Category: California

So we returned to the City for the second straight weekend, this time for a 21st Amendment beer dinner put on by our friend Bruce Paton (the Beer Chef).

It actually was a very busy beer weekend in the Bay Area with the IPA Festival going on at the Bistro over in Hayward, Bruce’s dinner and 20th anniversary happenings going on over at Toronado. I commend the people who made it to all three (Jay!) and will say that we did make it over to Toronado after the dinner.

We started our day in San Francisco by returning to City Beer. When we find something we like, we will return again and again.  And we like City Beer. We had another great afternoon enjoying good beer and we met some very nice people.  I also had my first Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale which was very good but it didn’t change my life like I thought it would. We filmed a short interview with Craig and I hope to have that up in the next few days. 

It was Bruce’s 57th beer dinner and I am sad to say that it was only the first one we have been to.  

You can’t get much better beer than 21st Amendment and Bruce’s menu was equal to the task. I especially enjoyed the IPA with the lamb appetizer and the porter with the chocolate desserts. I’ll pass on trying the Funk again.

It was nice seeing our Barclay’s friend Harry plus the young lady who sat next to us was Carmel Valley born and raised. Small world.

After the dinner, we walked over to Toronado but didn’t stay long because it was a mob scene. We did see some friends there too …

So, the two lessons from these ramblings are… go to City Beer. We can’t emphasize this enough. And try one of Bruce’s beer dinners. They are a lot of fun.

So I went on a quick trip down to the San Diego area yesterday and managed to get in a couple of beer adventures. First, I went to San Marcos Brewing in, what else, San Marcos. Had a taster set, which included an ESB and oatmeal stout on cask and chose the pale ale as my drink. I met our friend Pete from amateurgolf.com and his 6 year old son Lawson there for dinner. A lively time was had by all, especially Pete, who took a big sip of his ESB with an unhealthy dose of sugar supplied by Lawson. The waitress was kind enough to get Pete a new beer at no charge. The food was good, too, which made the whole experience fulfilling. Oh, and did I mention that my San Marcos Brewing visit helps me get ever closer to catching up with Chris on “the list”?

My next adventure with Pete, sans Lawson, was to Hensley’s in Carlsbad. Hensley’s is owned by Matt Hensley, former Flogging Molly accordion player. Matt was there and I was able to use my schtick of “I’m a friend of Ute and Wolfgang” as my opening line. He was very friendly and seemed to appreciate our business. From what he said, Matt is working really hard to get the place fixed up the way he wants. Cool memorabilia from bands like the Pogues and Madness adorn the walls and the crowd was very hip. Kinda felt like being at a Flogging Molly show. There is a music stage and Matt is fixing up a room that had darts. The beer selection looked good, including Irish standards of Guinness, Smithwick’s and Harp. We didn’t try the food since we just ate at San Marcos Brewing, but it looked good on other people’s tables. I encourage you to help Matt out and go to Hensley’s. It’s right off of I-5 in Carlsbad. If you see Matt, tell him “I’m a friend of Merideth’s, who is a friend of Ute and Wolfgang”. I’m sure that will guarantee you VIP treatment!

Last night we went to a punk show in the City. But, first, we stopped for dinner at Walzwerk, an East German restaurant on South Van Ness. The food was great and they had several German beers on tap, plus several more in bottles. What was nice was that the beer selection went beyond the usual Franziskaner and Spaten experienced at most other German restaurants here in the U.S. The place was small, so we made sure to get there early and we didn’t have to wait. It felt like we were in the dining room of a friend’s house, complete with a mish-mash of dinner plates and a small child toodling around (which usually bugs us, but not last night).

After dinner, we made our way to City Beer, which is the coolest place ever! Again, we felt like we were in someone’s house, this time the kitchen. They have an amazing selection of bottled beer, plus several beers on tap. Behind the bar, which was kind of like a kegerator x4, was a set of cabinets that truly looked like it could be in your kitchen (complete with a microwave, sink, and dishwasher). Craig and his wife Beth were really nice people and they reminded me a lot of what Chris and I do for our beer tastings at home, except they were getting paid and presumably making money doing it. We were all just hanging out, with Craig and Beth behind the bar serving us up. Actually, it totally could have been Chris and I back there! They even had beers from obscure places that we have visited. I thought it was really cool to see beer from Birra Baladin (Piozzo, Italy, in the heart of wine country) and Schlenkerla (Bamberg, Germany) on the shelves. I felt like a real beer traveler (I’m trying to work on my self-esteem around the fact that I really am a beer traveler) looking at the shelves and thinking “Oh, I’ve been there. Oh, and there. And there, too!) Craig and Beth also seemed to think that it was cool that we had been to some of the places. I would have liked to talk with them more since I have a feeling that we have very similar philosophies on beer drinking. However, there were quite a few people in the small place (the perfect size) and we later learned that it was a busy night for them.

The other neat thing was that we bought an Ayinger Celebrator glass at City Beer. For those of you who don’t know, the little plastic goat that comes on the bottles is our Scrabble mascot. We got our goat from the brewery itself, but we never picked up a glass. I highly encourage anyone and everyone to check out City Beer. It’s a unique concept that is a lot of fun!

Overall, the night was a great time! We were able to experience beer at it’s best. . . in a casual way. A person does not have to get all technical with their beer tasting. In the end, all a person needs is a good variety selected (or brewed) by a well informed person and a fun environment. Environment can make a good beer experience, an excellent one. And for us, casual is best!

I think Merideth and I are pretty good at spotting good beer ideas and City Beer is one of those ideas. I remember reading about it when it first opened and thought we should check it out. Rarely being in the City (the “City” being San Francisco) and even rarer being in that part of the city, I promptly forgot about it. Then at the Oregon Brewers Festival last week, I heard City Beer mentioned a number of times, so we decided to check it out and a show a Slim’s down the street was a perfect opportunity.

City Beer is a relaxing beer bar where you can buy to sample (and then buy to take home) an extraordinary range of bottled beers. A good draft selection rounds out the experience. It was quite crowded when we were there… a chatty Friday evening crowd; some at tables, others wandering around scanning the shelves for a beer to try.

We are pretty proud of the somewhat obscure breweries we have visited (Le Baladin in Italy, Traquair in Scotland, Chouffe in Belgium) and it was somewhat deflating seeing these beers on the City Beer shelves. I need to start looking for even more obscure breweries to visit. Craig deserves all the credit for having an amazing selection of beers from throughout the world.

As Craig himself said to us… every city should have a place like City beer… So, next time you are in the City, check out City Beer. It is at 1168 Folsom.

This is not about beer but I would like to take this opportunity to mark the passing of Tommy Makem who died of lung cancer the other day. In the 1960s, Tommy teamed up with the Clancy Brothers and their collaboration is one of the reasons that Irish music enjoys the success that it does today. We had the opportunity to see Tommy perform at the Dublin (OH) Irish Festival several years ago and the only word I think I can use to describe him is ‘entertainer’. What a joy to watch him perform, so much so we watched him on several occasions. He will be greatly missed…