The 21st Amendment on a Christmas holiday Saturday recently.

If you can afford it and you hurry, there’s a bang-up Brewer’s “library” Dinner happening Jan. 11 at 21st Amendment Restaurant & Brewery in San Francisco. Cost is $120 and the dinner’s limited to 20 people, hosted by 21st co-founders Nico Frecia and Shaun O’Sullivan.

What’s a “library dinner” you ask? Beer libraries are stocks of beer from months or even years past that brewers keep for reference, to give them an idea of what how a beer made in the past tasted. In this case the library belongs to Shaun.

“For the past 7 years Shaun has amassed a collection of unique, rare and aged beers from other brewers, visitors and on his travels around the world and it is time to open up the cellar and try these extraordinary beers with great food,” the 21st said in an e-mail.

Dont know what beers there will be, but here’s the menu:

21st Amendment
Brewers Library Dinner

January 11, 2008

6:30 PM

• Hand Passed Amuse Bouche

• Sea of Cortez Scallops with Morel Mushrooms and Sauce Americain

• Roasted Acorn Squash Gnocchi in “sguazet” with White Truffle and Shaved

Reggiano

• Salad of Haricot Vert with Gratin Galapagos Island Shrimp and Roasted Hop

Vinaigrette

• Intermezzo

• Mari e Monti- Roasted Niman Ranch Tenderloin and Maryland Striped Bass with Fine Herb Bernaise Sauce

• Chocolate Lava Cake with Crème Anglaise and Blood Orange Sauce

The evening begins with a tour of the brewery and ends in the 21st beer garden with cigars, for those who smoke and more beer.

To reserve a place, send an e-mail to reply@21st-amendment.com or call the 21st: 415-369-0900.

Do you believe in a phoenix rising from the ashes? Did you ever hear about Oakland’s Brothers Brewing Co.? Read on.

An Oakland homebrewer Ralston Brown, a graduate of the American Berwers Guild when it was in Davis and his brother-in-law Thomas Parker and his friend, Michael LeBlanc, a former Polaroid exec, signed on and invested their savings in the company launched Brothers Brewing on the usual shoestring in 1998. Their first beer, recipe by Ralston, Brothers Honey-Brewed Amber Ale *** (my rating in 1999), contract brewed by Alec Moss at the late and still-lamented Golden Pacific Brewing in Berkeley, was a moderate hit.

It was the only African-American-owned brewery in America.

Two years down the road, they produced a lager: Brothers Golden Classic Lager, at Golden Pacific and tried to expand to urban places (guess, that’s code for heavily black neighborhoods) across the country.

They discovered that it’s impossible to beat mega-giants like Coors, Miller and Anheuser-Busch at that game; they’ve got urban black America locked up tight, a fact that still pisses me off. Don’t believe me? Check out those new Miller High Life ads. They’re not pitching to Walnut Creek (Out of state? It’s a mostly non-black San Francisco suburb.

Anyway, Brothers Brewing quietly closed their tent and folded. About the same time Golden Pacific also closed, another fact that still hurts. Capitalism’s a cruel uncaring bitch.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that Everett & Jones Barbeque, the large restaurant in Jack London Square, was a major account. Yep. You got it.

“We hated to see them fold,” co-owner John Jernegan says. “We wanted Ralston to come to work for us and brew beer here,” he adds. “But Ralston had other plans.” Besides being an excellent brewer, he never quit his day job.

So Saucey Sistah was born. It’s contract brewed; he won’t say by whom. But I’ve figured that one out and I won’t tell. Jernegan says they offered Alec Moss a job too. He bounced around a bit and is now happily brewing away at Half Moon Bay Brewing on the San Mateo Coast.

One more point about Saucey Sistah. The sexy woman on the label’s John Jernegan’s wife, Dorothy King Jernegan. Her mom, the late Dorothy Everett Sr., founded the Everett & Jones barbeque business on 92nd Avenue in East Oakland in 1973. There are several Everett & Jones Barbeques, two in Oakland, one in Alameda and one in Berkeley, each owned by a family member or members.

The Everett girls – there were eight – called themselves the “Saucey Sistahs”, her husband explains. Great name for some sexy young ladies, great name for a beer here in Oak Town too.

The E&J in Jack London Square’s the only one with a restaurant and the only one that serves beer. “I keep telling everybody to add beer and sell Saucey Sistah,” John Jernegan says. Everett & Jones is at 126 Broadway, between 2nd Street and West Embarcadero. See ya’ there tomorrow night.

Addendum. This place is becoming famous as an after-game hangout for us diehard Raiders fans. There’s even a post-game show. Food’s excellent. The boast endorsements from Whoopi Goldberg, John Madden, Jami Fox and yes – Pete Slosberg, late of Pete’s Wicked Ale.

