Very Scary—Lots to Look Forward to in Early 2019

As I write this our containerload of foeders sits, awaiting shipping across the Bay, in the Port of Oakland.  Today had been floated as a possible delivery day, but now we’re hoping for tomorrow.  Once they arrive we’ll have to see first whether they’ll all fit though the door, and if not, where we’ll stick them temporarily as we await the fashioning of a large enough opening into the upcoming event space along 3^rd Street.  And then, a bit farther down the road, there’s where to put the coolship—it’s finished and ready to ship, we just aren’t quite ready to receive it. But enough about difficulty.  Once everything is here, the funky fun begins.

In the meantime, however, we’ve also got to get ready not just for SF Beer Week (Feb. 1-10) but the antecedent event jointly put on by Magnolia and 21^st Amendment, Strong Beer Month.  This year, for starters, we’re kicking off a new theme (imagine I’m holding a flashlight shining upward below my face in the dark): Monster Beers.  It’s kind of a no-brainer (as they say), given that all the beers are big and strong, many of them 10- or 11-per cent monsters in their own right, but where the poster is concerned (and hats off to the graphics crew at 21A, I must say) it’s actually a three-brainer, a sort of earthbound King Ghidorah, if you’re hip to the Kaiju canon.

Check this out.

A couple of Magnolia favorites have surfaced from the deeps and lagoons from whence they first arose, and while the potential effect of overindulgence might prove a scary prospect, their names are like the idyllic beginning of the movie before the monsters escape from the lab or arrive from outer space.  Promised Land Imperial IPA is back, in a version very similar to last year’s re-think of the longstanding classic, and a hefty blend of Old Thunderpussy barley wine and sour beer called Queen of the Underground will also be on offer beginning, along with all the rest, on February 1.  And then there are the featured creatures: King Koln Imperial Kolsch, Cucumber Constrictor Double Eclectic IPA, Brute Cocktail Imperial Tropical Eclectic IPA, Stop Motion Amburana-aged Imperial Stout and the collab we’re throwing together with our buds at 21A, a hazy and lightly smoky Imperial IPA called Smog Monster.  All these beers will pour as long as they last into the month, and once again devotees will have the opportunity either to buy or earn free a bitchin’ commemorative glass.  And as a special treat we’ll have a showing of a couple of classic monster movies we’ll decide on later on Wednesday, February 20^th at Dogpatch. And since it was so much fun during Eclectic IPA month, we’re doing a beer school event on February 17^th at 21^st Amendment, mainly to showcase Shaun’s and Dick’s badinage.

And then (pause for breath-catching), there’s SF Beer Week.  We’ll be bringing back a couple of tried-and-trues, partly because people always show up in reasonably well-mannered droves, but also because we love them just for ourselves.  So yes, Oysterfest is back, on Tuesday Feb. 5, with oysters offered both on the half-shell and in various ways that chef Roque comes up with.  Oyster Head Stout will be nip and tuck, so we’ll see about that.  And on Thursday, the 7^th, we’ll be doing Festival of Firkins, with a bunch of Magnolia beers served the natural way, alongside a hand-picked array of some of the Bay Area’s best real ale producers.  Nor will Dogpatch be left out of the fun.  On Wednesday, the 6^th, we’ll do a lobster vs. crab head-to-head with East Coast buddies Allagash Brewing—can’t wait to see what Laurance comes up with for the menu.  And on Friday, the 8^th, we’ll throw down with our local Brut IPA brethren for the first-ever (as far as we know) Brut IPA fest, called (you could have thought of this, but we did) Et Tu Brut.

There’s other stuff we’ll be up to, of course, at other accounts and in various combinations.  There will galas and tap takeovers, food-paired things and rare releases.  And when it’s over we’ll all be exhausted.