Here’s some serious news. The first-ever Pliny the Elder in bottles is in the fermenter. Natalie Cilurzo in her blog posted tonight says her husband Vinnie, with her hepl and help from some visiting brewers brewed their first batch destined for bottles and I guess, kegs, this weekend.

Here’s Natalie:

The first beer brewed on the new/used 50 barrel Dogfish Head brewhouse was Consecration- a sour beer which will age for a year in Cabernet barrels with black currents and the usual bugs and critters.

Today, Saturday, I decided to forego Boonville to help Vinnie brew the first batch of Pliny the Elder! We don’t brew together anymore, now that we are business partners. So today was a very special day for me! Thank you so much to Todd and Mike for helping with today’s brew. And thank you to the 15 or so staff members who represented us in Boonville and had the privelege of answering the “Where’s Vinnie?” question all day! For the record, Vinnie was with me brewing more Pliny!

Wow and double wow. Can’t wait to fill my fridge.

Who says beer bottles are useless: Why not a solar hot water heater?A reader, Russ, sent this one along.

According to the Internet, this Chinese farmer is getting hot shower water from this roof of beer bottles and plastic tubing. This version of the story was seen on Ananova (sent in by reader Arnaud Betremieux). The account says “I invented this for my mother. I wanted her to shower comfortably,” says Ma Yanjun, of Qiqiao village, Shaanxi province.Ma’s invention features 66 beer bottles attached to a board. The bottles are connected to each other [with plastic tubing] so that water flows through them.Sunlight heats the water as is passes slowly through the bottles before flowing into the bathroom as hot water, reports China Economy Network. Ma says it provides enough hot water for all three members of his family to have a shower every day.And more than 10 families in the village have already followed suit and installed their own versions of Ma’s invention.”

Great idea. Should have thought of that when I lived in Mexico. We stretched plastic pipe on our roof in Mazatlan. Water got so hot we needed a mixing tank with cold water to cool it down. Damn we had a lot more beer bottles than we had plastic pipe.

Those were the days of “Radio Iced Beer.” This was before Pacifico was bought by giant Grupo Modelo. You could call day or night and they’d deliver a case of beer to your door. It cost more for the bottle deposit than it did for the beer. Gee, we could have drilled holes in each beer bottle, strung them out on our roof, connected them with clear plastic tubing which was very cheap. Then, when we needed more hot water, all we would have had to do was drink more beer. The mind reels.

Photo: Dave McLean at the bar at Magnolia.

There’s a big makeover underway this week at Magnolia Pub & Brewery, 1398 Haight St. in San Francisco. In an e-mail, proprietor Dave McLean says the pub will be closed for nine days. It’s an extensive rehab in this historic building at the corner of Haight and Masonic. It started life as a Rexall Drug Store, became Magnolia Thunderpussy’s a late-night dessert cafe that became quite famous at the height of the 1960s in the Haight. Biggest treat: Pineapple Pussy. I am not lying.

Go to Magnolia’s Web site for some history about the building and Magnolia’s. Also, I’ve posted an interview with Dave, I wrote for Northwest Brewing News in 2006. You can find it here.

Here are some details from Dave on the re-make:

An incredibly talented team of artisans and craftsmen will show up tomorrow morning (today, Monday, May 12, 2008) and dive headfirst into a variety of projects to make Magnolia look and feel better than ever. Some parts of this process have been underway for weeks and are just awaiting final installation, like the new bar and table tops built from wood salvaged from the original Levi Strauss building. Others, like extensive painting and restroom tiling, require a closed and quiet pub to commence. And a few projects will continue on over the next two months.

Meanwhile, Brandon and crew are putting the finishing touches on the new menu, which will be ready to go for the re-opening. If you’ve been following along, you know that we’ve been running with an interim menu for the past six weeks while behind-the-scenes work on the fully-realized version pushes on toward our longstanding gastropub vision. The new menu will be full of beer-friendly snacks. charcuterie, and re-invented classics like our local catch & chips or a fun riff on shepherds pie. Brandon has reached out to the producers whose philosophy aligns most closely with our own, bringing Marin Sun, Cattail Creek, Devils Gulch, Wolf Ranch, Liberty and other farms into Magnolia for the first time.

The menu has never felt more seasonal, nor more full of delightful hooks for food and beer pairing. Even the Prather Ranch hamburger has improved in recent weeks with the new bun from Cake Box Bakery that fits it like a glove. The most exciting addition, however, is the unveiling of our new sausage program(!), with a selection of five different house-made sausages (including a veggie one). These sausages will change with some degree of regularity and can be had on their own or with a choice of any two of our new seasonal sides.

