The Brookston Family Blog
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When we were at the Oyster BBQ in late April, Porter kept eyeing the taps expectedly. I’m not sure what he thought was coming out of them, but he was clealy fascinated.

Keeping his eye on the taps.

“This is the one I want.”

“I can do this.”

Perhaps he’d had one too many.

The end of last month, the family and I attended an Oyster BBQ put on by a local hombrew club. I was covering the event for a friend of mine for a book she’s writing on beer and food festivals. I just finished going through the photographs and writing the chapter. I’d forgotten there were a bunch of pictures of the family from the festival so that’s why it’s taken me so long to post them.

The picnic was hosted by the San Andreas Malts, a San Francisco homebrew club.

Porter had a blast running around this park in Pacifica. Here he sits on a cooler filled with oysters.

Sarah and Alice on our picnic blanket, each with their drink of choice.

Porter didn’t do a lot of walking from place to place.

Alice on top Mt. Mommy.

Alice also enjoyed strolling around on the grass.

As we were leaving, Porter picked a flower to give to Sarah.

Last weekend, the family and I met our friend Shaun for lunch at Marin Brewing in nearby Larkspur.

Me, Alice and Porter. Notice Alice is picking up a fork to play with.

I took the fork away, but she immediately went for the knife.

So I took the knife away and she wasn’t sure what to do next.

So she switched strategies and went after Sarah’s water.

Last week, Alice and I went to 21st Amendment again so that I could watch — and even pitch in a bit — on their new canning line.

Alice and I wait for Shaun to arrive so we can start the canning.

Shaun shows off the very first six-pack of 21st Amendment cans.

Which impresses Alice to no end.

Shaun shows us how he knows it’s the first six-pack.

If you want to see how the process actually works, check out my report on the beer blog.

I spent part of the weekend in Boonville for the 10th annual Boonville Beer Festival. Normally, Sarah and the kids accompany me for a family camping trip but they weren’t able to come this year because of Sarah’s fathers birthday on Saturday. I went up Friday night and then high-tailed it back home before the festival ended Saturday instead of staying overnight again so that I could also attend Lyman’s birthday dinner Saturday night.

Anderson Valley Brewery owner Ken Allen, beer salesman Ed Chainey, me, Ralph Olson, from HopUnion and Ken’s wife.

Me with Ralph Olson, Director of Craft Brewing Sales for the hop grower HopUnion.

Rod DeWitt, Director of Plant Engineering & Process Control for AVBC, who also took me on a little private tour.

Friends Arne Johnson, of Marin Brewing, and Melissa Myers, of Drake’s.

Tom Dalldorf, Celebrator publisher, taking the Rubicon kegerator bike for a spin.

The traditional marching band that opens the festivities posing just minutes before the festival opens.

Friends Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing, with Tom Dalldorf. Making a last minute decisions to attend, they arrived moments before the festival began.

Mike Altman from Iron Springs models the best hat of the festival.

If you’re interested, there are tons more pictures in four galleries over on the beer blog.

Yesterday while Porter was at his Montessori, Alice and I drove into San Francisco to pick up a six-pack of the new 21st Amendment Watermelon Wheat in cans that I needed for a beer tasting tonight. It was fun seeing friends and having a few beers. And Alice had a great time gnawing on the watermelon slices.

21A brewer Shaun, Joe, from Eldo’s Brewery, and Jen, from Magnolia.

Brewers Shaun and Joe.

Shaun, Joe and Jen drink a toast to the new cans.

Alice made fast friends with Jen.

Shaun gets his baby fix with Alice.

The Watermelon Wheat, now in cans.

Today we took Porter and Alice, to the Butter & Eggs Day Parade in Petaluma, California. Porter, of course, has been going through a farm animal phase and we though he would get to see a lot of horses and other animals in the parade. What we didn’t count on seeing was a float from Lagunitas Brewing Co. of Petaluma, though I suppose we should have. They had a flatbed truck with a band playing and all sorts of merriment going on. When the parade ended they kept on driving down the street, not stopping until they reached the Buckhorn Saloon, where I finally caught up with them for a drink.

The Lagunitas Float.

Pat Mace, a friend and salesman for Lagunitas at the Buckhorn Saloon after the parade.

Alice and I spent the morning in Fairfield visting the Ball Plant, a factory that manufactures soda and beer cans. My friends Shaun and Nico, who own the 21st Amendment brewpub are going to begin canning two of their beers, their Watermelon Wheat and their IPA. They invited me to watch the first cans being run at the plant. It was very cool and we had a thorough tour of the plant. By the time the tour was over, several pallets of empty beer cans for 21st Amendment were already done and in the warehouse. Putting beer in the cans should begin next week and I hope to be present to help out on the first day, too.

Shaun and Nico examine can proofs to ensure the color is just right.

Alice has red licorice for the first time.

She decided to put some in the beer cans.

21st Amendment cans on the line.

Nico and Shaun standing proudly in front of the first pallets of their new beer cans.

If you’re interested in seeing even more of the inside of a canning faciry, including some short movies, check out my beer blog.

After arriving in Seattle and registering at the conference, our first stop was Brouwer’s Cafe, a Belgian beer bar that was opened recently by the two Matts, who also own Bottleworks, a great beer-oriented store. They had 58 beers on tap, the vast majority of which were Belgian beers and the bottle list ran to four pages of small print! We ordered pomme frites and other yummy appetizers and settled down for several hours of enjoyment. My friend Pat, John and Henry’s Daddy, met me there after work for our boys’ Night Out.

