Rambling Reviews 1.4.2017: Brews from Santa Clara Valley Brewing, Hermitage, and Discretion Brewing

Tasting flight of SCVB's Loma Prieta Oatmeal
Rye Imperial Stout at the SCVB taproom

Let's start off 2017 by rambling on about beers from some local breweries in and around San Jose.

We'll start with Loma Prieta Oatmeal Rye Imperial Stout from Santa Clara Valley Brewing (SCVB). The tallest mountain in the Santa Cruz mountain range, Loma Prieta is most associated with the legendary 1989 Northern California earthquake. Loma Prieta means "dark hill" in Spanish. As for the beer, it's a subdued, smokey, smooth, and slightly peppery stout, with the complex roastiness forming a nice substrate for the Bourbon and Rye barrel-aged infusions the folks at SCVB introduced into a couple version of the brew. My early beer blogging inspiration and SCVB Marketing Manager Peter Estaniel invited me over to the brewery for a four-sample tasting flight of Loma Prieta on nitroro, all by itself, and aged for ten months in Rye and Bourbon barrels. I would love to give you detailed tasting notes on all the different nuances and subtleties of Loma Prieta, but after a few sips of Loma Prieta, Peter and I started chatting away on sports and beery subjects that taking tasting notes seemed pointless. Loma Prieta facilitating all that engaging discussion is perhaps the best endorsement I could give.


Next up, Topaz Single Hop IPA from San Jose's Hermitage Brewing. Hermitage's single hop IPA series has long been a great way to experience new hops to understand the unique characteristics they impart into beers. That sounds like something only a hard core homebrewer could love, but strangely enough, hops like Topaz prove many hops work quite well all on their own without the usual blending brewers obsess over.  The high alpha acid content of Topaz makes this a rather straightforwardly bitter IPA, but its light tropical fruit and apricot notes save the day. Nice IPA.

Finally, we end with Uncle Dave's Rye IPA from Discretion Brewing, just over the hill from San Jose in Soquel. I enjoyed one of these last week on a family drive up the Pacific Coast when we stopped at the small seaside town of Davenport for lunch. Having many an IPA chock full of as much dankness, piney-ness, and grapefruity bitterness as the brewer could cram into the beer, it was rather refreshing to enjoy an IPA with some flavor and balance to it. It's light rye peppery flavors work well with the stone fruit flavors in this well composed IPA. There's probably a reason this brew has won a bunch of awards for Discretion including a Bronze medal in Rye Beer Category in the 2016 World Beer Cup. Instead of my usual blurry, out of focus beer picture, I'll leave you with a nice shot from Bonny Doon Beach just south of Davenport.

Rambling Reviews: Summer Brews from Santa Clara Valley Brewing, Hermitage, and Sudwerk

Alviso Mills Hefeweizen

It's hot. Some days with the sun a-blazin', I don't even want to look at an IPA, and instead reach for the lighter summery beer styles. These styles get no respect. They're technically harder to brew than IPA's, Imperial Stouts and other styles that get beer geeks raving, yet the best of them barely earn a ho-hum among the self appointed beer cognoscenti. I've been seeking out more of the lighter, summery thirst quenching brews these days and here are three I particularly liked.

First up, Alviso Mills Hefeweizen which San Jose's Santa Clara Valley Brewing just released June 23rd. I find American brewers either hit or miss with this quintessential German style. Some capture all that wonderful yeasty estery goodness in their Hefe, others produce a rather so-so wheat beer. Santa Clara Valley Brewing gets it right.  Fruity esters dominate the flavor profile, with maybe a little banana and very slight clove-like aromatics, and it finishes with a satisfying wheat tang. Well done.

Hermitage Pilsner

Just down the road from Santa Clara Valley Brewing, Hermitage Brewing is pouring a mighty fine dry hoped Pilsner in their tap room. While Hermitage is best known for their ales, it's nice to see them getting notice in the cold fermented act. Their Pilsner is crisp, with some spicy floral bitterness and a decent malt heft. Simple and clean like a Pilsner should be. Hermitage Brewmaster Peter Licht spends a minute to describe the new Pilsner release in this video.