The sausage program is the first step toward our goal of being a neighborhood gastropub that celebrates nose-to-tail and farm-to-table cooking alongside our artisan beer making, inextricably linked the way we think it might have been in the great pubs of the past. We’ve been working toward this for over a decade and now that we’re here, we have to give you a newly refreshed space in which to enjoy it. As we hopefully hit our stride with these ambitious but necessary changes, look for more signs of our commitments to sustainability, seasonality, local sourcing, traditional butchery, farm-fresh produce, house-made desserts (thanks, Jenna), and more.

And finally, Dave says he’ll have all 10 taps at his sexy, new cocktail bar, The Alembic, stocked with Magnolia’s beers during the makeover. If you’ve never visited The Alembic, 1725 Haight, check it out. There’s a large stock of Belgian beer, lots of kinds of vodka and er–cocktails.

Finally, finally, you can follow Magnolia’s rehab on Twitter. Go to twitter.com/magnoliapub to sign on. Just checked and there are no updates so far. hmmm.

I’ve received a couple of e-mails today from people who have been unable to follow the link to my column on Linden Brewing. So, for both of you (and everyone else), Here’s the column

What’s on Tap: Linden Street Brewery revving up

Part of the crowd hoisting pints at the Friday afternoon open house atLinden Street Brewing, Oakland’s new brewry.
Credit: William Brand
By William Brand, Staff Writer

Article Launched: 05/06/2008 12:01:50 PM PDT

WHEN I VISIT the Trappist, the new Belgian beer pub in downtown Oakland - a place famous, of course, for Belgian ales - I often order a lager. No kidding. The beer is Linden Street Common Lager *** from Linden Street Brewery, the first new brewery in Oakland since Pacific Coast Brewing Co. opened in 1988.

It’s a hybrid, made like Anchor Steam, brewed with a lager yeast, but fermented at warm temperatures like ale, which gives it a great nose with hints of ripe fruit and mild hop aroma. Made primarily with Northern Brewer hops and pale Pilsner malted barley, it’s quite different from Anchor. Served in a chalice at the Trappist, it provides a crisp, tasty finish to a long day, and it’s our Beer of the Week.

The brewery at 95 Linden St., just north of Jack London Square, isn’t functioning quite yet. But Adam Lamoreaux, the brewer, who co-founded Linden Street with his wife, Alice Chen, and Carey Peterson, has made an early batch at Drake’s Brewing in San Leandro.

Right now, it’s possible to find it three places: The Trappist (460 8th St.); the Fireside Lounge (1453 Webster St., Alameda); and each Friday afternoon at an open house and barbecue at the brewery.

In a few days, as soon as PG&E brings in electric power and city inspectors OK the installation, Lamoreaux says he’ll be ready to begin brewing at Linden Street. “I’m smiling a lot these days,” he says. “We’re very close to making
beer.” The brewery is in a brick facade warehouse built in 1890. It’s going to be a draft-only brewery, and Lamoreaux hopes his beer will soon be everywhere around the East Bay.

There are more beers on the way, Lamoreaux adds. There are plans for a summer beer, which he hopes to give the same name as the last beer made in Oakland before Pacific Coast launched the modern era.

“I’ve been told it was Golden Glow Lager, and I want to name my beer Golden Glow Ale. There are a lot of old-timers still in Oakland, and I want to make it in a low-alcohol style closer to what they drank back then,” he says.
Another beer that Lamoreaux will be selling soon is Burning Oak Black Lager. “We have a lot of people really eager for that black lager - it might end up becoming our flagship beer.”

Linden Street’s Friday afternoon open house is growing in popularity. They begin pouring beer - no charge - about 4 p.m. and fire up the barbecue a little later. Everyone welcome. For a map and directions, do a search on my blog: www.ibabuzz.com/beer for Linden.

TICKET TO SIP: If you’re stuck at Oakland International waiting for a flight, here’s some news: Pyramid Breweries is opening a taproom at the airport this summer. Oakland also boasts a Gordon Biersch tap stand, serving all the Gordon Biersch beers. It’s in the new concourse in Terminal 2. (Hint: It’s right next to the new Fentons.)

Over at SFO, there are two brewery pubs, Anchor and Gordon Biersch. Both are located in Terminal 3.

ONLINE: On dah buzz today - www.ibabuzz.com/beer. - I’m talking to Tony Forder, editor of Ale Street News, the East Coast brews paper, and a number of other East Coastt and Midwestern beer writers about the unusual beers of Magic Hat.

Magic Hat is acquiring Seattle-based Pyramid Breweries, in a $25-$30 million deal expected to be completed this summer. There’s a possibility, although nothing has been determined, that some of Pyramid’s wheat beers will be brewed at Magic Hat in Burlington, VT, and Magic Hat beers for the West Coast will be brewed at Pyramid’s brewery here in Berkeley. Are we ready for #9, Magic Hat’s best seller?

