Marin Brewing Co. Point Reyes Porter

One of the best beers I had in California. I packed up my case and jumped on the ferry to Larkspur to start the second part of my trip – Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg. It’s a short ride across the Bay; a welcome respite to walking. I’m sad to leave the city behind, the sun bathing it and bringing it alive, but I know there are more adventures ahead. On the ferry I read a beer magazine, flicking through pages about the best beers of the year so far. Before I know it, and just as my tired eyes fall shut thanks to the relaxing rocking motion, we pull into the terminal. “Go over the bridge and you’ll see it.” Mario tells me as I’m pulling along my heavy suitcase, loaded with bottles. Eventually my nose pulls me towards the beer, the smell of toffee and citrus in the air. I’d met the brewers three days ago, lovely guys, they said to come and say hi. Inside, on the left, is the brewhouse and Kim is busy brewing, the whole bar smells amazing, so inviting, a powerful inducer of thirst if ever there was one. “Sit down and we’ll sort you out some beers.” I take a flight, a small pour of each of their brews, and sip while ordering lunch – a burger, of course. Mario knows these beers and goes straight for the Point Reyes Porter. Pitch black, an impossibly neat and thick head. He smacks his lips and nods his head. I sip through pale ales and IPAs, a wheat beer, a barley wine and then onto the porter. It’s astounding. It’s 6% but fuller bodied than something double that, it’s all dark chocolate, coffee roast and sweet smoke. Every sip is more impressive than the last, better than the last. Lunch comes, a charred burger covered in cheese, a hugely satisfying mouthful of that is followed by the last sip of beer - the sweetness of the smoke, the depth of flavour in the beer just echoes everything good in the burger and bounces off of it, enhancing it. Kim comes back, he has a couple of bottles for us: “Here’s the Porter, we bottled it this morning.” We leave through necessity more than choice, in truth I could’ve stayed there all afternoon.

Back home and I’m missing San Francisco. It’s the post-holiday blues, thoughts of things I missed or places I should’ve returned to. The memory of that lunch, seemingly innocuous, a short pit-stop on the way to Lagunitas and Russian River, moved me to remember that bottle and open it at just 12 days old. This is a big award winner for Marin and when Kim handed over the bottles there was obvious pride that this was the first time he’d brewed it himself (“I usually do the stout, Arne [the head brewer] does the Porter... this is the batch that’ll be going forward for competition this year”.) It pours a gorgeous, thick black with a creamy sand-coloured head. It’s dark chocolate, nuts, a hint of milkshake, smoked bacon as it warms. It’s smooth, it’s bold, creamy, intensely roasty, a berry sweetness, a lactic edge, smoke, dry at the end, incredibly drinkable, incredibly good. They do a lot of good things at Marin. If you are in San Francisco then go to the ferry port at 12.25pm and you’ll be sitting in the brewpub by 1.10pm. Order a porter and tell them I say hi.

I wrote about brewpubs here. Marin features in a number of the pictures, including Kim, the brewer.

Beer: We Can Do It!

Here begins my campaign for canned craft beer in the UK. The official slogan is currently ‘Cans are not just for baked beans’, but I’m still working on that bit.

In 2002, Oskar Blues started putting their beer into cans; they were the first brewery in the US to see a future for canned beer. Now over 50 are doing the same, including 21st Amendment, Anderson Valley, Maui Brewing Co, New Belgium and Surly ('Beer for a glass, from a can'). 21st Amendment have recently announced their Insurrection Series, which will be ‘a limited edition, four-pack release of a very special beer that rises up in revolt against common notions of what canned beer can be’. They started this series with Monk’s Blood. The beer in these tins are not your mass-market, corn-fed, yellow fizz.

There are significant pros to the argument for drinking canned beer, they are: Cans are lighter and more space-efficient than bottles (378g vs. 592g in a 355ml container); they are roughly the same diameter, but cans are stackable; there are no worries of smashed glass with a can; any light struck issues disappear in a can, so the beer stays fresher; cans now have a thin layer attached to the inside so any worries of it ‘tasting like tin’ disappear; aluminium is eco-friendly and recyclable; cans chill quicker than bottles; you don’t need to put labels on a can; cans suggest that you drink the beer fresh and in most cases fresh is best; and, you will also likely get away with drinking a can of beer in a public place or at work and people will just think it’s one of those loudly coloured soft drinks, if that’s of any interest.

