The Session #120 : Intersections with Brown Ales

For this month's Session, Joe Tindall over at The Fatal Glass of Beer admits Brown Ale has a bit of an image problem. While the color brown often conveys comfort and relaxed earthiness, it also signals something worn, tired, and faded. There are also brown things that....well, you probably don't want to think about while drinking beer. So it's not too surprising that Brown Ales are some of the least sexy styles of beer. That's too bad, since I like a good Brown and when I look back on my relationship with Brown Ales, they've been there along the way as I've made new discoveries in beer.









Such as the time back in my graduate school days at The Ohio State University in the early 90's, roaming the aisles at the Big Bear grocery store, I spied bottles of Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale high up on the beer shelf. Back then, my experience with any beer that wasn't a straw yellow Lager was pretty much limited to Michelob Dark. I couldn't help notice that one bottle of Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale cost about as much as a six-pack of Bud and was imported from some historic looking brewery from the UK, so I figured it must be good. In that time of great exploration in my life, I picked up a bottle. Trying it later one night in my dorm room, I found it, well, different. It was not some secret ambrosia and with my palate molded by light Lagers, it took effort to finish. Later on, I'd take a bottle or two to poker games to look cool and sophisticated as my friends sucked down cans of Natty Light. I was a bit of twit back then, and probably only grudgingly shared my Nut Brown Ale with anyone who asked to try it. Another Samuel, Samuel Adams, started showing up on beer shelves, which had a distinct advantage over Samuel Smith in that it was significantly cheaper, very important in those days when instant ramen noodles with frozen vegetables was my usual dinner.

Fast forward twenty years and 2,000 miles westward. I've been living in and around San Jose, California for ten years. By then, I'd discovered discovered so many great breweries in Northern California, although most of them are concentrated around the cities of Oakland and San Francisco, or bucolic places like Mendocino County or Santa Rosa. San Jose and it's Silicon Valley surroundings was considered a brewery backwater. Then one day, I discovered a new brewery in San Jose called Strike Brewing and one of their first beers was simply called "Brown".  (They now call it "Lumberbuster Brown").  Light, tight, and a little nutty, I found it to be a refreshing Brown from a brewery specializing in sessionable ales. Strike's no-nonsense straightforward style was equally refreshing at that time in Northern California, full of big booming IPA's and Imperial everythings. Strike Brewmaster Drew Ehrlich was a minor baseball pitcher before co-founding Strike and his beers suggest he threw batters nothing but a steady diet of solid fastballs. Strike was one of the earliest entrants into San Jose's small but growing brewing scene, a group of breweries which reflects Silicon Valley's tradition of both innovation and laser-focus on process. Being a Silicon Valley techie, it is with pride that I can now enjoy hometown brews from Strike and plenty of other new local breweries.

Five years later, late last summer, I'm chatting which Calicraft's Brewmaster Blaine Landberg in the back of his newly opened taproom. I'm interviewing him for an article in a local food magazine, and he's eagerly handing me sample after sample of each of his beers, telling me all about them like they're his kids. It was not wise to interview him on an empty stomach. He gets to Calicraft's Oaktown Brown which at 6.7% abv, 70 ibu, which is not your traditional Brown Ale, and tastes far more balanced and composed than those numbers suggest. We both lament that Brown Ales are underappreciated. Landberg's idea behind Oaktown Brown was to give the style the royal treatment, adding oak at fermentation and plenty of Cascade hops, creating a woody, vanilla, and slightly red wine character to the big roasty flavors. I don't know how he keeps all those big flavors at the right volumes but he does it this complex brew I find myself sipping effortlessly.

One could derisively call Brown Ales the cockroaches of beer, continuing to persist despite commercially eradicative indifference. The thing about Brown Ales are, whether in traditional form, modern renditions, or contemporary reworkings, they have their passionate believers.

Rambling Reviews 5.2.2106: Strike Brewing's Screaming Hand, Uinta Brewing's Farm Side Saison, and Dogfish Head's Beer To Drink Music To

It's been a full month since I rambled here about any beer. Time to fix that!