I was thirsty so Pat and I tried to get a drink from the working replica of Belgian’s Manneken Pis fountain.

This morning, way freaking early, I’m off to Seattle for the annual Craft Brewers Conference. I’ll be staying with our friends, John and Henry’s parents, er … I mean Pat and Christi. The conference ends Friday and I’ll be staying an extra day to hang out with Christi and Pat, and also our friends Dave and Kara, who also live there now. Should be a blast.

I’ve known Tom since he was still at the beer distributor he founded, McCormick Distributing, which then, as now, promoted craft brewers and better imports. Tom has also worked as a consultant, with Wolaver’s and Real Beer, and now runs the ProBrewer website. He’s also recently accepted a position with the California Small Brewers Association. And more importantly, he has a beautiful daughter, Cate, who’s around Porter’s age.

At the CBC banquet with Nancy Johnson, director of the GABF.

Today is Dick Cantwell’s birthday. He’s the head brewer and co-owner of Elysian Brewing in Seattle, Washington. Happy birthday Dick.

Award-winning Portland beer writer Lisa Morrison and Dick Cantwell at an Elysian event during OBF.

Showing the proper way a hipster dons his chapeau.

Enjoying a pint at the Falling Rock in Denver during GABF week.

Working the judges at the Celebrator Swimsuit Contest at CBC in San Diego.

Today is Michael Jackson’s 64th birthday. I’ll be playing the Beatles’ When I’m 64 and having a pint of something yummy in his honor. I first met Michael in the early 1990s, shortly after Karen and my beer book was published. If you don’t know who this Michael Jackson is, he should be the more famous of the two. He is all but single-handedly responsible for the culture of better beer that exists today. He began writing about good beer in the 1960s and 70s and his writings influenced (and continue to influence) generations of homebrewers and commercial brewers, many of whom were inspired to start their own breweries. There are few others, if any, that have been so doggedly persistent and passionate about spreading the word about great beer. I know some of my earliest knowledge and appreciation of beer and especially its history and heritage came from Michael’s writings. Happy birthday Michael.

At the Great Divide Brewing’s media party in Denver over ten years ago.

At last year’s GABF, still wearing the same glasses. But my, oh my, have I changed. Sheesh.

I didn’t get back from poker last night until almost three in the morning. But I wasn’t too worried since today it was my turn to sleep in while Sarah watched the kids. We take turns on the weekend so at least once a week we each get a full night’s sleep.

Even in my foggy state when Sarah rushed into the bedroom around 6:30 or so and announced that she felt sick, it didn’t occur to me it was anything more than her having picked up whatever had Porter emptying his stomach the day before. I sleepily trooped downstairs to take over with the kids as I heard her paying homage to the porcelain god. So I was quite surprised to learn several hours later when I checked in on her that she was feeling terribly hungover. “Hungover?” I asked, perplexed. “What was in that Triple Exultation?” She replied. “Ha ha ha.” I started to laugh, feeling a little guilty since she was obviously in pain but being unable to control myself. She was referring to Eel River Triple Exultation. “That’s an Old Ale.” I explained. “Well I don’t know what an old ale is?” She retorted, undoubtedly miffed by my chuckling. “But you do know how to read?” I countered. “Because I think the world ‘triple’ should have been a clue.” I continued. “And it says 9.7% alcohol on the label.”

For the record, an old ale is one of the beers that is under the style category “strong ales,” of which barleywine is probably the best known example. It turns out Sarah finished one bottle of it and then opened a second. She sipped them throughout the evening, watching TV while I played poker, and was pretty much sedentary most of the evening. She didn’t realize she was drunk until about midnight, when she first stood up to head up to bed. They were 22 oz. bottles, so conservatively she had 33 ounces, possibly a little bit more. That’s roughly equivilent to drinking 1 1/3 bottles of wine by herself. So it’s no wonder I didn’t get to sleep in this morning. But I do hope she’ll be feeling better soon. Perhaps an afternoon nap will be in order.

I’ve been having a weird story unfolding on the beer blog today. I did a post yesterday that was something of a scoop. I saw a six-pack of a new beer from a new brewery called Green Valley Brewing Co. at the grocery store and it looked somewhat suspicious to me. So I did a little detective work and figured out it was a new beer from Anheuser-Busch that they had created to look like a microbrewed beer. My post essentially lays all that out and chides them for not being honest about the beer. Starting this morning, the beer blog has been visited by A-B five times and they’ve poked around reading my blog for over an hour, forty-five minutes in just one visit! It feels a little weird, almost like I’ve been violated somehow. Since A-B is notoriously litigious, I confess it makes me a little nervous. I talked to my editor over at the Marin IJ, since I knew he’d read it last night, and asked him if there was anything I needed to worry about. He was very reassuring that I’m on firm journalistic and legal grounds. I just hope A-B sees it that way, too. I don’t really relish any David and Goliath-like fights. Those of you who watch Chappelle’s Show will understand this reference. I’m not sure I want to be “just keeping it real.”

Update: A-B has visited my blog two more times this afternoon, the most recent time was spent reading my biography. I don’t mean to seem paranoid, but I actually am and I have that odd feeling in the pit of my stomach that something bad is about to happen. Sheesh.