Photo: Marta Mild, of Danville, brought her own glass to the Linden Street Brewery open house last Friday. It was an acceptable glass: A Budvar Budweis glass. She’s Czech, loves beer and gave Linden Street Common Lager four stars. “This is great beer,” she said.

I made it over to the regular open house, beer tasting at Linden Street Brewing here in Oakland late this past

Friday afternoon (May 9, 2008). Met a number of readers of this blog and people who read my column in the Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times on Wednesday and dropped by to check out the beer.

In the months since the proprietor/brewers Adam Lamoreaux and Carey Peterson opened the doors, this regular Friday afternoon open house has grown in size. The beer flowed freely and around 5, Adam fired up a gas barbecue, starting with grilled corn on the cob for the kids and families who came.

Their brewery which Adam purchased from Daniel Del Grande when he closed Bison in Berkeley, is about ready to go., See my column in the post after this for more info.

The beer they’re pouring right now was made at Drake’s in San Leandro It’s about six weeks old and the age has given the beer an excellent edge: The name has evolved into Linden Street Common Lager, it’s made in the manner of Anchor Steam: lager yeast, fermented warm to give it a bit of ale-like, fruity nose.

If you’ve got an hour free next Friday, check out Linden Street. In the meantime you can find the beer two places, at The Trappist in downtown Oakland, and Fireside Lounge, 1453 Webster St. in Alameda.

Can’t make it to the 12th annual Anderson Valley Brewing Boonville Beer Festival today. Damn. It’s one fun event and you can camp overnight at the county fair grounds. They’re pouing (many, many, many) beers today from 1 - 5 p.m.

If this is news to you and you have time and a fast vehicle (it’s a long and windy road to Boonville), cost today is $50 cash at the door. It would be money well-spent.

For those of you, like me, stuck at home, check out this video of the 2007 Boonville fest from Gravity Brew….

It’s still not too late to attend the Sam Adams dinner  this Tuesday, May 13 at 6 p.m. at Monk’s Kettle, the new Belgian-style pub-restaurant at 3141 16th St. in San Francisco’s Mission District.  Tickets are $50. Call 415-865-9523 to reserve seats. This dinner, which will be hosted by Sam Adams brewer Grant Wood, is one of 10 the company is holding across the country as part of American Craft Beer Week, May 12-18.

Here’s the menu for the evening:

Appetizer: Mixed green salad with shaved onion, baby frisee, fresh mandarin oranges with a Samuel Adams honey mustard dressing.
Paired with Samuel Adams Summer Ale

Entrée:  Samuel Adams brined Niman Ranch Pork chop served with a Tillamook cheddar and scallion potato cake, caramelized brussel sprouts and a Samuel Adams stone ground mustard ale sauce.
Paired with Samuel Adams Boston Lager

Dessert: Chocolate fondant cake served with a Samuel Adams stout chocolate creme anglaise.
Paired with Samuel Adams Cream Stout

If you’ve never visited Monk’s Kettle, I highly recommend it. It’s a fairly small, neighborhood place with a fairly vast, eclectic beer list.  For my review, go here. However, the photos appear to be lost in the morass of my colossal Web crash last month.

Speed Racer Mach 5.  Credit: Warner Bros. 

Are you going to catch the new Speed Racer film that opens today in the San Francisco Bay Area? If you, like me, were a fan of the original Japanese cartoon series, you probably will.

There’s a beer connection to Speed Racer, you know. Think Bear Republic. Richard Norgrove Jr,, who founded the Healdsburg, CA. brewpub and brewery with his father in 1995, races cars in his spare time and he admits he was a big Speed Racer fan when he was a kid.

Here’s part of an interview I did with him in 2003 in Northwest Brewing News.

If you’re a cartoon nut and remember the Japanese Speed Racer cartoon series on television, you can probably relate to these beers says head brewer Richard Norgrove, Jr.
Racer 5 is an very, very hoppy India Pale Ale, about 6.5 to 7 percent alcohol. Racer X _ who in the cartoon series always wore a mask and did the most extreme things with a race car _ is a double IPA. “It comes in at 8.1 percent and a lot of hops,” Richard says.
The average human palate can only detect about 85 or 90 IBI, he said. After that, things blur. “We come up with about 125 IBU. (A typical Budweiser is about 11 IBU).
“But we balance that with the malt and yeast character, so it’s still a drinkable beer. People have told me it creeps up on you.

