I arrived about 20 minutes early to avoid the crowds that I experienced on the previous day and although many people eventually arrived it was not packed like sardines.

I started with 90 Minute IPA, a great double IPA. It has an extreme amount of malt, hops, and alcohol (9.0% abv).  It is pleasantly different from the west coast IPA’s in that the hop bouquet has less citrus and pine but a little more spice. It also has a great unique orange amber color.

Next, I tried Midas Touch, a beer that is based on ingredients from a 2700 year old Turkish fermented beverage found in the tomb of King Midas. It is sweet smelling and tasting but light bodied, which seems a bit paradoxical given that it contains 9% alcohol by volume. It is seems much lighter that a typical high gravity beer. It is unique and delicious.

Shortly after opening a bottle of Midas Touch, Sam Calagione arrived. Since I did not have my copy of Extreme Brewing, I picked up a copy of Brewing up a Business [Amazon] for him to sign. I had a few questions that I asked him such as how he decides what unique beers to brew and how to determine how much of a unique ingredient to use. He answer was simply that the influences were manifold but included culinary influences and knowing how much of an ingredient to use is based on experience. When I pressed him more on the ingredients he did divulge that sometimes they will soak the ingredient in hot water to make a tea out of it to see what it might be like.

After my breif interaction with Sam, I tried two more Dogfish Head beers. First I tried Chicory Stout, which is a dry stout that has an intense coffee flavor. This makes sense because the ingredients include: chicory, organic Mexican coffee, St. John’s Wort, and licorice root.

Finally, the last beer that I tried at this event was Palo Santo Marron. This is a brown ale with a huge 12% alcohol by volume but is so malty, nutty, and woody that it doesn’t seem like it. That is not to say that you don’t notice that it is a much stronger beer, it is just not in your face and does not detract from the experience. The uniqueness of this beer comes fromt he fact that it is brewed in a Palo Santo wood, a wood from Paraguay used in regional wine making.

According to these, and other brewers, beer from a can has advantages. First, the beer cans are lined so the beer never comes in contact with metal. Next, the beer is never exposed to the harmful effects of light. The beer can is supposedly a more airtight container preventing exposure to oxygen. Finally, the cans are lighter and you can take them where you cannot take bottles such as camping and golfing.

This event was a great opportunity to try canned beer from Oskar Blues from Colorado, 21st Amendment from San Francisco, and Uncommon Brewers from Santa Cruz. I tried a little bit of everything (except Dale’s and Brew Free or Die) and the beer was excellent. For all I knew, the beer could have been poured from a can or poured from draft. The following is a list of beer that was available in cans at this event:

• 21st Amendment
  • Watermelon Wheat
  • Brew Free or Die IPA
• Oskar Blues
  • Dale’s Pale Ale
  • Old Chub Scottish
  • Gordon Strong Ale
  • Ten Fidy Stout
• Uncommon Brewers
  • Siamese Twin

Siamese Twin is a wonderful Belgian-style double brewed with “exotic spices to enhance beer flavors,” which, according to the brewery, is a long tradition in Belgian brewing. A good example is Belgian witbier which includes coriander and orange peel. This beer, however, is brewed with Thai spices such as kaffir lime and lemongrass in addition to coriander. Being a double it had a high alcohol content by volume at 8.5%. I thought this beer was both interesting and delicious and lives up to the name “Uncommon.” Since I had some very hoppy and malty brews before this one, I had trouble finding the Thai spices but they are definitely there. I can’t wait to get some more cans so I can enjoy it with some home made Thai food and also write up a full review.

The Watermelon Wheat beer is interesting in that it smells a little bit like a vegetable but when you taste it the flavor is distinctly and deliciously watermelon. I always prefer to be able to taste the special ingredient than have it be so subtle you’re not sure it is there. This beer is made with 400 lbs. of watermelon per batch.

Old Chub, by Oskar Blues, is an acclaimed and award winning Scottish Ale having won a Gold Medal at the 2008 World Beer Championships. It is a deeply malty ale that is a wonderful representation of the Scottish ale style. It is roasty, sweet, hints of bittersweet chocolate, and slightly smoky from the beechwood-smoked grains. Old Chub also has a nice warming feeling from the 8% alcohol by volume. This beer definitely ranks among some of the best Scottish ales that I have tried.

Oskar Blues Gordon Beer is, according to the brewery, “a hybrid version of strong ale, somewhere between an Imperial Red and a Double IPA.” It is a great beer with an incredible citrus and fresh hop smell yet warms you up with 8.7% alcohol by volume. After the event I picked up a 4-pack of this beer so that I can review it in a later blog posting.

Finally, I tried my new favorite imperial stout, Ten Fidy also by Oskar Blues. What makes this beer imperial? The huge amount of flavor, malt, hops, and alcohol is what makes this an imperial beer. The alcohol content is 10% alcohol by volume but the malty sweetness both overshadows the alcohol flavor as well at the 98 IBUs of hops. The beer both smells and tastes like bittersweet chocolate cake and artisan roasted coffee. It is extraordinarily drinkable for being such a big beer. I purchased a 4-pack at the end of the event and will be doing a full review later. I also used a can of this wonderful beer to cook up a batch of beer brittle, which I will also blog about.

SF Beer Week was a 10 day celebration of craft beer that took place from February 6-16, 2009. The events were not only held in the original craft beer city of San Francisco but also throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, from Santa Rosa to Santa Cruz and everything in between. This year, 2009, was the first year in which this celebration was held. Judging by this and the three others events that I attended, SF Beer Week seemed like a success.

I kicked off my participation in SF Beer Week by attending the City Beer Store Bottle Tasting with AleSmith Brewing Company. City Beer Store is a great beer store and bar in San Francisco where you can buy beer to take home or you can drink it right there in the store. AleSmith Brewing Company was started in 1995 by Peter Zien, a hombrewer who “always wanted to own a brewery.” According to the website, AleSmith beers have won over 400 medals and honors. It also appears that most of the AleSmith employees are also homebrewers.

I arrived at City Beer store about an hour after the start of the event and discovered that they were at capacity and there was a wait to get in. We got our numbers and waited and after about 20 minutes they stopped giving out numbers altogether. Finally, after a 30 minute wait we were in. This small store was wall to wall people enjoying some great beer. In addition to all of their regular offerings at the store, for the price of the event tasting (I think it was $15) you received 5 tasting tickets and a small tasting glass.

The AleSmith beers that were offered on tap were: AleSmtih X, Wee Heavy, YuleSmith, and I believe Speedway Stout but the stout was all gone by the time we got into the event. I sampled each one, except for the stout, of course.

The AleSmith X is what they call an Extra Pale Ale and it had a very nice citrus hop bouquet.

I had two samples of the Wee Heavy, a Scotch ale that was very malty, sweet, complex, wonderful, and warm with 10% alcohol by volume. It is a great beer and I felt that two samples added up to enough beer to review it so keep an eye out for a review of this beer coming soon.

Finally, I had two samples of YuleSmith and this time I had it in a larger glass. YuleSmith is AleSmith’s holiday beer of which they have two versions, one for winter and one for summer. I had the winter version and it had great hop and malt  characterists and also had a nice warming sensation with 9.5% alcohol by volume. I wrote a more extensive review of this beer as well, which I will post soon.

After sampling these great beers I was feeling a little claustrophobic and ready to move on to the next SF Beer Week event at the Jug Shop where I would sample great beers from a can.