More than 100 San Francisco breweries and pubs are organizing SF Beer Week, Feb. 6-15 to celebrate the early roots of the modern Renaissance in artisan beers.
The 10-day celebration will showcase the Bay Area's brewing heritage with as many as 150 events. The week will be anchored by the Bistro Double IPA Festival, and the Toronado Barleywine Festival and will end with a new full-blown Bay Area Beer Festival. In between there will be beer dinners, cheese and beer pairing events, other gourmet food events savoring world-class cuisine, special releases, meet the brewer evenings, homebrewing demonstrations, music, films, and even a museum exhibition exploring the history of Bay Area brewing, from Monterey to Sacramento and beyond.
“We want the public to know that San Francisco is a hot spot for artisan and craft beers. It is an artisan environment,” said Dave McLean, owner and brewer of Magnolia Gastropub and Brewery, and the Alembic bar. “San Francisco has the top examples of artists – from cheese, to wine, to arts and culture – and beer is a part of that excellence.”
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Many local breweries and pubs will contribute to the event, including Magnolia, the 21st Amendment and Toronado. “Independent businesses celebrate a cause that is larger than themselves,” says McLean about the brewing community. “It’s always been that way – in the old days there were guilds. Beer promotes sharing of ideas. We freely share ingredients. It’s an amazing industry. There’s something about beer that brings people together.”
The Alembic will feature brewers who distill fine spirits and focus on beer cocktails. Gordon Biersch will host a Bavarian Beer Breakfast showcasing Hefeweizen – there will be four or five varieties, which is brewer John Tucci’s specialty. “It’s the most authentic style of German beer. It makes GB unique. A lot of craft beers are hoppy English styles. We are the opposite side of that perspective and I think that’s good,” says Tucci.
According to “Origin and History of Beer and Brewing: From Prehistoric Times to the Beginning of Brewing Science and Technology,” by John P. Arnold, beer is the oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic beverage in the world and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. In fact, the word beer comes from the Latin word bibere, to drink, and the root of the Spanish word cerveza originates from the Greek goddess of agriculture, Ceres.
Brewing in the United States peaked in the 1870s with 4,131 breweries throughout the nation. Until Prohibition, Bavaria, Germany, England and Belgium were at the forefront of beer brewing. Since the start of the craft beer movements in the 1960s, it’s America, and specifically California, that European brewers turn to for innovative brewing and quality.
America's craft beer movement began in the San Francisco Bay Area as far back as the 19th Century. San Francisco was the brewing center of the west with close to 50 breweries. With Anchor Brewing's rescue by Fritz Maytag in 1965 and the founding of New Albion Brewing in 1976, craft beer grew into the silver age of American brewing, with more than 1,400 small craft breweries today. Northern California alone has more breweries than most states and enjoys an unrivaled reputation for the quality and diversity of its craft beer.
Microbreweries represented a new strategy in the brewing industry: rather than competing on the basis of price or advertising, they attempted to compete on the basis of inherent product characteristics. They emphasized the freshness of locally produced beer; they experimented with much stronger malt and hop flavors; they tried new and long-discarded brewing recipes, often reintroducing styles that had been popular in America decades earlier. For example, Maytag used West Coast hops instead of English hops and West Coast IPA emerged. Now British and Belgian brewers now use West coast hops.
Events are listed on the SF Beer Week Web site at www.sfbeerweek.org. For visiting beer lovers interested in best-rate accommodations and other activities, visit the San Francisco Convention & Visitor Bureau’s Web site at www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com.
