Christmas party this past year to give himself some credit because we rather liked it. (btw, the other ribbons Dave is sporting were for some of the labels on beers he submitted in other categories).

We’ll try to dig up the article and link to it but a couple of months back when the Craft Brewers Association was meeting here in San Diego, ratebeer.com ranked the 100 best beers on the planet and 19 were made right here in the San Diego area. Yeah, not too shabby.

So how did this come about? How did San Diego, home base to the Pacific Fleet and corrupt city politics become this hot bed of beer, craft beers and home-brewing?

We think there are 3 reasons and they are as follows in no particular order:

1. The weather and San Diego's own Coastal sensibility. San Diego is the most outdoor-living, active and sporting-minded of all the places in this country we have lived or visited. All that running around and one’s going to work-up a thirst. And what does one drink when one is thirsty and outside? Certainly not those watered-down macro-lagers…. Us Diegans have far more sophisticated palates. Despite our sleepy Navy town image, we represent West Coast sophistication quite well, though, in a completely unpretentious and down-to-Earth manner. We like beer…. Good beer.

2. Temecula Wine Country. Until very recently, Temecula Valley, just a little over an hour north of San Diego, was dominated by smaller, family-run wineries. The small-scale intimate feel of these wineries definitely feeds the Do-It-Yourself mentality of one who wants to make their own alcoholic beverage. And since wine doesn’t engender the same sort of fraternal and communal bonds (“Honey, I’m getting’ together with the boys for a few wines” has never been uttered for a reason), beer was the logical choice for those who want to produce, consume and most importantly, share their own alcoholic beverage.

3. The Bio-tech Industry. As San Diego has become a leader in bio-tech so has it become a leader in home brewing and the link is undeniable. Many of these same chem and bio geeks who work in the bio-tech industry by day are the same guys spending their evenings and weekends home brewing, tinkering with IBUs and pH levels. And our anecdotal evidence- gathering certainly suggests that San Diego home brewers tilt towards white, middle-aged, professionals more so than their younger, more under-employed counterparts from Portland and Seattle.

So there you have it. 3 ironclad reasons why San Diego is quickly becoming the U.S. capitol of home brewing. Of course, we could be completely wrong but we doubt it.

Life has Meaning once again

An oasis this weekend between the end of college hoops and the NFL Draft and NBA Playoffs: the international Craft Brewers Conference and World Beer Cup competition is being held this week here in San Diego.

For reasons here inexplicable, San Diego has carved out a nice little niche’ for itself in the world of craft/microbrew beers. To wit, Ratebeer.com’s ranking of the planet’s top 100 beers places 19 of them from SD county. Not too shabby, eh?

The conventional wisdom is that Karl Strauss got the ball rolling towards San Diego becoming a microbrew mini-mecca which would be ironic, in our opinion, as we’ve never been big fans of Karl’s beer. Now the pork chops at his restaurant, on the other hand…? Anyway, we’re partial to Ballast Point, Pizza Port (Solano Beach) and particularly Stone, makers of Arrogant Bastard Ale as in-town brews.

Maybe we’ll see you down there.

Full story here.