DRAFT Magazine

By Noah Davis

SF Beer Week kicks off its second annual festival on February 5th. In preparation for the glorious 10-day experience, we caught up with beer writer Jay Brooks who helped found the event last year. He talks to us about his favorite events, using social media to recruit the masses, and why too much choices is a good thing indeed.

What’s your role in SF Beer Week?

I’m one of the founders. It stemmed out of two different ideas. I used to be the GM of the Celebrator beer magazine and we had an event that we ran for six or seven years called Beerapalooza. We had a few events that took place over the same week. Then, some of the folks in San Francisco — most notably Shaun O’Sullivan and Dave McLean — who have strong beer months during the month of February had also looked at events like Philly Beer Week and thought that the format might work well in San Francisco. There were six of us initially last year and reconfigured Beerapalooza as SF Beer Week and made it a new event and made it what it is now.

How much work is it? Is it ever overwhelming?

It’s pretty overwhelming. [Laughs] I think last year, it succeed in spite of ourselves. We paid for all of it ourselves, each of the people who founded it. We didn’t have sponsors the way we do this year. It was hard work.

This year, there are a lot of people working hard still, but because we’ve had some sponsorship money, we’ve been able to develop the Web site in a better way, more streamlined. We were able to have a small paid staff that was responsible for taking care of those things and not just have people try to fit it in wherever they could around their other job. That’s made a big difference I think we’re a little more prepared this year than we were last year.

What’s different this year?

The biggest one is probably that last year, there were a lot of people and breweries who didn’t quite get what we were trying to do ahead of time at least. Now that they saw how successful the first SF Beer Week was, we have a lot more people coming to us and saying, “Hey, I want to be a part of this.” They saw how it went, that it did bring people into the city, and that everyone who put on events had good attendance. Everything worked out kind of the way we expected, which was that you throw a lot of great events and people are helpless not to come.

You have a pretty comprehensive Web presence with a Twitter feed, an iPhone app, and a fun Web site. Can you talk a little bit about the social media aspects of planning Beer Week?

That’s a product of really looking at the importance of social media to events and really bringing in people who are really good at it. Gannett SF is the company we turned to. That’s something we couldn’t afford last year, but this year we could and it was important to have that eye-catching site. I mean hell, we’re in Silicon Valley. If our Web site didn’t look good, we’re doing something wrong.

Are you noticing the social media efforts helping to reach new people?

It’s hard to tell. There certainly are new venues and people who are putting on events that are different from last year. We’re certainly seeing involvement from groups who weren’t involved last year, who took more of a wait and see approach. So yeah, but it’s hard to tell who’s going to attend and whether that’s going to change and grow. We certainly hope so. We’ll see.

You have roughly 20 events per day. How do you suggest people choose what to attend?

I think there are two ways that people can look at that. One is what’s close to them. For people who are in the South Bay, maybe it makes sense to look at what’s there. The second way is what’s most exciting to you. It’s hard to choose. That’s our No. 1 complaint, and that’s a complaint we like to hear: “There’s too much. I can’t decide!” I think that’s great.

The fact that there are overlapping events that lots and lots of people would want to go to speaks well of what we’ve tried to do with our beer week. This is certainly not to pour alcohol on other beer weeks, but something we set out to do was to not have the “Pint Night” sort of events. We didn’t want to have happy hour type of events, but to have all the events that are going on showcase beer in a really good light. There has to be something to it. We have less events than some of the other beer weeks but we think that the quality of all the events really is our goal, and for that I think we are succeeding.

Any events you’re specifically looking forward to?

Lots of things. One of the most fun events I went to last year was a cheese and beer event at the Bistro in Hayward. The cheese event was very different from any one that I’ve ever been to. What they did was they got five different cheeses and five different breweries, and they asked brewery to pick one of their beers to pair with each of the cheeses. Everybody got a lump of cheese and then five small pourings of a beer from each brewery. Basically, you sat down with one cheese and five beers and tried that cheese with each of the five beers trying to decide which one paired best. They tallied that up and at the end — I don’t think there were any losers, but they said which one most people seemed to think worked best with the cheese.

Usually when you do a cheese and beer pairing, it’s one cheese and one beer. This was a way to make it much more fun and educational in so far as you tried a range of beers with the same cheese and you saw what worked and what didn’t work in a much more real-time sort of way that I hadn’t seen before. I’m looking forward to that again.

When you wake up on the morning or the afternoon of February 15th, how will you know SF Beer Week has been a success?

I think it’s the passion of all the people in the Bay Area. Every community has it’s own vibe for its beer scene, and ours is one of people who are really passionate about what they are doing. You see the same people event after event, and we’re all here for the same reasons: It’s fun, it’s enjoyable, it enriches our lives.

– Noah Davis is editor of DRAFTMag.com.

By Jay Brooks

In its heyday, Burton-on-Trent, in England’s Midlands, was a 50,000 person-town that boasted 1,100 pubs — one for every 45 people. It was also once home to more than 30 breweries, including some of history’s biggest; Allsopp, Bass, Boddington, Marston, and Worthington made big names in this tiny town. But, economic decline wiped out some giants, and today, if you couldn’t identify brewing equipment, you’d be tempted to believe Burton resembles any former industrial town down on its luck. To the beer savvy, there are signs everywhere that beer is what fueled this place; discarded copper kettles, tall, stainless fermenters and other brewing equipment litter the town. Down every meandering street is yet another grand old shuttered brick building for lease, many over 100 years old. Though it may no longer be fair to consider Burton-on-Trent the Capital of British Brewing, it will always remain its soul.

