Beverage Manufacturing

New Law Could Let Distillers Charge For Booze Tastings

New Bill Would Allow Distillers to Charge For On-Site Tastings

St. George Spirits used to sell glassware -- and offer a complimentary taste of their spirits with a glass purchase. The reason? It's against the law for distillers to charge for tastings and sell bottles at their distilleries, like brewers and vintners can. Although the Alcohol and Control Board r ... More >>

Budweiser, Corona Sued in San Francisco

This suit's for youFriday is a good day for beer and, today, it's a great one for lawsuits regarding beer. Attorney Joe Alioto tells SF Weekly that, this afternoon, he'll make a federal case out of a proposed multi-billion dollar deal to merge two of the world's yellowest beers, Budweiser and Corona ... More >>

Drink 2013: Small Batch is the Second Coming of Local Wine

New Albion: Historic Local Ale Comes Back to Life

Beer of the Week: Boston Beer Company Revives Historic New Albion Ale

All right class, it's time for a history lesson. Can anybody tell me which brewery is acknowledged as the first modern microbrewery in the United States? If you answered New Albion Brewing Company, you get an A. Does somebody know where the brewery was located? Yes, right in our backyard in Sonoma! ... More >>

Monk's Kettle Turns Five and Throws a Party (Today!)

We remember when Monk's Kettle was knee-high to a grasshopper. Five years into their run as one of SF's first beer-centric restaurants, and they've never been more on top of their game. In half a decade, the menu at Monk's has taken on a refined yet rustic personality, and the vintage beer list cont ... More >>

Learn to Homebrew at 18 Reasons

Ever dreamed of making beer for a living? We have too. And we would, if it weren't for the long hours, heavy lifting, and overabundance of beards. The truth is, brewing beer on a commercial scale can be a tiresome gig, and most brewers aren't showered in riches (unless you count the beer, of course) ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Shake Ridge Red

​In Champagne, most big-name "houses" buy their grapes from multiple growers and blend them to achieve consistency -- Veuve is Veuve whenever you drink it. But if you talk to Somms in the city, you'll most likely find that they favor grower-producers, those wine makers who grow their grapes. Latel ... More >>

Meet Our Masterminds: Eric Cohen and Eliane Lima

The economy sucks, but we don't care -- the Bay Area is home to artists so talented they deserve to take over the world. That's why the Masterminds grants are given to three local and emerging artists who need that little push to become even more awesome. SF Weekly has narrowed down the potential w ... More >>

Shmaltz Brewing's Jeremy Cowan Comes Home for His Beer Book Reading

​What: Beer Beer Book Reading Where: City Beer Store When: Sat., December 3, 4-7 p.m. Cost: Free The rundown: Shmaltz Brewing proprietor Jeremy Cowan, author of the newly released Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah: How It Took 13 Years, Extreme Jewish Brewing, and Circus Sideshow Freaks to Make Sh ... More >>

America's Cup: Booze and Boating Unite!

Wine and yachts -- an American traditionWine and yachts go together like PBR and fixies. So you knew this was coming. The organizers of the forthcoming America's Cup and Napa Valley Vintners today announced that Napa will be the "Official Wine Region of the 34th America's Cup." Those toting in forei ... More >>

California Vintners Infusing Wine with Pot

Wharman/FlickrApparently, it's an easy match with California's other favorite mood altering crop. In a Gourmet Live article last week, Matthew Kronsberg let the Internet in on a little secret that California wine geeks have known for a while: A few of our winemakers are tossing a few ounces of bud ... More >>

Joanna Karlinsky and Popups Take Over Food at the Winemakers' Speakeasy

Joanna Karlinsky/FacebookJoanna Karlinsky, in her Meetinghouse days.​Joanna Karlinsky, former chef-owner of Pacific Heights' much-loved Meetinghouse, has been looking for a permanent venue since closing up Sweet Jo's, her cafe in the Presidio JCC, last year. For the past two months, she's been ser ... More >>

Tolosa Shows What Chardonnay Smells Like Without Oak

​Earlier this year I attended a fascinating seminar, led by a perfumer, at Tolosa Winery in San Luis Obispo County. Over the course of several mentally exhausting hours, we learned by blind-whiffing essential oils exactly what many of the descriptors we use all the time smell like. For examp ... More >>

Family Winemakers Show Offers More Wine Than You Can Handle

Foodgal.com​Family Winemakers of California Tasting Where: Fort Mason Center When: Sunday, Aug. 21, 3-6 p.m. Cost: $65 advance, $75 at the door We can drink a lot of wine, but we find the Family Winemakers of California annual tasting overwhelming, in a good way. There's always about 50 times ... More >>

Drink Oakland Wine at the Urban Wine Xperience

Michelle Locke/Palate PressUrban Legend Cellars is one of more than 20 wineries that make wine in Oakland​East Bay Vintners' Alliance 6th Annual Urban Wine Xperience Where: Jack London Pavilion, 1 Broadway, Oakland When: Saturday, Aug. 6, 2-5 p.m. Cost: $40 A lot of wine is consumed in San Fr ... More >>

Napa Winemaker Came from Sports Illustrated for Kids

This is another little extra for this week's review of Bar Tartine in the print edition: an interview with the man who made one of the most impressive wines on the restaurant's very interesting wine list. Liza GershmanDan Petroski​When I called Dan Petroski to ask him how he managed to make M ... More >>

A Field Guide to Sustainable and Delicious Dry Farmed Wines

Whole lotta irrigation goin' on in Napa.​Irrigation is plainly a function of the modern world. Though the ancient Romans built spectacular gravity-driven aqueducts, drip irrigation for agriculture was not invented until the late 1960s in Israel, and only in the 1970s did water-bearing pipes a ... More >>