Let's start with Strike Brewing's Screaming Hand Imperial Amber coming totally out of left field on Strike's restrained, baseball themed line-up. I alway found Strike beers to be driven by Brewmaster Drew Ehrlich's solid brewing technique and sense of nuance, but this beer almost literally screams. Assertive, strong caramel malt blend well with tropical slightly resinous hops. At 7.5% abv, it tastes a bit "boozy" in a good way. Nice change of pace effort from Strike. Talk to the hand.

Next, we come to Uinta Brewing's Farm Side Saison. They make it with white grape must and gooseberries, which pretty much take over this brew. It's full of sharp, white wine flavors, a fruity tartness that I gather come from the gooseberries. There's just not much there from the neutral malt, and it lacks any real yeastiness. You might call it a white wined-up saison. For those who want some wine with their beer.

Last, we come to Beer to Drink Music to Tripel from Dogfish Head.  What can I say, this is just a wonderful sipping beer to drink music to, or anything else for that matter.  Lot's of aromatic spiciness of cinnamon and clove dominate with a little orange fruitiness, a light sweetness and a slight toffee note.  Just a smooth, effortless combination of strong flavors at 9% abv.

Rambing Reviews 8.11.2015: Sierra Nevada's Oktoberfest, 21st Amendments Batch #0001 and Strike Irish Red

Once again it's time to ramble on about a three California beers hitting the streets lately.

First up, Sierra Nevada's Oktoberfest, brewed in collaboration with Brauhaus Riegele of Augsburg Germany. What can say about this, it's brewed in the classic Oktoberfest fashion. Lightly toasted malt, a whisper of hops, clean, restrained flavors. A little more on the pale side than other Oktoberfests. No flavor explosion here, beers like this are about tradition and technique. This one delivers.

21st Amendment Brewmasterer Sean O'Sullivan
pouring Batch 0001 (from a online video)

Next up is 21st Amendment's Batch #0001, the first batch of beer produced from their new San Leandro brewery. Well, you can't say you weren't warned. This IPA is a little off, like they hadn't quite figured out the new brewing equipment. When I first sampled this during the brewery's opening ceremonies, there was a certain magic in tasting the very first beer flowing from the tanks. I thought it tasted a little weak back then, but it seemed quite indelicate to bring that up with all the festivities going on. Weeks later, I found Batch #0001 at my neighborhood hangout, so ordered a pint. Disconnected from that opening day thrill, the beer still reveals itself to be a weak and unbalanced. The malt is thin, largely overwhelmed by the hops which, save for a little tangerine character, aren't particularly flavorful and dominated by a murky bitterness. If you'd like to sample a piece of local brewing history, well then go for this. But on taste alone, you'll easily find plenty of better brews.

Finally, there's Colossus of Clout Irish Red Ale from Strike Brewing. (Strike has apparently started naming their beers.)  It's not a session beer at 6.5% abv, but it feels that way. It's highly drinkable mix of lots of dry caramel and toasted with a good amount of fruity esters that's flavorful, but not highly distracting. It's what these types of beers are supposed to be.

(Picture taken from Strike Brewing Instagram)

Strike's Drew Ehrlich Talks about Strike Blonde

Strike Brewmaster Drew Ehrlich
(Photo from Strike Brewing) 

As brewers continue to push the envelope with barrel-aging, spices, new hop varietals, exotic spices and weird ingredients like oysters or their own beard yeast, it only makes beers like Strike Brewing's Blonde seem brilliantly unique in their simplicity.   Strike Blonde is part of Strike Brewing's focus on session beers and its minimalist combination of light malt with a little hops is actually what I find most appealing about it.   I spent some time talking with Strike Brewmaster Drew Ehrlich about his Blonde. It turns out to be one of his originals, going way back to his home brewing days.

"I had a bunch of friends into the light lager craze, and I wanted to brew something that wasn’t going to scare them away," explains Ehrlich of how he came up with the recipe.  "So I used pretty simple malt and added a little hops at the end to give them a little something extra they weren’t getting from what they usually drank." 

