Last week, we discussed how many small breweries are evolving into hospitality-driven destinations where exceptional food, culture, and community come together around great beer. Apparently, we are not the only ones taking notice. Over the past few weeks, two Bay Area Brewers Guild member breweries received visits from some truly legendary figures, highlighting the growing cultural relevance of small breweries across the region. Foxtale Fermentation Project Welcomes the Mayor of Flavortown ...

Last week, we explored applied descriptive sensory, the practice of translating what you perceive into clear, specific language. That skill doesn’t just help you talk about beer more clearly. It’s also the first step toward unlocking one of beer’s greatest strengths: its unmatched versatility at the table. Simply put, beer is often the best beverage for the modern American diet. Today’s cuisine is bold. It’s spicy, rich, acidic, smoky, umami-driven, and often layered with multiple flavors and ...

Brewers don’t just taste beer for pleasure. They taste it with purpose. At the brewery level, sensory analysis—the scientific process of putting beer in front of trained tasters—is one of the most important quality-control tools we have. It helps ensure that every beer leaving the brewery is consistent, true to brand, and free of flaws. Sometimes, we’re tasting for typicity. Does this batch taste like previous batches of the same beer? Does it accurately represent the intended style? Other ti...

Two weeks ago, we shared a survey through this newsletter and our Guild social media accounts. We were very pleased with the response: about 100 of you took the time to provide feedback, and most of your answers were thoughtful and detailed. Overall, your feedback was overwhelmingly positive.  • 84% of you rated your experience as good or excellent • Two-thirds of you discovered new breweries during Beer Week • 85% of you said Beer Week made you feel more connected to Bay Area beer culture Th...

If you frequent the Bay Area’s leading brewery taprooms and beer bars, you have likely noticed an unusual faucet with a long horizontal handle that pulls toward the bartender. These are side-pull faucets, most famously made by the Czech manufacturer LUKR. They are a defining feature of beer culture in the Czech Republic, the most beer-obsessed nation on earth, where people drink nearly twice as much beer per capita as any other country. They may look like a novelty. In reality, they unlock on...

Hello Beer Friends, As 2026 SF Beer Week comes to a close, we want to begin with two simple words: Thank you. Because of your curiosity, your enthusiasm, your willingness to explore new neighborhoods, new breweries, new small businesses, and, of course, new beers, this year’s Beer Week was truly special. Our community showed up in a big way, supporting 358 events at 182 locations across the Bay Area. We saw packed taprooms, intimate educational events, and a slew of activities that used our ...

Let’s start with the most important people to thank: you. Thank you to every single person who has chosen to spend part of their week celebrating Bay Area beer, community, and culture with us. Events like the amazing festival we enjoyed this past Saturday only exist because people like you show up, stay curious, and continue to support small, independent breweries. We are deeply grateful. I also want to recognize our incredible brewery community. The Bay Area Brewers Guild represents 71 membe...

One of the great joys of Beer Week is watching beer from small, independent breweries show up in places you’d never expect. For one incredible week each year, we expand our orbit and get reminded that great beer belongs everywhere. A Michelin-starred dining room. A one-of-a-kind neighborhood pinball museum. And now, San Francisco’s most iconic waterfront tourist destination! The most powerful part of bringing local beer into new spaces is that it cuts both ways. During Beer Week, Beer People f...

Beer Week 2026 begins in just 10 days, and the countdown to the best 10 days of the year is officially underway. Beer Week works because, for one concentrated stretch of time, the Bay Area’s beer community moves together. Breweries, bars, retailers, and most importantly, beer drinkers align their calendars and show up for one another. That shared momentum creates real energy, and reminds people why this scene matters in the first place. This year’s slate of Beer Week events serves as a snapsho...

Sonoma County Models a Community-Grounded, Self-Renewing Beer Economy With FeBREWary underway and Beer Week on the horizon, Sonoma County’s beer advocates are once again showing us how thriving beer communities are built: slowly, deliberately, and together. In 2020, a national database ranked beer cities based on the quality and depth of their offerings. Predictable powerhouses—San Diego, Denver, Portland, Anchorage—filled out the top tier. But the number one spot went to Santa Rosa. How did ...

Every February, as San Francisco Beer Week comes roaring back to life, it’s worth remembering how we got here. Beer Week did not begin as a marketing construct or a calendar placeholder. It started out more like a pilgrimage. Well before our app, before tap takeovers were passé, before the annual scramble to define what craft beer was this year, there was a bar at the corner of B and Main Streets in Hayward that became the epicenter of American hop obsession. The Bistro Double IPA Festival is ...

**Before we dive in, a quick reminder that our 2026 Beer Week collaboration brews begin this week, with public meet-ups following each brewday at the host breweries. You'll find details at the bottom of this email.** Roughly 18 years ago, the Bay Area beer scene experienced a paradigm shift. In late 2007 and early 2008, three beer bars opened within months of each other and went on to reshape our local beer culture. The Monk’s Kettle, The Trappist, and La Trappe weren’t the region’s first craf...

One idea we often return to at The Brew Deck is that beer styles are not fixed targets. They’re conversations — shaped by ingredients, technology, culture, and the people who show up to brew and drink them. That question was at the heart of a recent Brew Deck issue, “Should There Be an IPA for Everyone?” If you read it, you’ll remember the conclusion: IPA doesn’t resolve into a single correct form. It stretches across a spectrum of preferences, histories, and intentions, and the fun is finding ...