For balance, there are some negative issues: The mentality of drinking beer from a tin is the main one as canned beer is seen as the cheap, mass-market stuff which you open, drain in one hit and then smash the empty tin against your forehead. This is a difficult mentality to overcome. Also, the addition of canning facilities to a brewery is an extra, initial expense alongside (or instead of) a bottling line. And here’s a point I’m unsure amount – we have cask and bottle conditioning, how about can conditioned? I don’t know if it’s possible, so real ale in a can may be a no-go, which some might not like (though real ale is not the be-all and end-all of good beer, of course).

Ultimately it comes down to taste. It’s easy to list reasons why cans are good but if, when that ring is pulled back and the beer is poured out, it doesn’t taste good then the argument is wasted. 21st Amendment’s regular cans are Hell or High Watermelon Wheat and Brew Free or Die IPA. They are great looking cans, bold and colourful. The Watermelon Wheat is literally a can full of fruit, it’s light and quenching, relatively low in alcohol and like sinking your teeth into a juicy piece of melon (just don’t try this if you don’t like watermelon). Brew Free is a fantastic IPA, bready-caramel base with a flood of tropical and citrus fruit and pine - very tasty and neither too-sweet nor over-bitter.

Two of the beers I brought back from California were in cans and I now wish I’d squeezed a few extra in. Maui Brewing’s CoCoNut Porter is 5.7%, comes in a great looking can and is made with hand-toasted coconut. It pours a dark chocolate colour and straight away that coconut comes through, like liquid Bounty. One sip and I was in love. It’s great fun, it’s fresh, it’s different and the mix of fragrant coconut with roasty, chocolatey, dry porter is a complete revelation (the brewer is currently in the UK doing something for the Wetherspoons beer festival... look out for it, you’d be coco-nuts not to). Oskar Blues Ten Fidy is the A-list superstar of canned beer. It’s a 9.5% imperial stout and it pours a gorgeous inky brown with one of those creamy, dark heads that you want to spoon up and eat. The aroma is the intoxicating mix of doughy sweet bread, oatmeal, dark chocolate and berries. It’s richly full bodied, a fresh bread flavour kicks it off which gets darker and darker passing through toast, cream, chocolate and coffee, heading into cocoa-covered roasted berries. It’s as good an imperial stout as I’ve ever had.

I’d like to see canned craft beer in the UK. But I don’t think we are close to that yet. Tins of Hobgoblin and Green King IPA don’t count, I’m afraid, but I think there’s real potential for others. The mentality of drinking canned beer might be the biggest thing holding it back, but times are changing and there are many pros to canning beer - brewing is constantly in evolution, the world is changing, the need for more efficient practices are gaining importance and this is one thing that the beer industry can do. Not all breweries could succeed to begin but there are some who definitely could. Maybe it needs a new brewery to come in with a radical game-plan to try and shake things up a bit... Whatever happens, expect my Can Campaign to be on-going – We CAN do it!

And here’s some proof that 21st Amendment use fresh watermelons... We didn’t break into the brewpub, by the way, that’s Richard from Elizabeth Street Brewery and he was picking up a keg of beer for a party, which I went to. And yes, I did quote Dirty Dancing as this picture was being taken.

FABPOW! Beer and Burgers

My California trip was pretty much fuelled by burgers and hops. I felt that I had already gained a good understanding of a successful burger (and of course the accompanying chips, for a burger without chips is like a Corona without the lime) but now I know its fundamental importance.

The first clue was being asked how you want your meat cooked, which aside from a terrible euphemism, is a great question of a burger; the day McDonalds ask that question to me is the day I’ll pass under the Golden Arches for anything more than a McFlurry. The standard is medium-rare which is perfect for me; charred on the outside and blush in the middle. The bread ranged from cake-sweet and heavy to the freshest seed-topped bun going. Accompaniments always included lettuce (essential), tomato (essential) and gherkins (essential) and ketchup, mustards and mayonnaise are on the side. Cheese was almost always present, but that’s because I ordered it to be there. Any number of extras can be added from the menu (bacon, Cajun, mushrooms, blue cheese – the burger lists are as long as the beer lists). Chips, an art in themselves, ranged from thin fries to proper unpeeled fat little fingers.