We now turn to California Dry Hopped Lager from Davis, CA lager specialists, Sudwerk. The guy at the Sudwerk stand at any Bay Area beer festival I've been too is always the loneliest guy in the room. Unfortunately, not a lot of people check out lagers at a beer festival, and so basically the poor Sudwerk guy is there with no nothing to do and no one to talk to. I've even seen tipsy beer hipsters laugh at the Sudwerk stand. Not cool. Those wishing to expand their beer horizons to possibilities of lagers will be rewarded here. There's a light of nice herbal aromas as it pours. This brew has a sturdy malt base, with a snappy grassy and herbal hop finish.  A real "stick to your ribs" kind of lager. So Sudwerk, just ignore the douchebag beer hipsters and keep the lager faith.

Sudwerk California Dry Hop Lager
on my new gas grill

Santa Clara Valley Brewing in Edible Silicon Valley

Tom Clark (left) and Steve Donohue (right) of Santa Clara Valley Brewing

It's a short piece, but now Silicon Valley foodies have been introduced to Santa Clara Valley Brewing in Edible Silicon Valley magazine. Both Santa Clara Valley Brewing's Tom Clark and Steve Donohue were fun and engaging to work with for the article.  You can read the online version here.

Rambling Reviews 6.30.2015: Summer Beers from Anchor, Gordon Biersch and Santa Clara Valley

Summer is now officially upon us, so time to ramble about some of the lighter brews especially great for this time of year.  Good summer beers are underrated, possessing enough complexity and depth to draw you in if you care to, which can be easily ignored if all you want to do is cool off.

First up, Anchor Brewing Summer Wheat.  In the past, I was never a fan of this beer. That's changed now that Anchor's tweaked the recipe. The earlier version was a little bland for my taste, a pretty one-note wheat beer with nothing particularly to recommend about it. Anchor's now jazzed it up with some subtle hop additions, including dry-hopping it with Simcoe. The result is a crisp, dry beer with some tartness from the wheat and citrus, lemony character from the additional hops giving the beer some extra depth. Now I'm a fan.


Next up is Gordon Biersch Sommerbrau, a Kolsch.  Their are plenty of Kolch's out there, some rather light and ordinary.  As Gordon Biersch brewmaster says in a press release, "Kolsch is such a unique style and is so challenging to brew." No place to hide any off flavors in a Kolsch.  The surprisingly sturdy underlying malt with some wheat tanginess finishes a little earthy.  Lot's of subtle things going on here, and I like the little extra malt omph you don't always see in this style.

Finally, when Santa Clara Valley Brewing's tap room opened, I high-tailed it down there the first chance I got and tried, among other things, their Little Orchard Saison.  Lot's of spice gives it some zip with some yeasty undertones for balance.  Not a deep review, but I liked it so much, I was just enjoying it rather than scribbling down a bunch of tasting notes, OK?

Santa Clara Valley Brewing Tap Room Opens

It's a development that's starting to get routine, yet hardly anyone is tired of.  Another South Bay brewery, Santa Clara Valley Brewing  has opened a tap room in the same South San Jose industrial region where Strike Brewing and Hermitage Brewing have theres, and Clandestine Brewing came and went.  (We all hope Clandestine re-opens in San Jose, but that is another story.)  Does this mean San Jose has reached "tap room critical mass" to become a beer destination?  Perhaps.  At any rate, there's another place to go in the city for good local beer in the South Bay, and that's good enough for me.

First look at Santa Clara Valley Brewing's new brewery

It's big news for South San Francisco Bay beer aficionados that Santa Clara Valley Brewing (SCVB) recently completed their brewery in South San Jose and has even started brewing a few batches. I got a chance to check the place out for myself and spent few minutes chatting with Brewmaster Steve Donohue.   As you might expect, Steve doesn't have a heck of a lot of time to chat with anyone while he's getting the brewery up and running.  Steve tells me to expect a couple new brews from SCVB, a Pale Ale, and a Session IPA.  For those expecting the Session IPA to be a dialed down version of their popular flagship Electric Tower IPA, Steve enthusiastically assured me the Session IPA would have its own unique character unlike Electric Tower.  The tap room in the front is still under construction and could likely open in as soon as a couple weeks, but the actual date will depend on when the necessary permit approvals and completed. As for getting the whole place up and running, Steve shook his head as he told me "I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but it's been fun so far."

I'll leave you with some pictures of the brewery.  The tap room was still under construction so I won't post pictures of it, but when finished, I think it's going to look pretty sharp.

