IPA ICE CREAM AND OTHER TREATS
10 one-of-a-kind beers celebrate evolving S.F. Brewers Guild
At the 10th annual San Francisco Beer Week, which begins Friday, Feb. 9, you’ll find 10 collaboration beers — one-time-only creations made collectively by brewers from different regions around the Bay Area and Santa Cruz County. For those counting, that’s an impressive nine more official event beers than last year.
These 10 beers are a celebration of a behind-the-scenes evolution in Bay Area craft beer: Joanne Marino, executive director of the San Francisco Brewers Guild, is hoping to bring all of the region’s craft breweries — there are close to 200 — into the organization.
The plan is for the guild to expand from its current 30-member, city-defined association to one with five regional chapters, advocating collectively for independent breweries in San Francisco, the North Bay, the South Bay, the East Bay and the Santa CruzMonterey Bay area.
In past years, guild members have usually created a single collaboration beer for Beer Week. This year’s 10 brews run the gamut from a coffee-smoked porter (East Bay), to a saison with nonpsychoactive cannabis terpenes (San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood), to an IPA with oranges, tangerines and grapefruit (South Bay). These Beer Week-backed collaboration brews serve both as simulacrums for intra-industry camaraderie and as arguments for why the entire Bay Area region should be considered a worldclass beer destination.
“Beer Week has provided this region with substantial attention over the years. It’s a marketing machine,” Marino says. “When we’re unified as a region, we really have a strong voice as establishing the greater Bay Area as the heart of craft beer.”
As breweries proliferate nationwide, and as San Francisco real estate grows more expensive, the city has ceased to be the central hub of regional beer production. However, many beer companies in Bay Area satellite communities don’t have strong local associations to represent their endemic interests. There is the California Craft Brewers Association, which fights for breweries statewide, but it can’t meet breweries’ varying regional business needs.
That’s where the San Francisco Brewers Guild aims to step in. By extending its membership boundaries, the guild can promote the local industry by championing its products and also addressing issues exclusive to the Bay Area.
There is an encouraging precedent. The growth of the San Diego Brewers Guild to more than 120 members, many outside the city proper, has been a boon to its local economy, according to a case study by the city, especially during its annual beer week. While it’s not known how much San Francisco Beer Week generates for the region, it increased business for 87 percent of participating businesses last year, a guild survey found. Regional unification and promotion of Bay Area beer could mean greater industry vitality during Beer Week and year-round.
It’s going to take a lot of work to get there. “Our whole structure will have to evolve,” Marino says. She has enlisted the help of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business to formulate a plan.
The proposal has a few immediate, but cautious, fans. Greg Coll, general manager at Fogbelt Brewing in Santa Rosa, has long sought to foster an alliance of North Bay breweries. The issue in the past was a lack of funding, so when the guild reached out, it seemed that support from the “home base” was just what they’d need.
“Once the fires (in October 2017) happened, it wasn’t a priority, but now the community is moving forward again,” Coll says. “I think it’s more important than ever, not just for the beer industry but for the community as a whole.”
That North Bay community gathered recently at HenHouse in Santa Rosa to brew its collaboration beer, a West Coast-style IPA. HenHouse co-founder Collin McDonnell is just as excited as Coll about the prospect of joining the San Francisco Brewers Guild. McDonnell learned to brew from industry vets at 21st Amendment in San Francisco and Drake’s in San Leandro, and he embraces the opportunity to align with mentors and other brewers.
“Anything we can do as a group to attract more tourism ... I think it’s great,” he says. “I came up in a really collaborative set of breweries who saw the benefit in growing the community. This feels like an extension of that to me.”
For J.C. Hill, co-founder of Alvarado Street Brewery in Monterey — the self-described “noman’s land” between the bay and the Central Coast — participation in Beer Week wouldn’t have happened without the guild. The brewery also contributed to its region’s collaboration beer, a seasalted caramel stout.
“It’s great to be lumped in with the brewers in the greater Bay Area,” Hill says. “We’re happy, we’re honored to be part of (it) and we think it will represent us well in various events.”
Marino estimates it could be “months, possibly years” before they “get governance and infrastructure, nuts and bolts figured out.” Until then, some breweries have been “wait and see.”
For example, Alex Wallash, co-founder of Berkeley’s the Rare Barrel, says: “I think it’s definitely going to be challenging to organize a large number of breweries over a pretty large geographical area.” But if it goes through, he adds, “I’m also optimistic that this could bring our community closer together.”