These burgers always came with a beer, or beers. There was: an Alesmith IPA (picture directly above); a Lagunitas IPA; a Russian River Supplication (because I was feeling particularly lavish); a kegged Spud Boy’s IPA (in Magnolia, pictured at the very top - that was a particularly good one); a flight of Marin beers; and a flight of Bear Republic beers (plus a pint of Racer 5). The wonderful beauty of the burger is that it will work with any beer, and by this I literally mean any beer. The bread, the meat, the cheese, the sweet-sour-hot sauces, the chips; together they create a mouthful of flavour which compliment whatever beer you have. Big hops, imperial stouts, sours, delicate milds, golden ales, anything you like. Having a couple of flights of beers proved this. But if I had to choose just one beer, or just one style, then it’s going to be the American IPA. We’re talking something 7-8%, dosed with a decent level of caramel sweetness and packed with fruity, citrusy hops (not tongue-splitting bitter, though). The malt matches the meat, cheese and bread, the hops balance the cheese and provide a fruitiness to mirror the sauces and the salad and the cool fizz washes it all away. For me, Alesmith IPA and Racer 5 were the best pairings – the beers are delicate while still packing a significant punch of flavour (and they happen to be two of the best IPAs out there). In the UK, where the beers asren’t available, I’d go with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Flying Dog Classic Pale Ale or Dogfish Head 60 or 90 Minute.

I really want a burger now; a big, fat, juicy, finger-licking stack of meat, bread and cheese. I’d take one of those beers on the side too. A glorious FABPOW.

I want a brewpub

I want a brewpub. A US-style, beer-brewed-out-the-back-and-poured-out-the-front place, with good food and good music. I want to be able to walk into the bar and see the brewer working, I want to be able to smell the fresh hops and the sticky-sweet wort, I want glass behind the bar so you can see the fermentation tanks, I want a line of taps on the bar serving the freshest beer possible. I want a decent line-up of site-brewed beer, a range of styles, a few regulars and a few specials. I also want guest taps of some of the best beer around. I’d happily serve this from the cask and keg and I’d want a good bottle selection for drinking here or taking out. For food, it’d be classic beer sponges: fantastic burgers, sandwiches, chillis, stews, curries, plus a selection of cheeses and chocolates. And I want all of this in London.

I wanted this before I went to California but now I want it even more. In the UK we just don’t do brewpubs the same way (and if there are any like that then tell me, because I want to go). Marin Brewing Company and Bear Republic are the ones which grabbed me the most. You walk in and you smell freshly brewing beer. Behind the bar you can see the tall silver tanks. Both had between 9-16 of their own beers on. Both served large food menus. Both served wonderful beer, super fresh. We got tours of the breweries and the set-ups are similar, although Bear Republic, who have rapidly become one of my favourite breweries, also have two other sites to make their beer, one just across the complex and the other a short drive away. As far as I remember, Bear Republic serve their Racer 5 direct from the tank and it was wonderful, I also got some Citra single-hopped Rebellion straight from the tank which was just delicious (the first time I’d had the Citra hop on its own and it’s bloody lovely – peaches, apricots, tropical fruit) and the stack of barrels aging out the back filled with treats. The lasting memory of Marin, aside from Arne and Kim the brewers, is their Point Ridge Porter, which was one of the best beers of the trip - a velvety, roasty, dark chocolate and smoke-filled beer, modest at 6% but punching above its weight in flavour (I had a bottle last weekend, which I'll likely write about soon). Neither of these bars are in San Francisco city. Marin is a short boat ride away and Bear Republic is a longer drive (which passes Russian River on the way there and/or back and that's another great brewpub with a beer-geek's dream line-up on tap and a teasing tower of oak barrels out the back). Both (all, including Russian River) are essential beer stops in North California, I think.

I want a brewpub. I want to serve great beer in a great place and have people leave my bar feeling the same way as I felt when I left Marin and Bear (happy, that is, not drunk). One day...

I wrote this last week but it ties in neatly with the question Woolpack Dave is asking on his blog about the place you’d want to open if you could. And the top two images are Bear and the bottom three are Marin. That's Kim the brewer. He's a cool guy.

My Englishman’s Survival Guide to Beer in San Francisco

1. Drink lots of water. This is essential.

2. Don’t joke with customs. They don’t have a sense of humour, they don’t understand irony or sarcasm and they carry guns.