What I find makes Strike Blonde work is the light earthy bitterness at the finish. Ehrlich accomplishes this with Cascade hops he adds midway through the boil. "It’s pretty standard brewing practice that adding hops at the beginning of the boil adds bitterness, adding them midway through the boil adds flavor and towards the end of the boil adds aroma," explains Ehrlich.  "So midway and towards the end of the boil I add Cascade hops to give it a bitterness you might not have with a super light beer."

Session beers like blonde ales are actually difficult to brew, as there's no place to hide any brewing flaw in a light ale.  As for Strike Blonde, Ehrlich doesn't quite see it that way.  "I wouldn’t say it’s simple to brew, I wouldn’t say it’s hard, either.  I had to adjust the recipe twice, the first time when I started brewing it at Hermitage Brewing when Strike was first started contract brewing there.  When we at Strike opened our own brewery, I had to tweak it again.  All brewing systems have their own quirks and I had to adjust the way I brew on each system to what was originally envisioned."

Session beers are becoming more popular these days, but Strike Brewing was into session beers from the very beginning way back in 2010 when the brewery first started.  "We really enjoy session beers, great for drinking a few with your friends without getting wasted and we love session beers for that," says Ehrlich.   "They’re great for people who are active or working out, who want a beer at the end.   Session beers give them lots of flavor without all the alcohol.  Session beers are good social beers, that’s why we strive to have a lot of good session beer available at any given time."

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.

Rambling Recommendations 3.2.2015 from Gordon Biersch, Ninkasi and Strike

Every so often after discovering a few new beers I like, I want to tell the world about them.  Or at least the small part of the world that reads this blog.  So let's get right to three beers to check out if you get the chance.

First up is Gordon Biersch Maibock.   This beer has an interesting back story in that this traditional German beer played a large role in Dan Gordon co-founding Gordon Biersch.  As Gordon states in a press release, “Maibock was the beer that inspired me to become a brewer. The Einbecker brewery was located fairly close to Göttingen, the town where I was an ungraduate exchange student and I toured the brewery as frequently as possible. In fact, I was enjoying a Maibock in my dorm courtyard when I decided to apply to the graduate program in brewing engineering at the Technical University of Munich with the ultimate goal of becoming a brewmaster.“ 

OK, that's nice, but how does it taste.  Like all Gordon Biersch beers, it's not a flavor explosion but a beer meant to be appreciated.  It's got a little yeastiness, with noticeable fruity esters and apricot flavors. There's light toastiness from malt, and at 7.3% abv the alcohol is slightly noticeable, but not in a bad way bad way.  A great sipper for a lazy afternoon and yet another example of Gordon Biersch brewing precision.

Next is Ninkasi Brewing's Dawn of the Red India-Style Red Ale.  I knew this was going to be good as soon as I poured it into the glass and all those great hop aromas started wafting upwards towards my nose.  It's bursting with very tropical, pineapple hop flavors and the slightly sweet roasted malt gives it both a juiciness, and flavor profile of a caramelized pineapple.  Personally, I find Ninkasi beers to be a hit or miss proposition given their rather aggressive use of bold flavors.  Sometimes, I wish they would dial things back a bit or other times I find their big flavors all clashing with each other.  Here, they've really nailed it.

Finally, there's Strike Brewing Big Wall Imperial Stout, their winter seasonal. I enjoyed it so much at their tap room, I made sure to take a 22 ounce bottle home.  Thankfully, Strike avoids the cloyingly sweet "liquid brownie" direction too many brewers take with Imperial Stouts.   Strike's version is very rich, very dry, with plenty of depth, lots of coffee flavors, with a very sturdy malt base.  It's very smooth with no noticeable alcohol present despite checking in at 9% abv.  Given that Strike's usually goes for sessionable, drinkable direction in their beers, it says a lot about Strike that when they go for it in an Imperial Stout, they brew one of the best ones out there.   

Big Wall Imperial Stout in the
Strike Brewing Taproom

More Scenes from the Strike Brewing Tap Room

Nothing earth shattering here.  It had just been too long since I've been at the Strike Brewing tap room.  So I stopped by last weekend and sampled a few of their beers including their excellent Imperial Stout.  Snapped a few pictures with my iPhone which I hope you'll enjoy here.

