Just a little editorial note: while Merideth works on our Year
in Beer book, I will be doing most, if not all, of the blogging.
We returned home Saturday a little weary from opening night of SF Beer Week. But there was no rest for the weary as we had to get home for our own SF Beer Week event, a German beer tasting at Rosie’s Cracker Barrel in Carmel Valley.
Our event was one of six Beer Week events on the Monterey Bay opening weekend. I’ll admit I was a bit worried because this was our first event at Rosie’s and it was their first ever beer event. I was unsure of the turnout and the overall success of the event.
The five beers we chose were a representation of the beer styles we enjoy from our favorite place to beer travel, Bavaria. Starting with a Helles, we moved down the Bavarian beer landscape to Hefeweizen, Oktoberfest, Dunkel, and finishing up with the amazing Aventinus.
In the end, I really had nothing to worry about as the crowd was early in arriving and enthusiastic in attitude. Ranging from beer novices to our regular beer geek crowd, we packed 50 people into tiny Rosie’s to sample Bavarian brew.
In the craziness, we forgot about the news crew who were there to do a news piece on us and SF Beer Week. It was arranged in the car while driving home from San Francisco that morning. With all the activity of the tasting, it completely slipped our minds until someone said, “Oh, a news truck just arrived.” The camera guy squeezed in and Merideth acted as spokesperson for the event. She offered some quotable statements and pulled off a very good interview.
Thanks to all those who showed up on Saturday and made our event a great success!
Sunday, we were beering it up again with an “Around the World in 8 Beers” dinner at Ol’ Factory Cafe. The dinner was six beer-paired courses. Two other beers used in preparing some of the fantastic delectibles rounded out the eight. Kudos to Kevin Fisher for creating such an outstanding and enjoyable menu. You know it’s going to be a good meal when it starts off with deep fried cheese curds and pork scratchings.
The stand out pairing for me was the second course, Winter Greens with Cranberries, Pecans, Goat Cheese, Red Onions and Duvel Vinaigrette paired with Cantillon Kriek. As for Merideth, she went with the dessert course, Russian Imperial Stout Swirled Cheesecake with Chocolate Pretzel Crust paired with North Coast Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout.
A great evening of food, beer, friends and conversation. We can’t wait for their next beer dinner.
First stop was City Beer for the tapping of some new beers. We were joined by our good friend Renee and her friend Michelle for the special occasion.
The second beer debuting was a recreation of craft beer history, New Albion Ale, the official beer of SF Beer Week. The short story is Don Barkely, brewery cat at New Albion, later the founder of Mendocino Brewing and currently the master brewer at Napa Smith, had the original recipe for the beer and was asked to recreate the beer for Beer Week. (For the longer version, check out 
Then it was off to Anchor the official kickoff of SF Beer Week. If you have never done the Anchor tour, I would highly recommend it. The brewery is just plain beautiful and an apropos setting to kick off the celebration of “America’s Original Craft Beer-Drinking City”.
On more than one occasion, the word “beer celebrity” was used to describe us. While we don’t think of ourselves that way, it was nice that people were interested in talking to us about the Year in Beer and our future travel plans.
To finish off our first day of SF Beer Week, we went to 21st Amendment with some friends we met up with at Anchor. It’s Strong Beer Month at 21A (and Magnolia) so, as they say, when in Rome. We tried four of the six strong beers available, Monk’s Blood, Imperial Chocolate Porter, Double Tripel and Hop Crisis. Being the hop head I am, the latter two beers were the ones that stood out for me. Though, if I had a bowl of ice cream, the Imperial Chocolate Porter would have been the star of the evening.
The Big Sur coast is the crown jewel of Monterey County. This rugged stretch of coastline south of Carmel is home to some of the most beautiful scenery in all of California. In past years, we would make the drive down the coast probably once a month to hike at Andrew Molera State Park and then enjoy an afternoon of beer. But a few years ago, Andrew Molera stopped allowing dogs off the leash so we stopped going down the coast.
The Maiden had a nice selection of beer. Five taps were complimented by a unknown number of bottle selections. I say unknown because I don’t think they really had an updated beer list and our friends kept coming out with beers I didn’t know they had. Drakes IPA, all manner of Speakeasy beers, Mad River, Flying Dog, North Coast to name a few.
The first highlight of the trip was Merideth getting her 450th brewery, Placerville Brewery in Sierra foothill town of Placerville.
There are two brewpubs in the Sacramento area that I want to highlight in this post.
We were lucky enough to be joined by some Sacramento area friends for the occasion. While waiting for them, we settled ourselves in the bar area and ordered the requisite taster set. All the beers were wonderful with the Batch 100 Old Town Brown, Gold Digger IPA, PU 240 Double IPA and Shanghai Stout being standouts.