The Session #97: Yes, the Silicon Valley is an up and coming beer destination

There was a time in the United States one had to travel great distances to find good beer. Thankfully, those days seem to be behind us.  I've found plenty of examples of local and regional brewing excellence in places like Logan, UT, Modesto, CA, Las Cruces, NM, and Fort Myers, FL. None of these places would be one anyone's list of beer destinations. Yet, the beers at these places all have their unique identity, whether brewed with local ingredients or with some unique twist.

So when Our Tasty Travels asks us to list our up-and-coming beer destinations, I'm tempted to answer by jumping up and screaming "EVERYWHERE!"  Instead, I hope you'll forgive me as I talk up the place where I live, the Silicon Valley, as a beer destination you should check out.

It's not as if there haven't been any good breweries here. Places like the Tied House, Faultline Brewing, Los Gatos Brewing Company, and El Toro have all been cranking out good stuff for over a couple decades.  Gordon-Biersch, the ubiquitous  chain of brew pubs and beer originated Palo Alto in 1988, the same place Hewlett Parkard started from a garage in the 1930's.   The Gordon-Biersch production brewery is located smack dab in the middle of San Jose. Other breweries like Rock Bottom Brewery, Campbell Brewing, Firehouse Grill & Brewery joined the fray a years later winning awards and a few Great American Beer Festival (GABF) medals along the way.

Still, the Silicon Valley long suffered comparisons to the thriving San Francisco and Oakland area brewing scenes.  Even as little a seven years ago, the place to go for the best beer selection in the Silicon Valley was arguably a wine bar called "Wine Affairs".

But that's changing.  In just the past few years plenty of bars and restaurants have emerged to serve a wide variety of brews to meet eclectic tastes.  I'm talking about places like Original Gravity, Harry's Hofbrau, Good Karma, Liquid Bread, and Spread which have either recently emerged, or transformed themselves into places to go to find great beer. I'm sure I've left out a few other places.

However, the most encouraging trend is that by mid-2015, four new Silicon Valley breweries will have opened tap rooms in the last two years in the same gritty industrial section just south of downtown San Jose. All four of those breweries has it's own to tie to the Silicon Valley's unique culture.

Hermitage Brewing's Tap Room

The first to build and brewery and tap room was Hermitage Brewing, a production brewing venture of Mountain View's Tied House in the summer of 2013.  In addition to producing many fine brews of their own, Hermitage stealthily brews beers for several breweries under contract.  You might say Hermitage is the Flextronics of Northern California brewing, the contract manufacturer that builds many of the world's fancy electronic gadgets. The most interesting Hermitage brews, at least to me, are in their single-hop IPA series.  Every two or three months, Hermitage releases a single-hop IPA, often brewed with some hard to find varietal of hops.  Each beer is brewed the same way, the only thing that changes is that hops.  It's a great way to directly taste all the latest innovations in hop cultivation.

Strike Brewmaster Drew Erhlich and CEO Jenny Lewis

Then in early 2014, next brewery to settle in the area was Strike Brewing with their no-frills, yet well executed
brews.  Strike goes for the sessionability and drinkable side of the brewing spectrum, yet they still won awards with their Imperial Red and do a dynamite Imperial Stout.   You will not find a more ambitious business person in Silicon Valley than Strike CEO Jenny Lewis who has clear expansion plans well beyond Northern California.  Yet, Strike constantly supports the local community in various fundraisers.

Next up was Clandestine Brewing, which opened a tap room last May.   It's always fun to see what they have on their 12 taps, because it always changes and there's always something new. You'd expect that from a brewery founded by four homebrewers who brew only on the weekends.  That's because their weekdays are spent writing code for various Silicon Valley software companies.

Rob Conticello and Colin Kelly of Clandestine Brewing

And in the middle of this year, Santa Clara Valley Brewing (SCVB) will open their own brewery and tap room.  Everybody knows SCVB Brewmaster Steve Donohue, who won four GABF medals during his time at Firehouse Grill and Brewery.  When Firehouse made a curious business decision de-emphasize its beer and transform itself into a Hooter's knock-off, featuring nubile waitresses scantily dressed in tight t-shirts and short kilts for the sports bar crowd, Steve decided to leave after a couple years of that.   Soon after, he formed SCVB with Apple Computer executive Tom Clark.   SCVB quickly established their tropical Electric Tower IPA as their flagship beer, and Electric Tower tap handles started popping up all over the San Francisco Bay Area.

