It’s American Craft Beer Week, and beer events to commemorate the week have been popping up throughout South Bay breweries and beer establishments. In San Jose, Hermitage Brewing Company is hosting a special tapping event at 4pm on May 15 at with four barrel-aged beers:…
Articles by Andy Lee
More than 1,200 people attended the inaugural Craft Beverage Expo in San Jose last week for three days of discussions, business development and networking opportunities.
Good beer in the South Bay continues its ascent, with many locally made, quality offerings available in bottles to give—or to get together and share.
He’s the laid-back yet hardworking senior engineering manager with a giving personality, and his partner is a popular yet humble brewer with a bundle of accolades to go with a quick wit. Tom Clark and Steve Donohue, respectively, joined forces in early 2012 to start Santa Clara Valley Brewing with the goal of opening their own brewery in San Jose, which would include a production facility and tap room. They hope for a late 2014 opening.
A growing number of folks are seeking out better beer by returning to their favorite spots or trying out new places, eager to enjoy a glass—or more—depending on the occasion. And in a continuing nod to the burgeoning craft beer landscape, respectable beer hubs are taking shape throughout the South Bay.
Owners Dan Phan and Johnny Wang opened Original Gravity Public House in downtown San Jose last July to much fanfare among local beer fans, and rightfully so. Their 25 rotating taps and bottled beer selections have been focal points since day one, and they have done much to help raise the profile of the South Bay beer scene.
Downtown Mountain View’s Tied House Microbrewery has a big reason to feel special this year. They poured their first pints back in January 1988, so 2013 marks their 25th anniversary year. The credit for their enduring run rests on the quiet yet very supportive leadership style of its founder, Lou Jemison, who opened Tied House after being inspired by the brewery restaurants that he visited during a trip to Germany in 1986.
Dan Gordon and Dean Biersch founded Gordon Biersch in 1988 with the goal of making the most authentic German-style lagers outside of Germany. Twenty-five years later, Gordon reflects, “I can’t believe it, actually. When Dean and I started, we never thought 25 years. Being here, having the brewery in San Jose where I was born in an area where I had my college job working in the canneries located around it, it’s so hard to believe that this actually happened.”
More beer fans are discovering the delights of the Single Hop Series from Hermitage Brewing Company, established in San Jose in 2009. The Single Hop Series is a line of IPA offerings that seeks to inform beer drinkers about hops, one of the essential ingredients in beer that produce many of its aromas and flavors.
More folks seem to be taking up homebrewing as a hobby based on feedback from local homebrew stores. The next step for some is exploring the possibility of joining a homebrew club. The American Homebrewers Association has a database of more than 1,000 registered homebrew clubs, including San Jose’s Almaden Brewers, Affinity Home Brewing Club, the Grain Trust and the longstanding Worts of Wisdom Homebrewers and Silicon Valley Sudzers, as well as Santa Clara’s the HeadQuarters and Santa Clara Valley Brewers.
