The sun didn’t skimp one bit this weekend. Fourth of July weekend was the perfect excuse to beat the heat with some stellar brews. A new keg in the fridge, some new bottles from the store. It was almost too much to (literally) swallow, but who’s complaining. Friday’s happy hour included pints at Hopworks with Matthew “Bo” DiTullo, where Evelyn Sunshine’s Imperial IPA poured. The pricy yet delicious beer had a phenomenal hop profile. Earlier in the day we hit up John’s Marketplace alongside droves of other weekend warriors for a keg and some bottled brews. A corny keg of Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA delivered a hit-the-spot citrus hoppiness. Funny thing: the guy in line in front of us at John’s was ordering the same keg and a beer geek fistbump ensued.
You wouldn’t know it’s summer already here in the Rose City. What’s that old saying about the lion and the lamb? Whatever one is the rain, she’s still here. Some folks may be a bit discouraged with the cooler damper weather, but I love it. Keeps everything green, and I know that once the sun does poke it’s head out for a stretch, my hop bines are going grow even more. As it stands, they’re already over ten feet tall.
It had been four days since we’d left Gold Beach and already we had already visited fourteen California breweries. We packed up our belongings at Erik’s place in the Presidio after a beer filled night on the town in San Francisco and headed back to the lower mission for one last San Francisco hurrah. Our first stop was the City Beer Store on Folsom Street. The place was a little cubby hole filled wall to wall with craft and imported beers. I am guessing there must have been about 300 in all. They also featured an assortment of beers on their six taps. Many of the bottled beers were not in coolers and randomly hanging out on a tall shelf in the back of the shop. This is where I discovered some hard to find bottles for Oregonians like Drakes Imperial Stout, Port Imperial Pilsner, as well as a can of 8.5% Belgian-style fruit beer from Santa Cruz.. I also noticed that they had the 2008 Deschutes Abyss available, but decided to try my luck with it upon returning to the Rose City. I purchased three different 750ML bottles of beers from the Bruery, only to discover they had become available for distribution in Oregon while I was on the road. Still, some excellent beers including the Black Orchid, the White Orchid and the Autumn Maple brew were worth discovering. Being from Oregon and working at a beer store in Washington, I wasn’t blown away by the selection, but being a beer lover, I can appreciate what this place is attempting to do for the people of San Francisco. Outside of BevMo and larger supermarkets, SF doesn’t really have a place like Belmont Station, the Bier Stein, or By the Bottle. City Beer Store is an oasis of sorts.
The first thought that leaps into many folks’ minds when they hear the phrases “canned beer” or “beer in a can” is the proverbial old swill that Pa used to drink after a hard day of work. Perhaps quite fitting for this Pa character to be sittin’ in his favorite arm chair in a wifebeater watching the boob tube, or out on the porch counting cars. These days the perception of Pa and his metal-clad accessory is changing thanks to breweries like Oskar Blues Brewing Company of Lyons, Colorado, who started hand-canning their flavorsome microbrews in 2002 and haven’t looked back since. With full-bodied craft offering such as Dale’s Pale Ale, Old Chub Scottish Ale, and Gordon, a double red IPA, the microbrewer was the first of its kind to can its product. From those days of two-at-a-time hand-canning, OB first thought the idea of putting a “bold, hoppy pale ale” in a can to be humorous and claim it made them “laugh for weeks.” This pale ale named after main man Dale Katechis changed a lot of misconceptions about canned brews. Says Katechis: “We discovered that the belief that cans impart flavor to beer is a myth. The modern-day aluminum can and its lid are lined with a water-based coating, so the beer and the can never touch.” The use of cans on quality brews serve other advantages over bottled brews. “Cans, we discovered, are actually good for beer. Cans keep beer especially fresh by fully protecting it from light and oxygen. Our cans also hold extremely low amounts of dissolved oxygen, so our beer stays especially fresh for longer. Cans are also easier to recycle and less fuel-consuming to ship.” Today, the Oskar Blues is still hand-canning their delicious beer, but with a more advanced mechanism that allows for five cans at once to be filled and sealed.
with some stellar brews. A new keg in the fridge, some new bottles from the store. It was almost too much to (literally) swallow, but who’s complaining. Friday’s happy hour included pints at Hopworks with Matthew “Bo” DiTullo, where Evelyn Sunshine’s Imperial IPA poured. The pricy yet delicious beer had a phenomenal hop profile. Earlier in the day we hit up John’s Marketplace alongside droves of other weekend warriors for a keg and some bottled brews. A corny keg of Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA delivered a hit-the-spot citrus hoppiness. Funny thing: the guy in line in front of us at John’s was ordering the same keg and a beer geek fistbump ensued. 