SCVB Brewmaster Steve Donohue

One thing the Silicon Valley is not, is San Francisco.  San Francisco is a beer destination which needs no introduction with it's undeniable vibrant brewing culture.  Just don't go there if you want a simple wheat beer or brown ale.  The must be some law that states any wheat beer in San Francisco must have some unusual fruit like guava or olallieberry in it. Any brewer up there who can be bothered to brew a brown ale can't resist adding Peruvian cocoa nibs to it.  Thermo-nuclear IPA's and Belgian-style alcohol bombs take up 85% of any given tap list.  But then, San Francisco has never been about restraint.

The Silicon Valley has long been about execution, collaboration, and innovation driven by logic. You'll find that in our beer.

The latest excellent release from Santa Clara Valley Brewing is no surprise

Santa Clara Valley Brewing (SCVB) calls their latest release, a Double IPA, "Valley Surprise". The only surprise would be if it sucked.

SCVB Brewmaster Steve Donohue has long demonstrated his considerable skills with hops well back to his days with Firehouse Brewing. Valley Surprise is the latest in his long list of these examples and a very worthy follow-up to SCVB's highly successful Electric Tower IPA. Valley Surprise has plenty of strong, punchy tropical hops flavors with a slight resiny finish.  Even better, it's a very dry Double IPA with virtually no sweetness letting all those great hop flavors come through.  It's a welcome departure from a lot of sweeter tasting West Coast Double IPA's, some of which border on tasting like sickening hop syrup.

I picked up at bottle at San Jose's Royal Liquors and also had some at my neighborhood hang-out Campbell's Little Lou's BBQ.  You can find it a plenty of other locations and my guess is you'll be seeing it around at SF Beer Week.

Talking with Brewmaster Steve Donohue about Santa Clara Valley Brewing's First Year

Brewmaster Steve Donohue enjoying a pint at
Little Lou's Barbecue

It’s been a little over a year since Santa Clara Valley Brewing’s (SCVB)  Electric Tower IPA first arrived.  Since then, Electric Tower tap handles started sprouting up all over the South Bay and SCVB's subsequent releases of Peralta Porter and New Almaden Imperial Red have also been successful.  It’s not surprising, given that SCVB Brewmaster Steve Donohue won four Great American Beer Festival medals in just six years at Fire House Grill and Brewery before starting SCVB with Apple Executive Tom Clark.

I spent some time talking with Steve Donohue about his first year of SCVB and the brewery's plans for the future over a couple New Almaden Imperial Red Ales at Campbell's Little Lou’s Barbecue.    As he sat down, Donohue reminisced,  “We tapped our first keg of Electric Tower First May 10^th just last year.  That in and of itself is hard to believe.  It’s gone fast.  It’s been a wild ride so far that has exceeded expectations.”

Looking back at his years at Firehouse, Steve had only positive things to say.  “The six years I had there were great.  I couldn’t have had a more valuable experience and came into my own as a brewer.  I’d reached the pinnacle doing everything I could do for the business.  It was just time to move on.”

So he did.  It happened when Apple executive and long time home brewer Tom Clark was looking to start a brewery in the South Bay.  Clark spoke with some of his contacts in Santa Rosa, and they suggested giving Steve a call.  Together they formed Santa Clara Valley Brewing.

Their first beer was Electric Tower IPA.  Tom and Steve discussed the qualities they wanted their first beer to have, and then Steve put the recipe together.  “Recipes aren’t that hard for me, I guess,” says Steve matter of factly.  “To make what we wanted, I knew certain malts would take me here, “ gesturing with his hands, “these hops would take me here, and the yeast would take me here.  When we tried the first batch, it was pretty much where we wanted to be.”

As for new beers in the works, Steve is working on a barrel-aged wheat beer brewed with 100%  Brettanomyces yeast with sour cherries.  As Steve describes it, “It won’t be a Sour per se, but will have some tartness.  I’ve been tasting it out of the barrels and it’s about where it should be.”  Further pondering his next move, he mused  "I'm thinking about doing a barrel-aged stout.   Then, a lot of people do barrel-aged stouts, so maybe I’ll do an Old Ale instead.  I haven’t decided which one yet.”

