Bottoms Up

From 5-9 p.m. this Saturday, July 2, Fort Mason will once again inundated with pink, pink ribbons that is. The 11th annual Breastfest, sponsored by Marin Brewing will again be held at the Festival Pavilion at Fort Mason Center. Nearly 60 breweries will be pouring their beers, along with food and live music. Tickets are $45, and for an additional $10 you can get a VIP pass that lets you in the festival one hour earlier. You can find all the details at the Breastfest website.

The current issue of Smithsonian magazine has an interesting article about archeologist Patrick McGovern, who’s at the University of Pennsylvania and his work uncovering evidence of early alcoholic beverages. His particular sub-field is molecular anthropology and he has a great book about his work titled Uncorking the Past. The Smithsonian piece is entitled Dig, Drink And Be Merry in the print version, but is called The Beer Archeologist online.

Patrick McGovern

Also prominent in the article is his collaboration with Sam Calagione and Dogfish Head and their latest concoction, an Egyptian ale called Ta Henket, whose recipe dates back several hundred centuries. The ingredients includes Middle Eastern spices such as za’atar, along with chamomile and dried doum-palm fruit.

Sam Calagione

One of my favorite new beer quotes I discovered in the article, too. Walking the halls of the University of Pennsylvania, the article’s author — Abigail Tucker — details an encounter between Dr. McGovern and a fellow professor, Alexei Vranich (an expert on pre-Columbia Peru). After a short discussion, Vranich thanks McGovern for his research, and quips. “I keep telling people that beer is more important than armies when it comes to understanding people.”

Late in the article, there’s also a nice overview of the emerging “beer before bread” debate within science and the origin of fermented beverages generally.

A display showing the ingredients used in the ancient Egyptian brew Ta Henket. (All photographs from the Smithsonian article by Landon Nordeman)

Next Friday, July 1, Drake’s Brewery in San Leandro — 1933 Davis St, Bldg. 177, by WalMart — will host their monthly benefit for The Boys & Girls Club of San Leandro. Also known as Drake’s First Fridays, the event will include live entertainment by BackBeat (playing the music of The Beatles) for a requested $5.00 donation to the Boys & Girls Club. For $15.00, you’ll receive a Drake’s logo mug & 3 Tokens, too. For all the details on the event, check out the Drake’s website.

If you’ve ever wondered what happens to your beer bottles and cans after you drop them into the recycling bin, then these videos are for you. An organization in the UK, Recycle Now,is putting on Recycle Week, all this week. As a part of that, they’ve also created some very cool little animated videos showing the process that beer bottles an cans go through during the recycling process.

Here’s Beer Bottles:

Glass bottles from RecycleNow on Vimeo.

And here’s Beer Cans:

Cans from RecycleNow on Vimeo.

The eighth and final beer can dad for Father’s Day, courtesy of a fun project from the folks at Every Guyed, honors Mufasa, King of the Pridelands, and father to Simba (or Kimba, if you think Disney ripped off Kimba the White Lion for their Lion King) along with his mate Sarabi.

Back in November, the call went out for brewers around the world to enter the Australian International Beer Awards for 2011. When our local brewpub Moylan’s Brewery & Restaurant decided to enter some of their beer, they couldn’t have known how well it would turn out for them.

Moylan’s ended up winning two gold medals, for Moylan’s Moylander Double IPA and Hopsickle Imperial Triple IPA, a silver medal for Chelsea Moylan’s Porter and two bronze medals for both Dragoon’s Dry Irish Stout and Ryan Sullivan’s Imperial Stout. Those wins resulted in them being awarded more points than any other brewery and garnered them two additional bigger prizes: the “Cleanevent Trophy for Champion Small Brewery” and the “Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria Trophy for Champion Exhibitor” for the Highest Scoring Exhibitor, which is the biggest prize awarded throughout the entire competition. Congratulations to Denise Jones and everybody at Moylan’s.

Yesterday, Dr. Peter Aldred from the AIBA stopped by Moylan’s in Novato to present the Australian International Beer Awards Trophy to Brewmaster Denise Jones and Owner Brendan Moylan.

The whole gang of brewers from Moylan’s poses with their trophies.

If you want to see the rest of the winners, they’re listed at Australian Brews News.

The seventh beer can dad for Father’s Day, courtesy of a fun project from the folks at Every Guyed, honors Robert “Bob” Parr, better known by his superhero alter-ego: Mr. Incredible. Along with his wife Elastagirl, he’s proud poppa to Dash, Violet and Jack-Jack.

The sixth beer can dad for Father’s Day, courtesy of a fun project from the folks at Every Guyed, honors George Jetson, the overworked executive from Spacely Sprockets, and patriarch of the Jetson family, who includes his Boy Elroy — Daughter Judy — Jane his wife. They live in the Skypad Apartments in Orbit City during the year 2062, a mere 51 years from today. Happy Father’s Day, George.

The fifth beer can dad for Father’s Day, courtesy of a fun project from the folks at Every Guyed, honors Popeye, who became the father of Swee’Pea when the baby boy was left on his doorstep. And later in life, Popeye and Olive Oyl had Popeye Jr.

The fourth beer can dad for Father’s Day, courtesy of a fun project from the folks at Every Guyed, honors Papa Smurf, who’s the head papa of the entire Smurf clan.