3. The first bar will be overwhelming. Go with an exact idea of what you want. If your first stop is the Toronado (which it almost certainly should be), then know exactly what you want when you get to the bar and don’t be a dithering Englishman. Those barmen don’t find it cute.

4. Your first beer will taste like nectar and you’ll drink it in no time. The second will be equally as good. After travelling all day, and with your body still being on English time, the third pint (which is of course an 8% IPA, as the other two have been) will render your legs and mouth useless.

5. You have to tip. This is silly, I know, but customary. When they slap your change down on the bar just leave a dollar there or they won’t serve you in a hurry next time, even if you are sitting at the bar waving a fistful of fresh dollars at them.

6. Jet lag is a bitch. Waking up at 4am with a bastard of a hangover in a horrible, cheap little room with no fresh air is no fun. Sleep is very important or the full effects of the beer will hit you harder. Drink Red Bull and eat bananas.

7. Nearly every beer is over 9% in alcohol. This does not make for session beer so do not treat it that way. A pint of 10.5% Double IPA with lunch might seem like a good idea at the time, but watch out.

8. Eat lots. I took the approach that a sandwich per beer was adequate.

9. Don’t sit on your girlfriend’s camera in City Beer Store and break the screen on the first day. She won’t be very happy and you can’t see the pictures you are taking, meaning that most of those wonderful shots you thought you got are in fact out of focus or missing people’s heads.

10. Everywhere will offer you a taster of their beer. Utilise this freely but don’t take the piss. Eight samples is not cool unless you want to buy a couple of pints and will tip freely.

11. Sample trays are great but they are not to be treated in the same way as a tray of shooters. Plus, although it might look like little pours, 16 2oz servings adds up to two pints.

12. Everyone gives you water, especially if they see you stumbling around with blood-shot eyes. But be warned, if you speak like me not many Californians understand ‘water’. One reply, at the Double IPA festival, was (in an incredulous tone), ‘No, we don’t have any porter’, with a silent ‘you douchebag, don’t you know where you are?’

13. The BART transport system is easy to use. The MUNI is not. Take good walking trainers and not an old pair of Converse. Also take a good map. And preferably a phone with Google Maps.

14. The bottled beer selection in many stores is mind-blowing. Try not to get over-excited or you get weird looks as you are taking photos of the beer in Whole Foods at 8am because you can’t sleep thanks to the jet lag. Buying $50 worth of strong, rare beer at 8.30am also gets weird looks.

15. Almost everyone talks to themselves out loud in San Francisco. Do as the locals do and no one bothers you.

16. Smoke actually comes out of grates in the street. This is cool.

17. Breakfast is split between a few choices: pancakes and syrup; omelettes; fried meat, eggs and potatoes; or all of the above on one plate.

18. If you are wasted by 3pm then you are in for a rough afternoon and evening. Looking for a pint of sub-4% mild is fruitless. Get some water.

19. Burgers are universally wonderful. Eat as many as you can.

20. Brewpubs are awesome. The smell of wort and fresh hops is just about the most welcoming smell there is.

21. Over-sized backpacks filled with jumpers and coats and water and other survival essentials are not well received at busy, cramped beer festivals.

22. People ask ‘where are you from?’ a lot. When you say London they say things like ‘Ooh, expensive’, or ‘I love London’. Most people are interested in talking to you, especially if you like good beer, which is nice.

23. The view of San Francisco from Alcatraz is great. The Alcatraz tour is also good if you fancy some beer-free time.

24. Beer is not cheap but dollars are like Monopoly money and you are on holiday so it’s okay.

25. Don’t buy 20 bottles of beer when you don’t know how to get them home.

26. Take a spare, smaller suitcase in your luggage and fill this on the return journey with beer and bubble wrap. It’s cheaper than shipping beer to yourself (although, somehow through a locked case, customs checked my bag and left a note to say they’d opened it and then locked it back up again).

27. If you didn’t take your girlfriend with you, and you broke her camera, then buy a very nice present to make up for it. Also, girlfriends like bar mats so take them as many as possible.

28. Sit by the window on the right-hand side of the plane flying home – the view is simply stunning.

29. The flight home is horrible and it can be made worse if they show The Invention of Lying.

30. You will miss San Francisco, the beer and the cool people when you get home. You will start saving straight away to return.