OK, who would spend the Christmas holidays journeying to the end of outer hell, also known as the northernmost brewpub in the world?

Not me. Raised in the bleak, windy hell of Western Nebraska, I eschew winter big time. California sun for me.

.

But Don Russell, the longtime Philadelphia (PA.) Daily News sports writer who writes the paper’s weekly Joe Sixpack column, is a different breed of cat. He literally treked to the end of the earth this month to Honningsvag, Norway to share a beer with Hans Magne Olsen, a fisherman-turned brewer at Nordkapp Bryggerie, the world’s northernmost brewpub.

“Located in this Arctic fishing village 1,311 miles from the North Pole, it is literally the last place on earth to drink a fresh, hand-crafted beer,” Don writes. No kidding. Read on…

“Twenty-four hours of darkness, of course, is a way of life. The locals joke that sunset is four o’clock on Nov. 22, and sunrise is sometime in late January…READ MORE.

Have you seen this beer? It’s obviously a beer brewed just for Everett & Jones, the barbeque emporium. Saw this sign in the window of the E&J in Jack London Square on Christmas Day. Snapped a photo with my cel phone.

They’re still closed for the holiday. Open tomorrow at 11 a.m. If you’ve tried it, let us know. Post a comment here.

Hooray for Belgium. As readers of this blog know, the Trappist Beer Cafe & Specialty Beer Bar, is open now at
460 8th St. in downtown Oakland. It’s like being in Belgium, thick printed “beer” menu, tiny, crowded. Specials on a chalk board. Love it.

Now the Bay Area has a second Trappist spot – La Trappe, 800 Greenwich St., in San Francisco’s North Beach. 415-440-8727, opened last Friday. The owners, There are 15 Belgian and Belgian-style beers on tap, including La Chouffe, Maredsous10, the big, strong tripel from Moortgaat, the maker of Duvel. And yes, there’s Duvel in the bottle and many other bottled Belgians.

Partners John Lawton and Mike Azzilini said they also have a full-service restaurant, offering, Belgian specialities. Headed over there Thursday p.m. Will let you know how it goes. Visited it already? Post a comment here and let us know what to expect.

The key phrase here is “tipsy tow.” It’s a service the California State Auto Association has been offering to all callers, not just AAA members, since 2005.

if you’re feeling under the influence and still need to get home, call the tipsy tow number: 800-222-4357 (AAA-Help). The service is in effect from 6 p.m. this evening (Dec. 24, 2007) until 6 a.m. Christmas Day and again from 6 p.m. New Year’s Eve until 6 a.m. New Year’s Day.

You don’t have to be a Triple A member, CSAA adds, just tipsy. Also bartenders, party hosts with reeling guests, restaurant mangers can call. The tow truck driver will take you and your vehicle and others to the same destination — depends on how much room there is in the truck for extra riders.

The tow’s free from your location to any point within five miles, but not to another bar or party, CSAA says.

This comes straight from a CSAA press release:

“Despite the decline in alcohol-related crashes in the last 10 years, alcohol is still a factor in more than 16,000 vehicle crash deaths each year in the United States. Drunk-driving crashes also account for about 60 percent of highway deaths of young people age 16 to 24 each year. It takes only one or two drinks to impair vision, steering, braking, judgment and reaction time.”

Bay Area DUI campaign heats up

Planning on drinking, then driving home? Remember: A cab ride home’s a lot cheaper than a driving under the influence arrest. Read this from Bay Cities News Service:

Provisional numbers from Bay Area law enforcement agencies patrolling the roadways indicate that while the number of arrests for the AVOID Anti-DUI holiday enforcement season has increased, the number of fatalities is lower than during the 2006 enforcement period.
Between 12:01 a.m. Dec. 14 and midnight Dec. 22 authorities from 125 Bay Area law enforcement agencies have arrested 1,508 individuals for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. There have been two drug or alcohol related traffic deaths during that period, according to officials.
In 2006 seven people died in collisions attributed to an impaired driver during the 20-day enforcement period, which will run through Jan. 1.
The AVOID Anti-DUI campaign was started in 1973 in California to bring law enforcement agencies together in to county and region-wide clusters to crack down on the number of people driving under the influence, according to the Web site.
Updated information and statistics can be found on the
organization’s Web site at http://www.californiaavoid.org.

The complete dui charts showing how many drinks equal a DUI, based on weight and sex, can be found here.

Don Gortemiller of Pacific Coast Brewing in Oakland called this photo: Thirsty Santas. It happened this past Saturday at Pacific Coast. The place was flooded by folks in Santa suits.

Haven’t reach Don, but I believe it’s an annual Christmas ride by an East Bay motorcycle club. Comments anyone?

Mr. Brandt,

Read your pub crawl SF article with interest. However I could not find the online slideshow at www.contracostatimes.com . Do you have its URL.

Thanks.