Strike Brewing Officially Opens its Tap Room

So Strike Brewing opens its tap last Saturday.  I was running a race the next day so went easy on the beer. Nice bumping into a couple friends of mine on the Wolfpack Running Club.  The tap room pours a few beers you can't get anywhere else like a robust Oktoberfest and a Porter, both of which I enjoyed.   A lot of people showed up which was encouraging.  Not a lot to say, just some good beers and good times to spend a couple afternoon hours.  I'll leave you with a few pictures.

Finally Making it the Strike Brewery and Tap Room

Chin Music is a tasty Pale Ale

It's been a busy summer for Strike Brewing.  They've completed their brewery and opened their tap room.  Well, the tap room is not quite open.   According to Strike's website,  it's "openish", from Wednesday-Friday from 3 pm - 7 pm.  That's good enough for most people.

It's taken a while to get there, but I finally got a chance to check the place out.  The old cavernous warehouse room I remember back last winter now houses gleaming brewing equipment, a large refrigeration room, and a few picnic tables complete with the Strike logo on them to create a tap room.  I got a chance to try a couple pints of Chin Music, a tasty Pale Ale only available in the tap room as well as few select locations on draft.  I'm sure we'll be seeing some more of Brewmaster Drew Erhlich's creations at Strike's tap room soon enough.

There was a little placard on the bar announcing a Grand Opening of the tap room October 4th.  I don't know about you, but I'll keeping that day open.  I'll leave you with a few pictures of the place to put this all into perspective.

Last winter, Strike Brewing was just a big empty room

Brand spanking new brewing equipment at Strike

You can have a beer at the tap room only a few feet from where it was brewed!

The Strike Brewing Tap Room, where you can talk with Brewmaster Drew Ehrlich about what you're drinking

The Session #87 : Modern History in the Making at Silicon Valley's Hermitage Brewing

I'm going to start with an editorial comment for this month's Session, which comes across as a home work assignment from Rueben Gray, who asks us to write about local brewing history, where any brewery within an eight hour drive home is fair game.  What bothers me is his other stipulation:

"The only thing I ask is that the brewery existed for at least 20 years so don't pick the local craft brewery that opened two or three years ago. This will exclude most small craft breweries but not all. The reason? There's not much history in a brewery that has only existed for a few years."

I appreciate our host's desire to exclude breweries that, in his opinion, have little established history as well as what seems to be good intentions to nudge us out of our comfort zones. Generally, I would not consider a 2-3 year brewery "historic" either but don't agree with the arbitrary time cut-off.  Would anyone seriously suggest the September 11th Terrorist Attacks, the "Arab Spring", or the emergence of the Internet as global communication medium are not events worthy for a discussion of world history simply because they occurred less than twenty years ago?

I'll point out that here in Northern California, this twenty year cut-off means breweries clearly influential to the history and trajectory of craft beer both in Northern California, as well as the rest of the United States like Bear Republic, Russian River Brewing, and 21st Amendment are effectively deemed "not historical enough" and excluded from the discussion.  In addition, Stone Brewing and Dogfish Head, both integral to craft brewing's short history are also excluded, as they were founded in 1996 and 1995, respectively   In their place are plenty of brewpubs and regional breweries that have made fine beer and done enough things right to hang around for 20 years.   But with all due respect, many of these brewery's histories are rather ordinary, and no more remarkable than the story of some hot shot homebrewer deciding to turn pro and starting a brewery within the last couple years.  Age does not necessarily correlate to historical relevance.

Some of the equipment inside San Jose's Hermitage Brewing

I'm a firm believer about going into the distant past to understand the present and future, but also believe more is learned from the extraordinary rather than ordinary. What makes brewing's present so unique and exciting in beer's 6,000 year history is the beverage continues to redefine itself. Arguably beer is being transformed more than in any time during its history, bringing fascinating economic forces into play, as small breweries challenge larger, more established breweries, which are using economies of scale to consolidate  remain profitable.

