Beer Obsessed: Beer and Brewing Journal

Definitely one of my favorite labels of all time. The label artwork seems to work well with the entire shot since they both share similar tones and a pastel look. Many apologies for the less than stellar glassware….
Oh, the beer? I seemed to have conveniently missplaced my notes so you are a bit on your own here. I do remember pouring a shallow head and aromas and taste had some malt with raisin. Dubbel like? I’ll have to buy and try again.

You are looking at George’s leg with the tattoo being just off the shin and below the knee.
Thanks to George for letting me take the shot! Now hopefully other curious folks no longer have to wonder. Red Rock is a great beer and one of my ”go to beers” when I visit TP.

Awesome beer and happy to see its return to the market.
Aroma has sour funk horseblanket and some fruit. Sour and tart taste all over the tongue with fink rising up and out of that. Lingering sour tartness. Slight fruit throughout taste and finish.
Highly recommended.

It is very easy to say that the great thing about beer is beer itself. Very true but what really adds life to that statement is the great people you meet through beer. This is talked about all the time amongst beer people. Yesterday was a good example.
So I learn about Push Eject through the Brewing Network. Then I find out down the road that we have a lot in common with our day jobs and other things. Then I officially met Push at NHC this last year. Then last week I get a note from him asking for information on upgrading a bunch of their systems at work. After little thought, it made sense to just fly Push up here and have him go straight to the source for his answers and have some fun in the process. So a day or two after I received his note, he had a boarding pass and was on his way up here for a whirlwind work visit. Ok, but this blog isn’t called work obsessed. So let’s move on.
Even though I could get Push up here on the company’s dime, it is still my duty to show a beer brother a good time. 21st Amendment is quite easily accessible from work so off we went there with some other work folks. Push brought homebrew that we all sampled at the table including his last bottle of a 5 year old barleywine that was damn good and smooth(thank you for that one!). Also a couple versions of his Mrs. P’s porter that were excellent as well(one with hazelnut extract and the other with chocolate nibs…both blended well with the porter). Since Brewmaster Shaun O Sullivan was there, he brought out what I believe was the last can of Watermelon Funk on the planet. We were all honored by this and it was a great beer. Yep Watermelon Wheat covered in horseblanket. A slice of heaven.
Time was already getting tight at this point and I wanted to try and get Push to Beer Revolution in Oakland since neither of us had been there. We went back to the office and finished up our actual business. Time was tight, I brought a 4 year vertical of Bigfoot to try and we only had time for two of them (we liked the ‘10 better that the ‘07…less bitter if you can believe it and we enjoyed the freshness). So off on BART we went and made to Beer Revolution. Great place, you need to go if you haven’t been there. We walk in and there was Roger and George from Triple Rock, Adam and Carey from Linden St., and Shaun O (Shaun was planned actually). Well heck, if the brewers are hanging out here then you gotta love that! Push got to sample Odonata’s Water Witch and Moonlight’s Misspent Youth. Somehow we talked Shaun into driving him to Oakland airport and that was it. Push made his flight in the nick of time.
So back to my earlier point. I have met a lot of great people and continue to meet new ones through beer. In Push’s case, we were able to help each other out business-wise but we took it one step better and made a fun day out of it as well. That doesn’t happen with your typical client. Leave it to good beers and the friends that come out of them! So to Push and the rest of you. I look forward to sharing more beers with you again in the  in the future.

Turns out it was a happy coincidence that I decided to try this beer on Carnival week.
Lost Abbey Carnevale is is a spicy Saison style. It pours with a low head and has a tart citrus aroma. Add that and a touch of sweet pilsner malt to the taste and the finish is dry. Highly recommended on your next warm weather day.

