What is it about beer and Pennsylvania? Both Obama and Hillary campaigned relentlessly here in California. Did they ever enter a pub or a brewery. Nope. Just sipped Napa Valley wine.

But in PA, oh my. Consider this photo in this morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer by Sarah J. Glover. That’s Obama hoisting a glass at Bethlehem Brew Works in Bethlehem, PA.

You can read all about it on Lew Bryson’s blog here.

It’s actually a photo grabbed from a video by Ms. Glover covering Obama campaigning in Pennsyvlania Sunday, posted on the Inquirer’s website.

Here’s another grab from the video: Obama actually drinks the beer and likes it.

I clicked on the link for Bethlehem Brew Works. The place is huge: 250 seats and beers like “Steelworkers’ Oatmeal Stout. Too bad there aren’t any more steelworkers in Bethlehem to enjoy it.

Bethlethem Steel Works by David Robert Crews
Found this on the Steelworkers Archives:
After 122 years of steelmaking and the employment of up to 165,000 people in 1957, the once mighty No. 2 U.S. Steelmaker, Bethlehem Steel, made its last cast in Bethlehem on November 18, 1995…READ MORE.

Well, at least we have Steelworkers Oatmeal Stout. It is some (very small) consolation.

Darren at bayareabrewing.com points out I’ve missed a couple of important events upcoming, one here in Oakland, one in San Francsaco:

(Maybe already sold out.)
The Trappist - Meet the Brewer
When: Mon, Apr 21, 6:00pm – 11:30pm
Where: 460 8th Street, Oakland CA 94607 (The Trappist)
Description: Beer & Cold Plate pairing with Allagash Brewing Company
Founder & Brewer Rob Tod. This is a “Private” event and only 25
tickets will be sold.

SF Brewers Guild - Meet the Brewers
When: Tue, Apr 15, 6pm – 9pm
Where: 1195-A Evans Ave., San Francisco, CA (Speakeasy Ales and Lagers)
Description: Meet the Brewers is a unique opportunity to get to know
the local artisans behind the craft beers of San Francisco. These
casual gatherings are held once a month (from 6-9pm) and rotate among
SF Brewers Guild breweries as well as a few other good beer
establishments in the City. Brewery tours are given at 6pm, followed
by an informal gathering of San Francisco brewers and beer lovers.
Bring your questions and comments and learn more about San Francisco’s
great beer-making tradition. Make it a monthly tradition of your own.

There’s a lot more to do in Oakland than witness drive-by shootings. In fact, we (the Oakland Tribune), have a Night Owl reporter, Angela Woodall, who – when she’s not at a crime scene – writes about the city’s booming night life.

This past week, she made it to Linden Street Brewery, Oakland’s first craft brewery and second brewery, after pioneering Pacific Coast Brewing, the Oakland brewpub. Couple of notes. There’s free beer and barbeque every Friday night, beginning around 4 p.m. at the brewery. Check it out. The address is: 95 Linden St., Oakland, CA 94607, 510-832-334

Here’s her report…

Brewery set to rekindle Oakland’s heyday

By Angela Woodall, STAFF WRITER
Article Created: 02/01/2008 02:54:11 AM PST

OAKLAND — Adam Lamoreaux and Carey Peterson are trying to revive Oakland’s hometown pride and first industry with a dusky gold beer and cozy Friday night happy hour gatherings at the Linden Street Brewery.

“We want Oakland to have a beer,” said Lamoreaux, who has worked for such breweries as Steelhead and Anderson Valley and as a buyer for Whole Foods.

“There are a lot of preconceptions about what the typical Oakland resident wants, but we see that changing every day as the city progresses,” he added.

Headquarters for the Linden Street Brewery is in a historic warehouse…READ MORE.

If you like higher altitude beer. That is, beer with a real kick. The place to be this month is in San Francisco at 21st Amendment Restaurant & Brewery, 563 Second St. and Magnolia Pub and Brewery, 1398 Haight St.