So I've figured work-around for this month's Session. I'm going to talk about San Jose's Hermitage Brewing, founded in 2009, which was established by Tied House Brewing.   Tied House was one of the earliest breweries in the Bay Area, founded in 1988 by Lou Jemison and Ron Manabe in Mountain View, CA.  For years, they brewed a number of fine beers and opened up a second location about 20 miles east in downtown San Jose, CA.  Unfortunately, the last United State recession hit the San Jose location hard and it closed down in May 2009.

Another view inside Hermitage

That's when the fun at Hermitage began.  Tied House moved the brewing equipment from their failed San Jose location into a dusty, gritty industrial park south of downtown San Jose and established Hermitage Brewing.  Hermitage brews beer for Tied House brewpub as well as their own line of beers for packaged retail sale.    In one of their early experiments, Hermitage brewed a single hop IPA using Columbus hops.  It didn't sell very well.  Then they tried an IPA using just Amarillo hops.  Again, it sold poorly.  Undaunted, Hermitage tried again with an IPA brewed with nothing but Citra hops.   The third time proved to be a charm as it became a big hit and Citra Hop IPA is now a fixture in Hermitage's year 'round line-up.

Many breweries brew a single hop IPA.  Due to their success with Citra Hop IPA, Hermitage is perhaps the only brewery to a have a regular series of single hop IPA releases.  It's an innovative series where hops typically used for bittering, such as Magnum are brewed into an IPA.  Or sometimes, Hermitage uses a hop grown at only a couple farms in the entire world, like El Dorado.  Despite sounding like an ongoing experiment only a home brewing geek could love, their single hop IPA series has become a popular line of beers for Hermitage.  

But it's not their fine beers which makes Hermitage notable.  It's Hermitage's thriving contract brewing business.  Only about 15% of Hermitage's capacity is devoted to their own beers.   It sells as much as the remaining capacity it can to several small, newly formed breweries that cannot afford the substantial capital investments to bring their beers to fruition.  I count at least nine Northern California breweries that quietly call Hermitage their home.  Most of these breweries are not known to the general drinking public, and these breweries often claim a Bay Area locality other than San Jose.  I don't want to betray any confidences by naming them all here, but I'd like to briefly mention two.

The first is San Francisco's Almanac Beer, founded only three years ago by Jesse Friedman and Damian Fagen.  Almanac Brewing sells their beer is rustic looking bottles touting a "Farm to Bottle" ethic.   Almanac highlights so many heirloom organic ingredients and slow barrel aging, you'd think their beers were brewed in some barn in Sonoma County.  I find it rather ironic that most of their beer is instead brewed in an urban industrial park.  Since there's always a big stack of boxes of Almanac Beer sitting around the Hermitage tap room for everyone to see, I have to think this is no longer a big secret.

Then there's Strike Brewing, which has brewed their beer at Hermitage for all 2 1/2 years of their existence. That's about to change as Strike is about to open their own brewery, about a half mile away from Hermitage's Brewery.  With Hermitage's tap room and Strike's soon to be completed tap room within a ten minute walk, it's enough to speculate as to whether San Jose, long considered a barren wasteland in the San Francisco Bay Area brewing scene, could possibly transform into a beer destination. 

With so many brewers coming and going at Hermitage, it's become a brewing incubator for small, up and coming Bay Area breweries.  It's not uncommon to find brewers from supposed "rival" companies chatting away over a pint, bouncing off ideas and sharing experiences within the chummy brewing fraternity.  It's not unlike the Silicon Valley start-up community, where smart young entrepreneurs swap ideas and established CEO's somehow find the time to mentor them.   

What's happening at Hermitage reflects the culture of Silicon Valley that's created long time tech business stalwarts Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, and Intel, as well as a few other companies formed in the last twenty years you may have heard about, like Google, eBay, and Facebook.  That's why Hermitage is making Silicon Valley brewing history. 