Last week, Brewmaster Yuseff Cherney (Ballast Point) came up to spend a day brewing with Rodger Davis at Triple Rock as part of SF Beer Week. The brew was a Belgian IPA that will go on tap soon at Triple Rock. It looks like the brewers got a late start as they were still cleaning out the kettle when I showed up. I was a able to catch a quick half dozen shots before I had to let them get back to work. The bottom two were the better ones. Before anyone accuses Yuseff of making eyes at Rodger (in the second photo), just beware that I did catch him off guard. Yuseff is a great guy, very professional, and a bit reserved so I wanted to (hopefully) capture something different out of him. It was a pleasure to meet him as I am a big fan of his beers. Always great to see Rodger as well. It was a couple of my favorite brewers in one shot!
The last shot is Mitch and Dave (Brewer and Distributor) of Stone Brewing Co. They showed up at the bar and it looked like it was going to be a great night at Triple Rock but alas I had to go. It was great to meet Mitch and Dave as well.

Last night, Pro Brewers Adam Lamoreaux (Linden St.), Christian Kazakoff (Iron Spring), and Rodger Davis (Triple Rock) came down to The Oak Barrel homebrew shop in Berkely to hang out at the home of the Bay Area Mashers. The public was invited as part of SF Beer Week and in Oak Barrel style, Homer Smith was BBQing. I believe the event topped out at about 150 folks….way more than both Homer and Bernie expected. While they were happy by the entusiastic attendance, they unfortunately ran out of Homer’s famous BBQ.
I myself didn’t get there till about 8pm (the event started at 5pm) since I had to get the kids to bed. Fortunately for me, Oak Barrel is about a 4 minute car ride from my house.  I was greeted by old faces and new and I had a great time. In homebrew fashion, I brought some of my homebrew. In this case, a 14% spiced mead fermented with oranges and raisins. Folks enjoyed it and I got to enjoy some of Nathan Smith’s Imperial Stout (smooth and tasty, it was about 9%). Thirsty Bear Witbier was the only beer left on tap so I enjoyed a pint of it.
Of folks I know, it was a pleasure to shake hands and talk with Nathan, Roger Davis, Ed Ledger, and Homer. It was also a pleasure to officially meet Christian of Iron Springs. Of the Bay Area Mashers, I finally met both Lee Shepard and Jon Sheehan who I have seen around on Facebook.
It was great to see yet another SF Beer Week event so well attended. Bernie (Oak Barrel) is already figuring out how he is going to work next year. Hopefully more BBQ! The best news for me is I am now officially a Bay Area Masher. I paid my dues and bought the shirt of which I will wear proudly around town and certainly to Minneapolis for this year National Homebrewer Conference.
OK, on to some shots. Please click on them for a full res version as PHP code has a way of munging phots when it auto-shrinks them. Cheers!

Homebrewer extroadinare Nathan Smith with Homer, Bay Area Homebrewing and Winemaking icon.

Ed Ledger, owner of Ledger’s liqours. Ed runs one of the best stocked bottle shops in the East Bay. Paul (on the right) of the Bay Area Mashers.

Bay Area Mashers Lee Shepard and Nathan Smith

Bay Area Mashers brewed a beer during the entire event. Brew time was 4 hours and 20 minutes which is fast for an all grain brew! The shot was taken while the wort was going into the fermenter.

Oak barrel’s brew setup. This very high BTU burner is capable of bringing 12 gallons of liquid to boil in 15 minutes!

Like Pliny the Younger, I fear that Triple Rock’s annual sour day is on its way to becoming “legendary”, meaning big huge crowds due to the hype. Rodger Davis mentioned yesterday that it is possible they may have to move the event next year. Triple Rock was packed until the end of the night with sour beer lover’s and if that hype does take hold then you could expect anywhere from double that crowd or greater for next year.
Don’t get me wrong, the event was worth it for being able to try not only Duck Duck Gooze (Lost Abbey) but then walking up to Tomme Arthur and telling him how much you enjoy it. Odonata had their other version of Rosa there. The first version having the Russian River Beatification yeast strain and this version having the Drie Fonteinen yeast strain. Triple Rock had the Drie Fonteinen beer there too so you could compare both. All of this was poured into a tasteful snifter that came with your purchase at the door. The glass with labeled with the Barrel Aged Beer Night but I can see it being too  expensive silk screening glasses for both nights. Not a problem for me….just don’t be confused by the photo below that contains a wonderful sour in the glass.
My personal favorite style is Flanders Red and there where a couple new ones for me (one being Ichtegems) plus three versions of Rodenbach (regular, regular from ‘07, and grand cru). 
Some didn’t know but there were sours also being poured at Jupiter down the street and your tokens were good there as well. Jupe had only a small corner devoted to it and there a couple few people around. This is where the Rodenbach was and also a couple by Moonlight Brewing. The Moonlight “60 to life” and Bear Republic’s Belgian Brown with fruit (11% ABV) where definitely worth the two block trip south.
OK now to text between the pics below, follow me (and please click on the photos for a higher res version….PHP does horrible things when shrinking pics):