Shaun O’Sullivan at 21st and Dave McLean at Magnolia have each brewed six strong beers, ranging from 8.5 percent (Hendrik’s Russian Imperial Expresso Stout 8.5 percent at the 21st, and Double Clutch Doppelweizen at Magnolia) to 10.5 percent – Lower De Boom Barley Wine ‘08 at the 21st and 11.2 percent – Old Thunderpussy Barleywine at Magnolia.

The deal is, have a glass of each of the 12 beers at the two pubs between Feb. 1 and the end of the month and you get a commemorative glass.

This is a gimmick to draw people in during February, a historically slow beer month. But in the world of good beer, that’s old school thinking. We love our pubs and we visit all the time, winter and summer, don’t we. Well, I do.

What Shaun and Dave have done is to use the occasion to make some helliciuously delicious strong beers.

Shaun and Dave will be at the Toronado, 547 Haight St. in San Francisco Thursday night (Jan. 31, 2008) at 6 p.m. to kick off their anti-low-gravity month. Toronado proprietor David Keene says each will bring one of their strong beers.

They’re also bringing a special beer, a blend of two of their beers, Davis says.

Be there or be square and I’ll see ya’ there.

OK, here’s a news flash: Schooner’s Grille & Brewery, the primo brewery-restaurant out in Antioch (suburban San Francisco,CA) has been sold.

Craig Cauwels, Schooner’s brewer, who is one of the original owners, says the new owners are Frank and Tina Jiminez, of Gilroy, CA., doing business as Classic Restaurant Management Inc. Cauwels said Jiminez owns pizza parlors and was associated with BJ’s, the pizza chain, before it began opening brewpubs. The price was not disclosed.

Schooner’s founders Craig Cauwels, left, head brewer, and managing partner Shawn Burns with medals they won last October at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

Photo credit: Gregory Daurer/Denver

“They have the money to do things like enlarge the bar area and do other things we couldn’t afford to do,” Cauwels said. Most of the current staff including Cauwels, as head brewer, and floor manager Gary Craven will stay on.

Last day under the founding owners is this Wednesday, Jan 16 (2008) and beginning at 7 p.m., there’s gonna be a blow-out goodbye party with live music.

By the way, the current Schooner’s is going out with some great beer; there’s a new IPA that people tell me is dynamite. Craig has a new barleywine as well; they’ve won a ton of awards including a Great American Beer Festival bronze for anearlier version of Old Woody. Old Woody was best of show last fall at the Bistro West Coast Barrel Aged Beer Festivbal. They’ve also won GABF gold for Oatmeal Stout.
Schooner’s opened in April 2001. Managing partner’s Shawn Burns, who was the head brewer at Black Diamond in Walnut Creek before starting Schooner’s.

Schooner’s Grille and Brewery
4250 Lone Tree Way
Antioch, California
(925) 776-1800

As readers of my columns and blogs know, a double India Pale Ale that was an approximate clone of Russian River’s sainted Pliny the Elder was one of three winners in the nationwide Sam Adams Longshot contest for homebrewers.
The beer, made by Mike McDole, of Clayton, CA., a member of the Diablo Order of Zymiracle Enthusiasts (DOZE), was scheduled to be released as a Longshot beer next month.

But Boston Brewing, which makes Sam Adams, couldn’t source the hops Ameican hops, five varieties were needed Cascades, Centennials, Amarillos and more. So they’ve put off the release for a year. However, one batch was made under Mike’s supervision at the Sam Adams test brewery in Boston during the week of Dec. 17.

So… a Failure to Launch party on Feb. 17 at Mike’s local, E.J. Phair Alehouse on Todos Santos Square in downtown Concord.

Here’s Mike’s explanation:

“I know from experience that the beer will need at least three weeks to ferment and four weeks of conditioning. So I’m thinking February 21st would be the “failure to launch” launch party. Coincidentally that happens to be the same month the sans double IPA Longshot six-pack is coming out nationally and strong beer month locally.

“I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to get the regional Sam Adams rep to attend and some of the marketing folks in Boston are going to try and attend as well.

“I’m really not trying to promote myself or the BBC. I just feel that I wouldn’t be doing my duty to the craft beer world if I didn’t highlight this unique set of circumstances by celebrating the beer itself. I know Jim Koch would agree.”