Most of the beer aging in these barrels belongs to a
brewery other than Hermitage

"Strike Brewery Pitches Local Beer in San Jose" in Edible Silicon Valley

Strike CEO Jenny Lewis and Brewmaster Drew Ehrlich in an empty
corner that not too long from now will be their brewery

As the local Silicon Valley foodie culture sits up and takes notice of the small yet thriving craft beer scene in the South Bay, hopefully I've given them a little push with an article I wrote for Edible Silicon Valley on Strike Brewing's pending brewery opening.  The full version is in the print version as well as a digital version on the Edible Silicon Valley website, and a abbreviated can be found here.

Psst...There's a Beer Run This Sunday with the SF Hash House Harriers and Strike Brewing

Espirit Park will be gound zero for the SF Hash Hash Harrier's
Beer Run this Sunday

There's going to be doing a Beer Week run on Sunday the 9^th at 1pm.  It will be led by the SF Hash Harriers at Esprit Park in San Francisco.    You can find more details on the SF Hash House Harriers page here.  There will be Strike Beer which is reason enough to go, even for those who don't run at all. 

Unfortunately, yours truly will be sitting in an airport at that time to get on a plane bound for Salt Lake, UT, where things like Beer Runs and Hashing are not all that common.   

For all those taking part, run strong and drink well!

Strike CEO Jenny Lewis and Brewmaster Drew Ehrlich Talk About Their New Brewery

Drew Ehrlich and Jenny Lewis at a recent beer festival

It's been a busy year for the South Bay's Strike Brewing.   In addition to the busy day to day operations of growing their two year old business, they won gold at the U.S. Open Beer Championships with their Imperial Red and expanded their distribution into Southern California.  On the personal side, CEO Jenny Lewis had a baby and Brewmaster Drew Ehrlich got married.  And now just this past week, they've announced the opening of their own brewery in the first quarter of 2014. 

Over the past two years, Strike has been contract brewing at the Hermitage Brewing facility just south of downtown San Jose.  Strike has now leased approximately 5800 square feet at 2099 South 10th St., San Jose, where they will begin building their brewery located barely a 10 minute walk from the Hermitage facility. 

I caught up with Jenny and Drew last Friday as they emerged from a brewery planning meeting.   They took a few minutes out of their busy time to talk about the new brewery in the works.

Q: What was the process like?

Jenny: It was very long and we had to be very patient.  It had always been our goal to move into a brewery when we started and we’ve been looking at buildings for two years.

Q: What was the biggest hurdle?

Jenny:  Capital has always been the biggest hurdle and that’s true for most businesses.  Of course, we also needed to find a building with the right utilities and layout where we could build the brewery.

Q: What made the deal happen?

Jenny:  We found the building a long time ago.  What made it happen now was a combination of raising money from a group of angel investors and an SBA loan.  A big part of my role since we launched in December 2011 has been raising our Series A round.

Q: What will you be able to do with your own brewery you couldn’t do as a contract brewer?

Jenny:  This will really help us control our brewing schedule and manage our own inventory in ways we couldn’t before.  Hermitage has been a great launching point, but contract brewing put us under certain constraints.  Drew’s always wanted to brew more interesting beers which he can now do at our new brewery.

Drew: There are a lot of beers I’ve wanted to make, like sour beers and barrel-aging some of the current beers in our line-up.  I’ve wanted to try some lagers and Jenny’s been bugging me to do a fruit beer.

Q: With Hermitage’s Brewery only a short walk away, do you think the South San Jose industrial park you’re locating in can become a beer destination?

Drew:   We certainly hope so. One of the impetuses for creating Strike is that we didn’t see the San Jose area as a great destination for beer lovers, such as San Francisco, Portland or San Diego.    We thought we could help fill an unmet demand here.

Jenny: We wanted to be near the sporting arenas in the area, like the San Jose Giants Stadium, Sharks Ice, the Fairgrounds and (San Jose State’s) Spartan stadium where there are a lot of potential partnership opportunities.
 

Q: Any developments you can share when the brewery opens?  When will the tap room open?

Jenny:  We don’t want to put exact dates on things based on the uncertainty of the permit and build out process.  We hope to be brewing by the beginning of next year and open the tap room as soon as possible after that.  Being up and running by SF Beer Week is our goal.

Q: What sort of risk are you taking on by this move?