The business side of things is starting to grow.  SCVB produced a mere 200 barrels in 2013, but is on target to brew about 800 barrels in 2014.  Tom Clark’s wife Colleen has taken over the bookkeeping duties. Peralta Porter is now pouring at San Jose Giants games and Electric Tower IPA is selling well in San Diego, a fact that’s both surprising and highly encouraging,  given the number of excellent IPA’s brewed in and around San Diego.  SCVB hired their first dedicated sales person last month, Stephanie Santolo.  “She’s just killing it,” enthused Steve about Santolo's performance.  “She just got us into Lunardi’s.  I had begun talking with them, but she closed the deal.  I didn’t even realize she was talking to them until it happened.”   Given Lunardi’s operates eight high-end grocery stores throughout the South Bay and  Peninsula, it’s a big win for a brewery of SCVB’s size.

All of which will be important SCVB’s next step.  Currently, their beer is brewed under contract at Hermitage Brewing but that will change in the not too distant future as SCVB is in the process of building their own brewery.  “We’re still keeping it close to the vest, “ Steve explained.  “We’ve leased a building, but we’re not ready to make a big announcement.  Hopefully, we’ll start construction within the next couple of months.” It took about four months to find the right location for the brewery, which will be located across the street from Southern Lumber just south of downtown San Jose.  As for a time table as when it will open, Steve was reluctant to provide an estimate.

But it’s a good bet that a year from now, the gritty industrial park just south of downtown San Jose full of construction suppliers and auto salvage yards will also be known for beer as at least four craft breweries will call the place home.   There’s Hermitage Brewing, which started it all and opened up a tap room last year.  Strike Brewing is set to open their brewery and tap room this summer after brewing under contract for a couple years at Hermitage.  Then there’s Clandestine Brewing, about to reveal itself with a brewery and tasting room this summer.  There’s even talk of a shuttle picking up passengers from the San Jose Cal Train station with stops at the four breweries, and possibly some downtown beer locations as well.

Whether or not San Jose becomes a beer destination, it’s exciting to think about it.  Whatever happens in the South Bay Brewing scene, Santa Clara Valley Brewing is going to be a big part of it.  It figures Santa Clara Valley Brewing's second year is going to be every bit as eventful as their first.

Beer of the Month: New Almaden Imperial Red Ale from Santa Clara Valley Brewing

Our Beer of the Month for March comes from a brewery that seems like it's been around for a couple years, but only started brewing late last spring. It's from Santa Clara Valley Brewing, formed by multi-GABF award winning brewer Steve Donohue and Apple Executive Tom Clark.  Their Electric Tower IPA drew plenty of raves, including one from yours truly, and Electric Tower tap handles have been popping up all over the South Bay.

Their recently released New Almaden Imperial Red proves Santa Clara Valley Brewing is no one hit wonder.    There's plenty of malt, giving it a creamy mouth feel and lots of roasty and earthy flavors but hefty additions hops create citrus flavors pushing through all that malt goodness, resulting in a beer with plenty of bold flavors.  For all its strength and assertiveness, it's also surprisingly smooth.  I hesitate to describe a beer at 10.0% abv as drinkable, but it's certainly an easy sipper.

The name comes from one of my favorite places to the run in the Bay Area.   Reddish, cinnabar mercury ore was mined at New Almaden just south of South Jose starting in the late 1800's  primarily for gold extraction to support the gold discoveries east of Sacramento.  You can find ruins of these mines at Almaden Quicksilver Park, which has numerous trails, rugged hills and spectacular view for excellent trail running.  Every Saturday and Sunday morning, plenty of running groups will gather at the MacAbee Road entrance to "do Quicksilver".  I've also taken the family for hikes there many times as it's a great place to learn our region's history, enjoy nature, take in excellent views of nearby Mount Unumhum and challenge yourself on the trails if you're so inclined.

Turns out, I'm not the only South Bay blogger that enjoys New Almaden Imperial Red and Almaden Quicksilver park.  Check out fellow South Bay Beer Blogger Brian Wimsett's post on True Brew Too-Beer and Friends.

Mount Unumhum as seen from Almaden Quicksilver Park.
(Photo credit)

Rambles: August Brings New Beers, A New Book, and Spread!

Two New Beers Arrive in the Bay Area,
South Bay newcomer Santa Clara Valley Brewing does it again with their strong second release, Peralta Porter.  It's a dry porter with plenty of roasty, dark chocolate flavors you look for in this style.  A slight, but certainly noticeable earthy hop finish gives it a nice twist.  Yet another reason you don't have to leave the South Bay to find good beer.  You can find Peralta Porter in many fine bottle shops, including where I bought mine, Cask and Flask Liquors.