But before the rise and fall of beer, there was the water. Pure water was locked in sandstone aquifers deep in the earth, beneath the town, 10,000 years ago. The water proved miraculous for brewing, especially for the pale ales that were beginning to become popular in the late 18th century. When Bass opened in Burton in 1777, it was the beginning of the town’s glory days.

Back then, when the industrial revolution was just about to get churning, beer was dark and murky, with small particles floating in it. Few people used clear drinking glasses, so, fortunately, nobody much cared what their beer looked like. The dawn of pale ales, however, marked a change of heart; using new industrial sciences, it became possible to brew a beer that was clear and lighter in color. Like golden pilsners that were all the rage in central Europe, pale ales took the public by storm.

The water from Burton’s aquifers contains heavy concentrations of gypsum that lends calcium sulfate that gives beer a subtle sulfury note, like a lit match. This hint of sulfur became known as the “Burton snatch,” and proved to be incredibly desirable in pale ales and similarly hoppy beers, like India pale ales. (Nowadays, brewers can chemically manipulate their water’s pH, and add or subtract those signature characters. When modern brewers treat their water to make it similar to Burton’s water, they say it’s been “Burtonized.”) In those days, water composition was paramount, so breweries located themselves as close as possible to the best sources of water. By 1888, Burton was producing three million barrels of beer annually, 25 percent of all beer brewed in England. Recently, several more brewing upstarts have begun brewing in Burton, like a Phoenix from the ashes — in some cases literally, as some new beermakers adopt the discarded buildings of Burton’s once great breweries.

Burton Bridge Brewery
Founded in 1982, this oldest of the new breweries sits just a few yards from the Burton Bridge that spans the River Trent. It’s a brewery attached to a pub (similar to an American brewpub) and serves 14 year-round beers and another 10 seasonals, most of them award-winning, though the top choice is Bridge Bitter, the brewery’s original offering that continues to be its flagship. It’s deep amber with fruity hop aromas, some nuttiness, and a whiff of sulfur, followed by nice bitterness, fruity notes, some honeyed sweetness, and a very dry finish. The popularity of that beer and its others have allowed the brewery to expanded with five additional pubs that serve its beer, known as Tied Houses in the UK.

Marston’s
Oddly, since 2005, Bass has been brewed in Burton-on-Trent’s other remaining historic brewery. Marston’s continues to brew its flagship Marston’s Pedigree on a Burton Union System, the last Burton brewery to use this traditional method of brewing. It looks vastly different from any brewery you’ve ever visited. It requires giant rooms with rows of big wooden casks — four times the average size — all linked together with a long trough above them and two on each end. As it ferments, excess yeast is pushed out of the kegs through a swan-shaped metal pipe into the trough, which is then collected on the two ends only to flow back into the casks where it continues to ferment as the cycle repeats. Marston’s also brews, using more modern techniques, several other beers, such as Burton Bitter, Old Empire, Oyster Stout, and Ringwood Best Bitter, but the best illustration of the Burton Snatch is Pedigree. Reminiscent of a freshly lit match, the Snatch shows up in the nose along with fruity, toffee aromas; subtle fruity flavors, malt sweetness, and a pleasant touch of sour tartness create a very well-balanced brew. The only other Burton set is in California, where the Firestone Walker Brewery uses a similar system to brew traditional English pale ales. (Last year, Firestone Walker’s Matt Brynildson trekked to Marston’s, where he’d been invited to brew a pale ale using American hops for the JD Wetherspoon International Beer Festival.)

The Black Hole Brewery
Just a jaunt down the road from Marston’s (one of the few remaining giants), Black Hole occupies only a sliver of what was once the Ind Coope bottling plant, an early brewery that ceased operations in the 1990s. Started in January of 2007, Black Hole’s Red Dwarf bitter quickly became its flagship among seven regular offerings, available throughout the area on tap. The beer was named for a British Sci-Fi show of the same name, and is appropriately copper-red. The nose is mostly malty with hints of licorice and berries, while flavors are nutty, almost roasty, with a fruity berry character and a sweet, dry finish.

Tower Brewery
Its building was once the water tower for Walsitch Maltings, who supplied malt to the Tomas Salt Brewery, once the second largest brewery in town. Abandoned for a number of years, the tower’s broken window in the uppermost floor became a refuge for pigeons. Thus, owner John Mills’ first job was removing several feet of droppings by shoveling it into bags and lowering them down three stories by crane. Happily, the brewery is now pigeon-free, and only the aroma of beer fills the air. Mills brews five regular beers, four rotating seasonals and a number of one-off beers whenever the mood hits him. Try Tower Pale Ale, a golden amber with a small, tight white head. A fruity, tangy nose with baked bread notes introduces a swallow that’s initially malty but fruity, balanced by a citrusy hop character and a short, dry finish.

Old Cottage Beer Co.
The city’s smallest brewery sells its beers in a quaint corner pub near Burton’s town hall. You can always find three regular beers from the brewery, but look for the stout, which is particularly fine, or opt for Burton Old Cottage Oak Ale, a sweet brew with a hop bite and dry, bitter finish. Cottage also brews eight more traditional English ales.

Coors
No matter where you are in Burton, you’ll see bright red rectangles on smokestacks and tall buildings, reminders that Coors has owned the famous Bass brewery since 2002. The operations enormity is astounding: It’s not one single brewery, but a massive warren of structures that are seemingly everywhere. The operation is now used primarily to brew other beers under license, mostly lagers, along with several English brands. Coors still has one tiny brewery that makes Worthington’s White Shield, a historic bottle-conditioned English-style IPA. Brewer Steve Wellington was coaxed out of retirement several years ago to man the ancient brewing equipment and traditional methods to make it.

– Beer scribe Jay Brooks blogs regularly at brookstonbeerbulletin.com.