 Drew:  Luckily we’ve gotten our beer out there and won some awards, so there is not as much of a risk as when we first entered the market.  It gives us the opportunity to maintain our flavor profile, and brew really consistent high quality beers.  Right now, Lagunitas is building a new brewery in the Chicago area and they’re going to have to make sure the beer coming out of that brewery tastes the same as before.  We’ll be going through that same process and we have to do it quickly.

Jenny:  There’s always a financial risk in business and it can come from anywhere.  It is scary going out on our own and starting something from scratch, trying to pay salaries to support families and grow a business.  But it's also rewarding seeing this goal finally realized after five years of planning.  I’m excited to see what the next few years bring.
 

Q: Over those last five years, there have been a lot of new breweries.  I can go to my local Safeway or Costco and now find bottles of Strike, but I can also find bottles of other beers from breweries I never used to see there.  Do you have any concerns about the increasingly crowded craft beer marketplace moving forward?

Drew:  Not really.  There was a study done by the Brewer’s Association and they concluded the market was not yet saturated.  It also compared the beer market in the US to other the beer markets in other countries which indicated there’s room for more breweries here.

Jenny:  There are a lot of breweries coming online, including nano breweries, contract brewers and brewpubs.   Hopefully we’ve done a good job differentiating our niche so far, and I think moving into our own space will only help that.

Drew:  Plus we don’t mind other breweries in the area.  The nature of the craft beer enthusiast is to try a lot of things.  So even if they drink something from another brewery around here, they’ll get drawn into trying something else and eventually they’ll try something from Strike.  There’s a sort of symbiotic relationship between breweries in the same geographical area, to a point.



I found talking with to Jenny and Drew during the interview was like talking with a couple kids who couldn't wait to move out of their parents house.  It's just beer, but moments like this remind us lots of hopes and dreams revolve around it.  The South Bay brewing scene just got a lot more interesting.

Beer of the Month: Strike Brewing Blonde

There are some breweries that need no introduction.  The South Bay's Strike Brewing isn't one of those breweries, but they need a lot less of an introduction than they did less than two years ago when they first started out.  I used to hunt down Strike in better bottle shops or high end boutique grocery stores.  Now, I can walk a block to my neighborhood Safeway in Campbell and pick up their beer.  And they've emerged from the Bay Area to start distribution in Southern California.  For those wanting the details on this brewery formed by three collegiate athletes, check out this interview back when they were first starting out.

With all the summer heat, my desire for massively hopped IPA's or heavy imperial stouts has plummeted.   I've been drinking more of the lighter beers of summer and recently rediscovered Strike Blonde, one I've enjoyed for what seems like a very long time.   The beer has a crisp malt with this great grassy, slightly earthy vibe.  That's it.  It's simplicity works to it's advantage.  Simple yet flavorful beers are underrated, and harder to brew than the big stouts or IPA's that get all the beer geek buzz, since the brewing flaws have nowhere to hide.

There's a reason it's easier to find Strike these days.

Is the South Bay Beer Scene Shedding its Inferiority Complex?

Maybe the South Bay is no longer the beer desert it once was

One event I made sure to attend during SF Beer Week was the Hermitage Brewing Beer Dinner at Scott's Seafood in Mountain View. When I finished the dinner, pushing aside my dessert plate I sat there struggling to figure out just what I should write about it.  Writing about beer dinners seems like an almost pointless task to me.  I just sort of wing it when it comes to food criticism and since few, if any of my readers attended, and the dinner was over, never to be repeated.  The food was good, the Hermitage Beer was definitely good, and my wife and I enjoyed it.  What more is there to say?



Hermitage's Ale of the 2 Tun Imperial Stout and
Scott's Seafood's Molten Lava Cake 

That didn't stop me from thinking.  Clearly San Jose's Hermitage Brewing, the featured brewery of the night is putting out plenty of strong beers on the strong side of the ale spectrum after only three years in existence.  The smooth, malty complexity of their Maltopia, the bright tropical flavors of their single hop  Galaxy IPA, and their dry, bitter chocolate bomb of 2 Tun Imperial Stout are as good as any beers you'll find from the Bay Area.

