Beer at Joe’s

The Bourbon and Branch crew have a new place opening up today called Rickhouse. The site says artisanal cocktails, wines, and local beers (possibly to-go) - I am optimistic mostly because it’s on my walk home and it would be nice to have yet another option. I will hopefully post a follow up soon.

UPDATE: This is a soft opening? It was more like a semi-firm opening–packed bar at around 6pm, beautiful space with charred wood everywhere. Here’s the current beer list as far as I can remember. Draft: Lagunitas Pils, Anchor Steam, Guinness, Hunter’s Point Porter from Speakeasy (this is the one that impressed me), and Racer 5. Hopefully they’ll rotate. The bottle list was actually a little more interesting (and keep in mind that this is for a cocktail bar). They had a trio of Russian River–Pliny the Elder, Blind Pig IPA, and Consecration. Ola Dubh from Harviestoun, Kasteel Grand Cru, and more that have slipped my mind. If they keep rotating beers in the glass and in the bottle, I think it will be an actual important element of the bar. The stars of the show at a bar with such a complicated cocktail list are always the bartenders. I enjoyed sitting with my Pliny to watch them mix for the thirsty hoardes. There are swizzles and fizzes and rum punches that look like a snow cone. I saw a ginger beer crisis barely averted. Can’t wait to bring Jasmine there too!

That’s right, your ever lovable blog has made it to the Times. Betsy Andrews contacted us for an article on Beer Cocktails. We are happy we could point her in the right direction and give a few nods to some San Francisco Bars like Alembic and B Bar. Short article but I was quoted and there are some great recipes that I would love to try - especially the Muddy Puddle. Thanks goes out to Jay Brooks and Stan Hieronymus for starting and continuing The Session.

Check out the article here:  Cocktails Dance on the Head of a Beer

The writing team that is Beer At Joe’s got engaged this weekend! Does this mean we have to change the name of this blog - probably not. It was a great weekend and I am a lucky guy

We toasted with a beer of course (not that I hate champagne or anything but this felt right). It was the Blue Apron Ale from Brooklyn Brewery. This beer was made specifically for Thomas Keller to serve at his restaurants including Per Se in New York - which turns out is a very special restaurant to Jasmine and I. A big shout out to City Beer Store for helping us celebrate in style.

One of the best parts of homebrewing (well, for me anyways) is getting to give your beer a fun name and then creating an original label for it. Joe’s first true brew, named Cata-Luke in honor of my brother Luke finally dragging us to the beer supply store to get it started, is ready. I made labels last night and have started slapping them on. Thanks Luke!

Nice short article about Britain’s first and only female beer inspector. Annabel Smith, keeping standards high:

“People are always telling me I’ve got the best job in the world — and I have,” she says. “But it doesn’t always feel like that when it’s 9 o’clock on a Monday morning and you have to be drinking beer.”

Incidentally, I feel the same way about cheese sometimes. I love working at Cowgirl, but sometimes the thought of having one more bite of cheese at the end of the day makes my stomach hurt. Plus, I can no longer stand to order anything in a restaurant that comes with cheese on it if I don’t know EXACTLY what cheese it is. I’d rather they leave it off than eat some insipid old factory made cheddar.