The Brew Deck is back from our holiday hiatus, and with Beer Week approaching and clouds in our current forecasts, we figured now was a great time to dig into dark beer. The culinary world is fond of reminding us that we “eat with our eyes,” and the same is true when it comes to drinking beer. The way a beer presents in the glass creates expectations about its flavor, aroma, and impact; expectations that a brewer might endeavor to fulfill or subvert.  How Dark Beers Differ Brewers use a numeri...

Hello Beer Friends, As the year winds down, we just wanted to say thank you. In just a few short months, The Brew Deck has grown into a community of more than 20,000 Bay Area beer lovers, and we’ve been genuinely overwhelmed by your response. Together this year, we’ve broken down wet hop season, celebrated new breweries, drank more lager than ever, traced the lineage of IPA and West Coast Pils, spotlighted award-winning local beers, and generally, explored all that makes the Bay Area one of th...

Last week, VinePair released its list of the 26 Best New Breweries of 2025. As usual, the Bay Area Brewers Guild was well represented, with two of our newest members, Livermore’s Heady Works Brewing and San Rafael’s Hidden Splendor Fine Beer Company, making the list. It was a welcome reminder that we’ve been remiss in formally introducing Brew Deck readers to the Guild’s newest members. This guild exists to support independent breweries and uphold the quality, culture, and community that define...

Guess what? You woke up this morning with just over seventy days between you and the country’s biggest and best regional beer celebration. SF Beer Week 2026 kicks off Friday, February 20th, and this year is going to be extra special. Your Subscriber-Only Perk Two years ago, the SF Brewers Guild debuted an opening night event at Salesforce Park. It was such a smashing success that last year it officially became the one-and-only guild-hosted kickoff event. This year’s SF Beer Week Fest 2026 wi...

As the holidays approach, many of us are searching for gifts that feel personal, thoughtful, and a little extraordinary. With that in mind, this year the Bay Area Brewers Guild would like to submit, for your gifting consideration, a category of beer ideally suited for the holiday season: The Keepsake Beer. Most beer (like, well over 99% of it) is made to be enjoyed fresh, and for the most part, even our most celebrated creations are relatively easy to find. That’s part of why we love beer. It i...

Last week, Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine released its annual accounting of the best breweries and beers, as voted on by the publication’s deeply knowledgeable readership and editorial staff. If you’re unfamiliar, Craft Beer & Brewing is the rare publication that blends technical rigor with genuine reverence for American small breweries. It’s part brewing school, part cultural steward: a publication that both recognizes and demonstrates that brewing is an artisan discipline worthy of study, prese...

There are more than 100 breweries in the Bay Area today. The best estimates indicate that we Bay Area residents collectively spend approximately $1 billion annually on craft beer. Those numbers are staggering enough on their own—but when you add the fact that just four decades ago, only 44 brewing concerns operated 83 breweries in the entire country, it can feel miraculous. For those of us in the industry, it’s easy to take the current beer landscape for granted. When we’re deep in the day-to-d...

,“Lagers for many craft drinkers are like rediscovering a band you haven’t listened to in a long time. There’s a reason you loved them the first time.” — Phil Emerson, Owner/Brewmaster, Olfactory Brewing Jack’s Abby, a regional lager brewery based in Framingham, MA, sells a shirt in their online store that reads “The Year of the Lager.” On the back, the current year is listed above seven previous years, all of which are crossed out. It’s both a running joke and a self-aware statement of commitm...

"We joined the Hasta La Raíz movement because standing up for human dignity is our duty—especially in times of crisis. As one of the only Mexican-owned breweries in the Bay Area, we take pride in our family history and the sacrifices that made our work possible today. We honor that legacy by using our voice to speak out against the injustices facing our communities. At our core, we stand against racism, cruelty, and hatred. Supporting and protecting our community isn’t just part of our mission—...

Two weeks ago, this newsletter explored several contemporary iterations of IPA. Our section on one of the newest variants, the Cold IPA, included this passage: “Where the Hazy IPA smuggled elements of a Bavarian Hefeweizen into the IPA tent—softness, turbidity, expressive yeast—the Cold IPA does the same thing with Pilsner’s austere dryness, ultra-clean fermentation, and brilliant clarity.” That comparison naturally leads us to another emerging style: the West Coast Pils. Like a Cold IPA, a W...

This past Saturday, the Brewers Association announced the 2025 Great American Beer Festival medal winners, recognizing the very best beers in the United States. The ceremony—held, as always, on the final day of GABF in Denver, CO—capped off three days of festivities celebrating the nation’s brewing community. For more than forty years, GABF has been the premier stage for American craft beer: a showcase, a celebration, and a proving ground. This year, a total of 273 breweries and cideries took h...

The Endless Evolution of IPA: As American IPA splinters into haze, clarity, cold, and more, one question lingers: how many IPAs does a beer scene really need? What does a great beer scene entail? A fair answer might be one where as much of the potential spectrum of beer flavor, aroma, color, texture, and strength as possible is available to the consumer in prime condition. Interestingly, however, when considering the world’s most established beer-drinking cultures—places like the United Kingdo...