And Hermitage isn't the only notable brewery to emerge from the South Bay recently.  While Hermitage strives to make the big beers, Strike Brewing, barely over a year old has gone in the opposite direction with their excellent Session Series.   And of course, in recent years, Steve Donohue won no less than four GABF medals at Sunnyvale's Firehouse Brewing before leaving late last year to start his own brewery, Santa Clara Valley Brewing which hopefully will come on line before the end of the year. 

With these South Bay breweries come a number of great new venues to enjoy craft beer.  There are gastropubs Liquid Bread in Campbell and Original Gravity in Downtown San Jose, both less than a year old.  In the last three years, California Cafe at both its Palo Alto and Los Gatos locations has established their brewmaster's dinner series, featuring inspired pairings of food with beer from some of of the finest breweries in California.  Harry's Hofbrau in San Jose, an old school German buffet restaurant is an unlikely place to find a great tap selection and it has been hosting a number special events devoted to craft breweries, a development that's started there about a year ago.  The Yardhouse the opened a couple years ago in San Jose's swanky Santana Row Mall, and yes, it's slick and corporate, but you can get some mighty fine beer there.  And we even have an honest to goodness independent bottle shop now with Jane's Beer Store in Downtown Mountain that opened last summer.  There's probably some new place I'm forgetting.

The South Bay has long been consider a weak sister to the nearby craft brewing epicenters of San Francisco, Santa Rosa, and the East Bay, but has anyone noticed this recent acceleration of craft beer culture in the South Bay? 

Well maybe. Five years ago, the  general buzz amidst beer geekdom was "The South Bay Beer Scene sucks".  None other than the late Bay Area beer writer Bill Brand regretfully declared the South Bay "a beer desert" shortly before he passed away.    Then a couple years ago, you could find grudging admissions that a couple of good beers could be found down here. 

And today?  Maybe it's just me but you hardly hear anyone complaining about the beer scene in the South Bay anymore. Instead, people are just enjoying it.  Isn't that the way it should be?

The 4th Annual SF Beer Week Beer Run is in the Books! Thanks to all!

Beer Runners taking a short rest and milling
around the turn-around point at Vasona Dam. 
(Photo by Bryan Kolesare of brewlounge.com)

The 4th Annual SF Beer Week Beer Run is in the books!  After three years in San Francisco, the run headed to the South Bay in Los Gatos, and we were fortunate to enjoy some awesome running weather as we ran along the Vasona Creek Trail.  It was also great to see Beer Run Co-founder Bryan Kolesar make it for the run,  all the way from Philadelphia as he was in town for many of the SF Beer Week Festivities.  Many thanks to Strike Brewing and C.B. Hannegan's for their great help and support.  And I'm especially thankful for all the participants, who created a spirit of friendship and generosity that always seems to coalesce whenever runners get together.  We raised over $100 for Autism Speaks and 2nd Harvest Food Bank and proved beer running is alive and well in the South Bay!  Can't wait until next year!

Update:  Bryan Kolesar has posted a number of Beer Run pictures online (as well as others from his travels that day) you can find here.  You just might find a picture of yourself.



Yours truly giving final run instructions before we all hit the course.
(Photo by Bryan Kolesar of brewlounge.com)

Prizes Await at the 4th Annual SF Beer Week Beer Run

Good news!  I'm proud to announce for the upcoming 4th Annual SF Beer Week Beer Run being held this February 10th as part of SF Beer Week,  both Runner's Factory of Los Gatos and Running Revolution of Campbell have provided a $25 gift certificate for the post-run raffle. In addition, the Runner's Factory will give all runners who mention the beer run a 20% discount on any purchases. In addition, both Strike Brewing and Adventure Sports Journal are providing T-shirts.  Many thanks to our raffle sponsors!

Raffle tickets are a dollar each, six for $5, and proceeds from the raffle benefit Autism Speaks and 2nd Harvest Food Bank. 

The run begins 11am at C.B. Hannegan's located on 208 Bachman Ave in downtown Los Gatos.  More details on the Beer Run will be found at the event website here or just check out the event flyer below.

See you there!