SFBW Day 7: Mad Zymurgists club meeting

Hello Pleasanton!!!

The ball for this event at the Hop Yard started rolling four months ago, when I met the posthumous, er, de facto president, Brian Cooper, at GABF. That seems like ages ago.

I was excited about this event for many reasons (it was my way of being part of an SF Beer Week event, my first East Bay event, my first homebrew club meeting + I'm now a homebrewer) but one that got me jazzed is that I was able to do a new spiel. I LOVE doing author events, truly, but I felt freer to speak off-the-cuff, since there was very little I could tell this room about America's craft brewing industry they didn't already know. Plus it gave me an opportunity to tell the story about hanging out in a VIP lounge in Denver and having my biggest promoter, Half Pint, chatting up dude at our table about how her boyfriend wrote a beer book, only to have me lean over and discreetly whisper, "That's Charlie Papazian."The nearly-all-male audience (there was one wife/club member, Jade, and a girl named Michelle who saw the event listed on the SF Beer Week site) had great questions and afterward told great stories. It's clear they love the community and it's one I'm proud to now, with my first batch still in secondary fermentation, be a part of.

Beforehand, as Brian went through the talking points, I drank a short pour of Pliny the Younger and a Deschutes brown ale. Afterward, the homebrew started flowing. A Belgian dark ale, some mead, and most notably, a Traditional Bock, brewed by the guy pictured below, Alex Drobshoff. Why most notably? This is the beer that will start showing up on shelves as part of Boston Beer/Sam Adam's annual Longshot contest honoring homebrewers. Think Spielberg directing your home movie.Huge thanks to Judy from Towne Center Books for coming out, selling books, and partaking of the homebrews. And of course, danke schön to Brian Cooper, below...


...and this is why I call her Half Pint...