The film’s being roundly panned by the critics, by the way…Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times review:

Failing that, I suppose we could subject them to Warner Brothers’ new live-action feature film, also called “Speed Racer,” which was written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski, the maestros of “The Matrix.” Like so many other expensive, technologically elaborate big-screen adaptations of venerable pop-culture staples, this movie sets out to honor and refresh a youthful enthusiasm from the past and winds up smothering the fun in self-conscious grandiosity. The childhood experience the Wachowskis evoke is not the easy delight of lolling in the den watching one cartoon after another, but rather the squirming tedium of sitting in the back seat on an endless family car trip, your cheek taking on the texture of the vinyl seat as some grown-up lectures you on the beauty of the passing scenery. READ MORE...

Here’s some background from the New York Times WHEELS blog:

The television show “Speed Racer” first aired in Japan in 1966 and appeared in the United States a year later. The show disappeared from television through most of the 1980s, as more sophisticated anime like “Star Blazers” and “Robotech” became popular. It wasn’t until the 1990s that “Speed Racer” reruns returned (on MTV of all places). It has since been rerun on various cable channels and used in commercials for Volkswagen and Geico.

The St. James Gate brewery in Dublin, Ireland . Photo from the Guinness Web site.

Just uncovered this little missive about Guinness from the AP wires. The good news is that Diageo Corp., the drinks conglomerate that Guinness created, has decided not to close the history St. James Gate brewery in Dublin, Ireland.

Bad news is there are layoffs, much production is being moved to a big plant outside Dublin and half the brewery site’s gonna be sold for “private development.” Gee, maybe there’ll be a Denny’s, a McDonald’s, and Bed Bath and Blah. Can hardly wait…

Guinness owner brews Irish layoffs, closure of breweries

By The Associated Press

Friday, May 9, 2008 - Updated 21h ago

DUBLIN, Ireland - Guinness beer owner Diageo PLC rattled an Irish icon today, announcing plans to lay off more than half of its brewery workers, close two breweries and shift most production to a new, high-tech plant in the Dublin suburbs by 2013.

The British beverage maker decided not to close the landmark Guinness brewery, one of Dublin’s oldest businesses and a top tourist attraction, after concluding this would do too much damage to its brand image and customer sentiment.

Diageo expects to lay off about 250 people, or 58 percent of its current brewery work force in Ireland, over the next five years. Brewing staff at the Guinness brewery at St. James’ Gate in west Dublin will be slashed to 65 from 230.

Half of the riverside St. James’ Gate site will be sold for private development, and the volume of Guinness brewed there will be cut by about a third — to about 500 million pints annually. This will exclusively supply the Irish and British markets, where demand has slipped over the past decade in line with pubgoers’ diversifying tastes.

David Gosnell, Diageo’s managing director of global supply, said the move to a new suburban mega-brewery was necessary to compete with the rise of lower-cost breweries in Eastern Europe, Russia and China.

“The business is hugely competitive. … Smaller breweries are consolidating and closing in Western Europe,” Gosnell told a news conference inside Guinness’ panoramic Gravity Bar, which offered a 360-degree view of a mist-shrouded Dublin… READ MORE

Back to me…So I went to the Guinness site and found this from the company about St. James Gate, the brewery:

The GUINNESS® story begins at the St. James’s Gate Brewery, a prime 64 acre (25 hectare) slice of Dublin. It’s always been our spiritual home - now it’s a citadel in its own right and a haven for millions of visitors to The GUINNESS® STOREHOUSE™.

Our birthplace is a living, working space. The focus of our commercial life, GUINNESS® from St. James’s Gate is shipped all around the world including the UK and the USA. We welcome guests from all corners of the planet.

Amen.

Have you ever tried Thomas Hardy’s Ale? If you’re new to great beer and live here in the San Francisco Bay Area, there’s a good chance you’ve never had a chance.

Sadly, it’s been at least three years since this famous English ale, once the strongest beer in Great Britain, has been available here. The importer, George Saxon, of Phoenix Imports says he’s been unable to find a distributor for the Bay Area since Conquistador Distributing folded.

This is the first beer to come out in vintages, bottled once each year with the year on the bottle, whether or not the federal government believes there can be vintage beer or not. I dug out two of my columns on Thomas Hardy, one from the first day of the new millennium and one from two years ago. Check them out here.

What brought this up is that an ace beer blogger and author, Stan Hieronymus did a vertical tasting of a number of “vintage” Thomas Hardy ales, including a bottle of the original, 1968. You can find his report here and a report of an earlier tasting by Realbeer.com here.

Full disclosure. I have a couple of bottles of Thomas Hardy from a ways back, 1988 and 1987. Haven’t opened them, gonna wait some more. These are tasty creatures.