–Dick

Hi Dick…Techology. Curses. Here’s the proper link: http://www.bayareanewsgroup.com/multimedia/iba/2007/1219pubcrawl/

OK, here’s the link to our pub crawl slide show.

And here’s today’s (Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2007) column:

WILLIAM BRAND: WHAT’S ON TAP

Pub crawl is a wild ride from ballpark to ocean

The great KQED San Francisco Pub Crawl went off flawlessly last Saturday. My hat’s off (if I had a hat) to everyone involved. Everything was donated, leaving me in awe at how much everyone did to make the crawl a success.

The crawl was a top-seller in KQED’s online auction. The winning bidders, three couples from the South Bay, who sold their software company a while back, are into adventures, especially adventures involving beer. We did have an adventure.

Charlie Lundquist, proprietor of Mr. Toad’s Tours a San Francisco tour company, provided the wheels, and what wheels they were: a zero-emissions, propane-powered reconstruction of a 1918 Packard touring car, wood panel sides, roll-down windows. It’s a show-stopper.

We started with lunch and beer at 21st Amendment, in the shadow of AT&T Park. They rolled out the red carpet, sampler sets of all their beers — including South Park Blonde — then beers of their choice, plus a tour of 21st Amendment’s brewery by co-founder and head brewer Shaun O’Sullivan. A great deal of excellent food and fine beer started the crawl out in fine form.

From there, we toodled (with Mr. Toad, you toodle) over to Toronado. This beer pub, founded two decades ago by David Keene, is a revered place in the beer world; it’s easily one of America’s top five beer bars.

They opened the taps, and our tour-winners discovered the raw but delicious power of Russian River’s Pliny the Elder: 8 percent alcohol, 100 IBU (Bud’s 13 IBU). One tour member discovered she loved Lindemans Kriek, the Belgian Lambic, fermented with black cherries.

Then, in a suitably merry mood, we rolled up Haight to the Alembic Bar. It’s a spare, ’50s-style lounge that specializes in distilled spirits and mixology. It’s owned by Dave McLean, proprietor of Magnolia Pub & Brewery down the street, so the Alembic also features a stunning selection of Belgian beer and Magnolia’s beers.

McLean and manager Dean James set up a pairing — Dave’s own Belgian-style Tripel against the classic Westmalle Tripel, made at the Belgian Trappist monastery. Both are strong: 8 percent alcohol. Each beer was served in its own glass, Belgian-style. Our group left totally impressed.

Next stop was Beach Chalet, at the western end of Golden Gate Park. We got there just in time for sunset. There was no green flash, but Beach Chalet had reserved us a table overlooking Ocean Beach; they even printed a special menu, spread out a large assortment of desserts and many a sampler set.

I figured we’d done a big-enough crawl; we’d been on the road across San Francisco for five hours. But I had a fallback: City Beer, the unique on-and-off-sale store was having a taste-off — He’brew’s Hanukkah beer against an assortment of Christmas beers.

The store/pub is tiny, and it was jammed. Proprietor Craig Wathen promised to get us in, but our still-merry crew realized they’d had enough crawl for one day.

If you want to duplicate the tour, I’ve posted links below..

By the way…Here’s the rest of the column.

In the spirit

Last-minute Christmas ideas … OK, it’s down to the wire now. You’ve bought presents, but what about you? Is there more than a seat at an empty bar? Here are three suggestions:

BEER OF THE WEEK: Samichlaus (***1/2), Schloss-Eggenberg, Vorchdorf, Austria. For years, Samichlaus, brewed on St. Nicholas Day, Dec. 6, bottled 10 months later and released on Dec. 6, was the strongest beer in the world: 14 percent ABV.

It’s since been passed by beers like Sam Adams Utopias. First brewed in 1979, the Swiss brewer was taken over by another brewery. But last year, the Austrian brewery got the recipe and made 2007 Samichlaus, which has just been released.

This is sweet like a cordial, with a brilliant, dark copper, powerful nose. A huge hit of warming alcohol balances the sweetness nicely.

BOOKS. There are two, both champs. Eyewitness Companions: Beer“(DK, $20). Editor-in-chief Michael Jackson, who died in August, enlisted the help of a crew of beer experts to tour the world and bring back an update on great beers. Written by Jackson, it’s a great armchair read, even if you never leave the Bay Area.

Also, The Best of American Beer & Food: Pairing & Cooking With Craft Beer, (Brewers Publications, $22.95), by Lucy Saunders. Saunders is a beer writer and a chef. She toured America collecting recipes. Wide-ranging, it covers pairing beer with food, particularly cheese. A must for a serious cook who likes beer.
Saludos, and may your holiday be merry.

Reach William Brand at whatsontap@sbcglobal.net or call 510-915-1180 and ask for his Retail Beer Store List or Good Pub List.