San Francisco Homebrewers Guild

The SFHG is keeping the hits coming! Check it out:

It’s a Homebrew Inferno! The San Francisco Homebrewer’s Guild is continuing our series of great Homebrew Shares but with a twist! This time we’re teaming up with Brewlab SF and one of SF’s best new craft beer bars that you really need to check out, Pizza Inferno in the Fillmore! Join us as the homebrewers from SF’s two premier homebrew organizations get introduced, geek out on homebrewing, and show off their goods. This promises to be the biggest Share yet and Inferno’s open and sunny space will be perfect for it! We’ll be awarding prizes for the People’s Choice beer, everyone gets a vote so make sure to bring enough homebrew to share with everyone (it’s hard to win if only 10 people get to try your beer!). We’ll also have a raffle to raise money so the SF Homebrewer’s Guild and Brewlab SF can keep bringing you excellent events and purchase needed equipment.

The details:
* How much: $15 gets you all the Inferno pizza you can eat.
* Homebrew requirement: We ask that each homebrewer bring at least two 22 oz or four 12 oz bottles of homebrew to share (bring more if you want to have a shot at the People’s Choice award). Each homebrewer can also bring a guest.
* Where: Pizza Inferno, 1800 Fillmore St (between Sutter St & Bush St), San Francisco, CA 94115.
* When: Saturday, June 2nd from 12pm to 3pm.
* Bonus: Stay afterward to take advantage of the amazing tap lineup offered by our fabulous host, Pizza Inferno!

Meet the Homebrewer: Elizabeth Street Brewery, 10:00 AM to about 3:00 PM on April 22nd

Richard Brewer-Hay of Elizabeth St Brewery (ESB!) won a gold medal at the 2010 World Beer Cup for his Imperial Jack, brewed in collaboration with 21st Amendment, so I probably don’t need to tell you that he’s an elite homebrewer. A limited number of lucky SFHG members will get to hang out with Richard for a full brew day. The brew session, which will be conducted on his gorgeous brew sculpture, will last five or six hours. Richard will discuss his brewing techniques and answer any questions. We’ll also grill up some goodies and sample a couple of Richard’s homebrews from his tap system in the Elizabeth St Brewery pub (seriously!). Richard’s home is truly his castle, but that doesn’t mean it can fit more than twenty SFHG members in it on brew day.

We’re using this opportunity to help get our initial membership drive going – we’re allotting the 20 spaces for this Meet the Homebrewer event to those who are willing to take the leap and join the SFHG. Membership to the SFHG is $45/yr and includes a growing list of great perks including 10% off at SF Brewcraft, invitations to SFHG member-only event, and first dibs on tickets to SFHG events for which space is limited. Become an SFHG member and get your ticket to Meet the Homebrewer!  http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/240070

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The SFHG is bringing you a ton of awesome events and opportunities this April, below is one of them. We’ve been blown away by the response to our previous events, especially last weekend when we packed Speakeasy within minutes of them opening their doors and Brewmaster Kush had to give two separate tours of the brewery for the crowd! The way we figure it is that if the people are hungry for homebrew events, the SFHG will deliver! So check it out:

SFHG Homebrew Share at Pi Bar, Noon to 3:00 PM on April 15th
The SFHG is teaming up with one of SF’s premier craft beer purveyors for a Homebrew Share! We had an awesome crowd and many amazing brews at the Share we did at Pi during SF Beer Week and the same can be expected this time. We’ll be awarding a ribbon for People’s Choice, everyone gets a vote, so definitely bring enough homebrew to share with everyone. We’ll also have another raffle to raise money so the SFHG can keep bringing you excellent events and purchase needed equipment. $15 gets you in plus all the pizza and salad you can eat.

Volunteer to pour beer at the SF Int’l Beer Festival at Fort Mason, Sat April 28th 6:00-11:00 PM

The SFHG is setting up a booth at the huge and completely SOLD OUT SF International Beer Fest to help spread the homebrew gospel. You can help the SFHG and the festival organizers by volunteering to pour beer for one of your favorite breweries. Check out this list of breweries that are going to be on hand - http://www.sfbeerfest.com/beer.html! That’s no joke! While their run-of-the-mill volunteers are serving corn dogs, the SFHG volunteers will be pouring great craft beer because the Festival organizers know that we’re a beer savvy lot. Regular attendees will be paying $65 each to get in the door. The festival needs good volunteers and we will be expected to work the whole time, but it’s sure to be fun and of course there will be lots of beer flowing. If you want to commit to volunteering at the festival, pick your top five breweries you’d like to pour for and the festival organizers will do their best to get you at one of them. Email if you’re interested and we’ll shoot you their basic volunteer form to fill out.

UPDATE: All the SFHG volunteers had a great time at the SF International Beer Festival! Check out some pics from the event below – my favorite is the crowd at the gates only moments before an air horn was blown and they all charged the beer tables like a medieval army in a movie!

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The San Francisco Homebrewer’s Guild has teamed up with Speakeasy Brewery for our next event – a behind the scenes tour of the Speakeasy brew house. This is a rare opportunity to check out the brewery with Speakeasy’s Master Brewer, Kushal Hall, who will be on hand to show us the equipment, discuss his brewing process, and talk shop about the techniques and ingredients he uses to craft the fantastic Speakeasy brews.

The tour will be from 4-6 PM on Saturday, March 24th. The Speakeasy tap room will remain open until 9:00, so after the tour we can hang out and have a few pints together.

What: Tour Speakeasy’s Brewery with Master Brewer Kushal Hall

More event announcements are on the way soon, including the launch of a “Meet the Homebrewer” event series where we’ll invade the homes of some of the Bay Area’s best homebrewers for a brewday and homebrew share.

Homebrewers having a good time!

The Homebrew Share at Pi was a total unmitigated success! The crowd completely packed Pi Bar (without it being unbearably full!) and we all got to sample dozens of fantastic homebrews, including several sours and lots of very creative beers made with ingredients including pumpkin, coffee, chocolate, persimmons, hibiscus, smoked tea, chipotle, chutney, and more. Many of those homebrewed beers could go up against pro beer any day. Thanks to Pi for hosting, thanks to all the raffle donors, and most of all thanks to all the homebrewers for bringing the good stuff! This first SFHG event showed us all one thing for certain — San Francisco is ready for a serious Homebrew Guild!

The SFHG banner made a great showing!

For a most excellent wrap-up on the event, check out Jen Rizzo’s write-up on it over at Pedals and Pints. This is my favorite bit from it:

I was just overwhelmed by the generosity and excitement of our homebrew community – people didn’t bring “what they had”, they brought what they were proud of. As a homebrewer myself, I could not have left feeling more inspired.

Actually, THIS is my most favorite bit for personal reasons:

Chris’ hibiscus rye saison made me want to go home and brew a clone immediately.

The SFHG is about to announce a bunch of great upcoming events, so stay tuned!

See more pics here on the SFHG Facebook page!

SFHG Homebrew Share