See you there.

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.

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?

Got this from a reader, who lives in Felton. Haven’t checked the place yet. Has anyone else? Let me know. Post a comment here.

Hi William , I swapped some e-mail with you back in August about if you knew of any good beer retailers in Santa Cruz. Aside from what you mentioned…. not a lot to add. for Santa Cruz. There are a handful of places that seem to be on the same distribution routes, so you can find some non-disappointing beers, though little that’s particularly rare. The store with the curved brick front on 41st street in Capitola (Forty-First Avenue Liquors, 2155 41st Ave., Capitola, (831) 475-5117) specializes in Belgians and does have a pretty impressive selection.

What I’m actually writing to tell you about is a new brewery in Santa Cruz. Uncommon Brewers has been ramping up in the Sash Mill complex off of River Street, near where it hits Highway 1. I had the grand opportunity to go to their first tasting there last Sunday night - I was the guest of a friend who had won the tour/tasting at a benefit auction.

Anyhow - we got to taste two-and a half beers. The half is that they have their ‘Siamese Twin’ belgian, one batch of which had gone to ‘Trippel’ level at about 10.8% ABV, and another that was the expected dubbel, at about 6.5%. It was an unfiltered mineral amber color with a nice yeasty head. The Siamese part of it was accenting with lemon grass, Indian Coriander, and kaffir lime leaves.

Skot, the brewer giving the tour, clearly gets it - a lot of accent flavored/spiced beers are either homeopathic or so overdone that they’re more like malty schnapps, This had perfect balance on both the dubbel and tripel, giving a really exotic afterglow to a lovely beer. Hallertau and Saaz hops. All organic ingredients.

The other thing we tasted was a really luscious Baltic Porter. Obsidian black, though you could call it antique mahogany if you got it thin enough on the edge of the glass. Accented with licorice root and star anise, again with remarkable balance. More of a head than you typically get on a porter, for height and duration, but utterly slurpable. I think it ran about 7% ABV.

At any rate, I’ve been tasting lots of beers over the last years as part of Stuart Forman’s Yahoo group (he says you two have swapped beer notes a few times). I wanted to very much recommend to you to try to try these guys out when you’re in the Santa Cruz area.

Their logo says ‘uncommon beer for uncommon people’ and they really just nail it. They’re supposedly starting sales any day now - they’re going with Internet sales for pick-up at the brewery, and a micro-canning operation to avoid light skunking on the beer.

Their web link is www.uncommonbrewers.com , which is a not-terribly-up-to-date blog of them getting the brewery running.

If you want to contact the brewer I mentioned, it’s skot@uncommonbrewers.com
and the phone number at the brewery is 831-621-6270

I liked your review on Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing ( I get your columns in the Merc). I was at that brewery the first weekend that they were doing tastings and at-the-brewery bottle sales. I think that they’ve improved a lot since that time, and they seem to have found a decent niche - I see them on the shelves at BevMo, as well as most of the stores in greater Santa Cruz.

Also liked the Xmas beer review list that you just did. I very much look forward to the columns as they come out. I thimk they are a nice breath of fresh culinary air to compliment the restaurant and wine reviews.

Happy Holidays, Duff

The Bay Area really is a small world. Oakland’s new brewpub, Linden Street Brewing, 95 Linden St., a few blocks from Jack London Square, opened for business this summer. John Wonder, the brewer-co-owner of Wunder Brewing, San Francisco’s newest brewpub, (see previous post), said the old San Francisco brewery, Wunder Brewing, breathed its last in Oakland in the 1930s.

Where? Why on Linden Street, naturally, although in the 2900 block.

About Linden Street. I finally got a chance to taste brewre Adam Lamoreaux’s first beer: Urban Lager, a malty, hoppy lager brewed at warm temperatures like an ale. Just excellent. I give it THREE STARS.

Faded golden color, with a chill haze. Mild malty nose, full mouth feel and a quite deent dry, hoppy follow. Linden Brewery, by the way, has an open house/happy hour every Friday afternoon, beginning at 4 p.m. and running until after dark. Be there. Have you visited? Let us know. Post something here.