City Beer Store Celebrates Five Boozy Years

Jason HenryWanderer, Rouge Baril Baltique, and Open Container, all brewed to mark City Beer Store's fifth anniversary.​With the proliferation of local beer bars, gastropubs, and grassroots brewing operations, it's easy to forget how much our beery landscape has changed in five short years. The ... More >>

Drink 2011: In Craft Brewing, the Meek Inherit the Earth

Tasting Petite Sirah, California's Little Big Wine

Alastair BlandTasting panelists Noah P. and Eleni K. strike a pose with the Petite empties.​It was born in 1880, and four years later came to California. But for another 80, almost nobody knew it. Petite Sirah is one of California's historical vines and among the earliest varieties introduced ... More >>

Old Oak Becomes Almanac Beer Co., Plans February Release

Almanac Beer Co.​When Brian Yaeger introduced SFoodie readers to Old Oak Beer Co. a couple months back, the much-anticipated "farm-to-barrel" ale was waiting patiently in oak wine barrels, mingling with fresh Sonoma County blackberries. While nothing has changed about the beer company's vision ... More >>

Are Liquor Companies Stealing S.F.'s Best Bartenders As 'Brand Ambassadors'?

Brandywine HartmanNeyah White left the bar at Nopa to work for Suntory Japanese whisky.​As a career choice, bartending has seen historic ups and downs. It was a genuine profession in the 19th century, an outlaw one during Prohibition. And up until recently, tending bar was a gig you held down ... More >>

Winemakers Pouring Into S.F. Next Month for Golden Glass

Slow Food San FranciscoThe yearly Slow Food fundraiser attracts a crush of international winemakers.​Clear your calendar, Slow Food-slash-wine geeks: the Golden Glass is due next month. This is the seventh year for the swirl of sustainable grapes and noshes, the primary fundraiser for Slow Foo ... More >>

S.F.'s Iconic Anchor Brewery Sold to Marin Investment Company

Jesse Friedman/Beer & NoshFritz Maytag revived the Anchor Brewing Co., keeping operations in S.F.​Noah Galuten of our sister blog in L.A. is among a handful of sources reporting this afternoon that local craft beer pioneer Anchor Brewing Co. has been sold to The Griffin Group, a Novato-based i ... More >>

A Winery ― on Treasure Island? Taste for Yourself This Saturday

Treasure Island WinesWinery tour may include dog.​Treasure Island may sound like the most unlikely place for a winery, but the more you think about it, the location makes sense: cheap warehouse space, bay-cooled climate, easy access to vineyards and drinkers. One of the island's few urban wineries ... More >>

Sunday: Drink Hyper-Local Wines, Donate to Ultra-Local Libraries

JoeyWan/Flickr​Large-scale wine tastings are an odd sort of bacchanal: On one side of the hundreds of tables stand industry reps from around the country, politely pouring tastes and repeating their talking points until they're hoarse. On the other side of the table, the ticket-holders stand three ... More >>

Crushpad Leaving Dogpatch for the Napa Valley

InfodivaMLIS B./YelpThe custom winemaker is gettin' the hell out of Dogpatch.​S.F. wine writer W. Blake Gray dropped the news on his blog yesterday that DIY winemaking company Crushpad is leaving its facility in Dogpatch (2573 Third St. at 22nd St.) for more idyllic surroundings in the Napa Va ... More >>

California Craft Brewers Represent at the Fancy Food Show

B. YaegerFirestone-Walker Brewing's Brandon Borgel, part of the California brewski cointingent.​For three days (Jan. 17-19), Moscone Center is so full of munchies, it's like a stoner's wet dream. The National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT) is in the midst of producing the 35t ... More >>

Drink the Way the Good Lord Intended: Wine Week Celebrates All-Natural Vino

R. LauristonTerroir: Talking up the benefits of natural.​If you're a bit fuzzy on the term "natural wine," you're not alone. Here's a brief explanation, just in time for the San Francisco Natural Wine Week (August 24-30). Natural wine is similar in principle to biodynamic and organic wines, p ... More >>

Dine About Town

Two new books explore wine bootlegging during Prohibition

A Glass of Flowers: Ferry Plaza Pinot Noir Tasting Explores Sonoma's Terroir

jspatchwork via FlickrFlowers Pinot Noir: Where Burgundy meets SonomaFrench winemakers are always talking about terroir, that elusive term that can't really be translated into English, or, for that matter, into American concepts about viticulture. Terroir encompasses all the environmental factors th ... More >>

Wine & Beer Events, April 3-11

Saturday's all about the East Bay.

As Economy Leaves Us Crying Into Our Beer, Local Brewery Laughing Its Way to the Bank

Your untaxed dollars at play: Schmaltz Brewing is reporting record sales, despite a crap economyWhen the current financial crunch rumbled into the big time late last year, 499 of the Fortune 500 companies' experienced plummeting stock prices. The one that didn't? Campbell's Soup. The notion of futur ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Voodoo on the Vine

The origins of the increasingly popular Biodynamic wine are steeped in the occult and bad science.

Wine Elites?

Cellar Rat: Week One at Unti Vineyards

Largest Tasting of California Wines in the World!

Music from Big Pink

California Wine-O Efficiency Act

Transmutation and Transformation at Dinner

Bike Rodeo Clowns

Discount Dynasty

After scoring big with "Two Buck Chuck," renegade vintner Fred Franzia once again has Napa Valley's wine burghers in an uproar

The Grapes of Mirth

Jonathan Nossiter's wine documentary is subversive, funny, and humane

Wine Brats

They're young! They're rich! They'll drink anything!

Dish