Recap of the Year (so far)

Wow, where do we begin? A lot has happened in the first part of this year.  Strong Beer month celebrated it's seventh year. If you haven't heard what this is all about it's a month long celebration in February where the 21A and our good friends at Magnolia Brewery put on 6 beers of great strength and flavor. We tie in with a theme, this year is was the Grateful Dead's album "Go to Heaven." I'll let you guess who came up with that idea (ah hum..Dave McLean). 

Sandwiched right in the middle of the month like lean pastrami was the first of it's kind, SF Beer Week, which was conceived and started by Tom Daldorf (Celebrator Beer News), Jay Brooks (Brookston Beer Bulletin), Bruce Patton (the Beer Chef), Dave McLean (Magnolia Brewery) and I. There were over 150 events throughout the Bay Area and the whole thing really captured what is possible when a community of good beer drinkers get together and plan and conceive these events. We had everything from beer dinners, to tastings, bike and train tours of bay area breweries and beer bars. You name it and it was there. Too many to list. Just Google and you will see what has been said and written about this celebration. 

We had four events at the 21A. The week long celebration was not without tragedy. William Brand, Bay area beer writer and blogger was killed after leaving a Beer and food pairing dinner at the 21st Amendment. Most likely the reason I haven't really put fingers to keys about this week as of yet as it has personally been hard to do just that. Bill was a great man, a friend to the craft beer community and the 21st Amendment. His lose hit us all pretty hard. You can't even imagine the feeling that overwelmed me when this happened. I don't want to dwell on it too much, but I will post the my Ken Keseyian tribute that I did at the Trappist in Oakland at Bill's memorial. Also, coming up a recap of the events at the 21A during SF Beer Week.