Above is John Tucci, trained at Paulaner in Munich and the Brewmaster for Gordon Biersch – SF. What most people don’t know is that John has a barrel of Hefeweizen in his cellar that have brett and bugs pitched into it. He brought a keg. Can you say Hefe with horse blanket? Works for me!

Same glass for both Triple Rock festivals. Don’t be fooled, this glass has a beautiful sour beer in it.

The Odonata boys: Peter Hoey and Rick Sellers. They brought their second version of Rosa (the first version was poured at the BN Winterfest). I do have to mention that my favorite Odonata beer so far (and they have all been great, BTW) was their Water Witch Belgian Quad aged in Malbec wine barrels. Oh baby!

This beer above was right up my alley. A very nice Flanders Red that I may not have had an opportunity to try otherwise.

…and the much hyped Duck Duck Gooze. Worth the wait and was very happy I got to try it. A wonderful sour that is not too overly dry (read thin). This was probably the first beer to run out.

I’m finally getting caught up here and already I have to get ready to leave for Sour monday at Triple Rock(ed note: um that was yesterday and was fun, more on it in a later post). So here we go:
First of all thank you to Jay Brooks for being classy enough to invite the Bay Area Beer Blogging faithful. We all work for free and do it on the side because we love it. Inviting us to the event helps validate everything we do and makes us feel more part of the scene.
Also to Rich Higgins. Great to witness his rise up not only directing SF Beer Week but his new business ventures as well. Rich is a great guy and he will be successful.

I have been wanting to start taking more pictures of beer people as opposed to actual beer…which I have been doing a lot of. Shooting a picture of a beer is easy, it poses the way you want it to and doesn’t complain. I just feel the need to branch out more. So with the Opening Gala, I felt a little self serving (or not since I plan to post the pics at various spots around the web) in wanting to capture a lot of folks in a short time. If I stuck a camera in your face, I might need to apologize but the good news is that I probably have a great photo of you and I’m working on them now (along with writing this).
There was a lot of beer people to see and beers to drink (many high octane ones ). BTW, the classiest detail for me was providing actual stemware for the event. Nice touch. It’s probably easier for me to write what I missed so here we go in no particular order:

• Jesse Friedman – my camera toting brother. I know you were there but I seemed to pass you by.
• Stephen Beaumont - Next to Jay Brooks here is someone all of us bloggers look up to. I know he is in town and I know he will be at Sour Monday so I’ll catch him then(ed note…..I didn’t)
• Colin Kaminski - Colin and I are in the extreme verge of hooking up. It didn’t happen at the Gala so we stay extreme.
• Ted Vivitson - It is admittedly tough to see Eel River taps and no Ted. If you haven’t shared a few beers with Ted, you need to.
• No BN army - OK, Justin Crossley was there but he was undercover. Even more weird I was wearing my BN army shirt and I was an army of one that night (ed note….Sean Paxton had his BN hat on, that counts)

I have more photos to come including ones shot at Sour Monday at Triple Rock…look out for them soon and here’s a couple more shots from the night:

A beautiful DIPA that Bay Area folk take a lot of pride in. Like Blind Pig (below), Pliny is available in bottles as well. I like that it is bottled in the 16oz size. 16oz feels like the right amount to me for most beers.
For great/complex hop aroma and taste, you can’t beat the Pliny.
Highly recommended.