The folks at Hanger 24 sent a bottle of their Polycot Wheat Ale my way, and I'm glad they did.  It's part of their Local Field Series where the Redland, CA brewery integrates locally sourced ingredients into their beers.  Polycot uses organic apricots from Southern California's high desert, which blend quite well with the wheat tang and overall dryness of the brew to create something pretty refreshing for the late summer.

Beyond the Pale
Eagerly awaited is Beyond the Pale: The Story of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. by brewing pioneer and Sierra Nevada founder and CEO Ken Grossman scheduled for release this August 26th.  It's a well known story but I, like plenty of others, cannot wait to hear Grossman tell it.    And yes, you'll be seeing a review of Beyond the Pale here later this year.

Spread Opens in Campbell
I'm pleased to announce the opening of Spread, a wine/beer garden, bottle ship and sandwich place on the west side of downtown Campbell.  It's the sister outfit of Campbell's Liquid Bread gastropub, and just like that, Campbell's become solid beer destination.  I've tried the sandwiches and they are delish.  It's only a 15 minute walk from my home, so you'll find me there often.

The sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Spread in a photo
I swiped from their Facebook page.  Hope they don't mind.

Beer of the Month: Electric Tower IPA from Santa Clara Valley Brewing

When I finally got a chance to try Electric Tower IPA from Santa Clara Valley Brewing, I was actually afraid to drink it.  Sure, Brew Master Steve Donohue won four Great American Beer Festival medals at Sunnyvale's Firehouse Grill before leaving to start Santa Clara Valley Brewing with Tom Clark so you figured it was going to be good.  Plenty of people got pretty excited when they announced in March their licensing was complete and they were going to commence brewing, including myself.  I even kept bugging Steve a few times on his Twitter account about when his first beer would come out.  With all that build up, my biggest fear was that no beer could really live up to all these expectations and by the time  I'd finally try it, it would be a let down.

Since you know Electric Tower IPA is Beer of the Month, you can figure out the rest.




Drawing of the Historical San Jose Electric Tower
(Wikipedia Common Image) 

Yes, Santa Clara Valley Brewing delivers the goods and then some, meeting all the high expectations with their initial release.  I could tell this was going to be a good just by opening the bottle.  Wonderful aromas of pine and mango greeted my noise.  Sipping the beer delivered more of the same, with its smooth and flavorful tropical mango, pineapple and resin-like pine flavors.  There's a solid, lightly toasty malt foundation to this fairly dry beer as well, but as with any good West Coast IPA, the hops are doing all the talking.  

So what's this Electric Tower all about anyway?  Back in 1881, a large electric tower was erected in San Jose, used for lighting up the city.  These were common in America cities in the late 1800's, often called Moonlight Towers, as electrification began to sweep the country. San Jose's tower was one of the largest ones of this era.  You might say it was the earliest example of Silicon's Valley technical prowess.

Electric Tower IPA:  Another reason it's good to live in the South Bay.

Yee-haw! Steve Donohue's Santa Clara Valley Brewing Coming Online

Steve Donohue would be one of those rockstar brewers if he lived in San Francisco or Santa Rosa after winning all those Great American Beer Festival Medals at Firehouse Grill and Brewery.   Problem, was Firehouse was located in the far less glamorous towns of Sunnyvale and East Palo Alto, places few beer geeks venture to. Firehouse's management also seemed far more interested in featuring its young, nubile waitresses in short kilts and tight t-shirts to appeal to the sportsbar crowd than being a destination for great beer.  Too bad, since sportsbars with pretty girls are a dime a dozen, while Steve's beers were pretty special.

So Steve Dononue left Firehouse to start his own brewery and the good news is that he now has his California Alcoholic Beverage Control Type 17 License (Beer and Wine Wholesaler) which he happily Tweeted to the world March 21st, which allows him to get brewing!  How soon can we expect the first beer from Santa Clara Valley Brewing?  A recent comment from Santa Clara Valley Brewing on their Facebook page declares "We still have some work to do before we have beer, but we're working on it as much as possible. We're hoping to have beer by early to mid May."

I found Steve's beers, like his Hops on Rye,  Hall and Oatmeal Stout, and Pete's Support, a nifty Belgian IPA, were always flavorful, unique, and distinctive but never strayed too far from traditional brewing styles.  His next beers from Santa Clara Valley Brewing can't touch my lips fast enough. 

Let's raise our glasses to the success of yet another great South Bay Brewery.

Steve Donohue happily Tweeted this permit which allows him to commence brewing