UPDATE: 31: I forgot to mention the difficult task that is ordering eggs. 'How do you want your eggs?' They ask. 'Fried and with a runny yolk', I reply, obviously. Cue blank stares from the waitress. Seriously, research methods of cooking eggs, find your favourite and remember it. Failing that just say scrambled.

A bitch of a week so far

This week has been crazy: work has been nuts; a presentation of the communications plan to all the managers at the college last thing tomorrow; an email inbox that won’t stop growing; too many meetings; the car failed its MOT, got an expensive repair, had to have the re-test abandoned and go back to the garage for another expensive repair, which has meant running around like a blue-arsed fly; I'm stressed; I’m tired; I haven’t written; I have nothing to write; I’ve been washing up, washing clothes, ironing and packing all evening; I haven’t spent enough time with Lauren; I’ve spent too much time looking at beer lists and Beer Week events; I don’t know what’s for dinner tomorrow; I can barely tell my arse from my elbow; I’m almost certain I’ve forgotten something very important; I have no cereal for breakfast tomorrow; I’m worried about taking pencils on the plane in case they are judged as weapons and I have to throw them away; I have discovered that I only own four pairs of white socks; I have a headache; I can’t decide which books to take away with me; I don’t know what the MUNI is but I expect to spend a lot of time on it in the next week; I’m going to miss Lauren a lot; I’m going to miss sitting at my laptop writing a lot; I don’t know what to have for breakfast tomorrow instead of cereal; what if the bottles in my luggage smash; how many notepads do I need; should I shave; have I got enough clean pants; what time do I need to leave for the airport on Thursday; how many pairs of shoes do I pack; what can you do on a two-hour lay-over in Frankfurt; what if my hotel is in a dodgy area; what if I get drunk and lost; what if I forget to tip a barman; what if I meet a bunch of internet beer-nutters who just want me for my Penguins; what if I don't sleep on the plane; what if someone steals my money; where is...; what’s the best way...; what if... Oh dear... I’ve just realised I’m a bad and nervous traveller.

Thankfully, I’ve just finished a Flying Dog Raging Bitch which has got me in the mood for awesome beer. It’s incredibly fruity, like dunking your nose in apricot jam or a bowl of fresh peaches; it’s juicy like pineapple; esters swirl around beneath bitter hops; something phenolic lingers. I thought it’d be better than it is (it had hype), to be honest, but it’s still good. The spoiling factor is an elastic-band twang. It makes me want more beer.

FYI: This will probably be my last post before San Francisco (did I mention I'm going?) but I will be blogging daily via email on my blackberry, so expect it to be an extended version of twitter complete with blurry photographs, terrible grammar and woeful, drunk spelling. Still, at least it’ll be a fair reflection of a beery travelogue.

US Beer Trip, Anyone?

I’ve been working on a plan to go to the US for a couple of days now. I’m going to drink as much awesome beer as possible and I want to do it properly (plus it's my first beer trip Stateside). There are so many places I want to go but I have to limit myself this time. This is my current plan...

Fly to San Francisco for Saturday 13th February. I’ll catch the end of SF Beer Week. On the Saturday I’ll chill out, wander around, so to some bars, drink new beer and just get generally over-excited about where I am and what I’m doing. There’s a barley wine festival on but it’s not my favourite style and I wouldn’t want to spend an evening drinking it. On the 14th is the Celebrator Best of the West beer festival which ends the Beer Week, so I’ll be there. On the Monday I’ll mooch around, do the tourist things, drink a few more beers. Then I will go north, possibly Monday evening. This will give me two days to visit Russian River, Lagunitas, Bear Republic and wherever else. Then back to San Francisco airport and fly to Boston (I’ve found decent airfare for doing the trip as three single journeys – £525ish) on 18th for the Extreme Beer Festival (why not, eh?!) and some more drinking around in some bars (doing the West Coast and East Coast in one trip). Then fly home on Sunday 21st.

What do you think? Anyone done these before? What things should I be doing? What should I be drinking and where?

And, anyone fancy coming along for the trip?! Or part of it? I think there will be a few people in Boston when I’m there. I’m arranging to meet some people at different stages of the trip too. Hopefully there’ll be familiar faces and names at each stage, which will be very cool. I hope to book up the flights in the next few days. The rest I'll worry about after.