The Beer & Nosh Dinner = Beer & Sword Swallowing

Wednesday night brought us the ridiculously good Beer & Nosh Celebrity Dinner hosted by none other than world’s most powerful beer blogger, Jesse.

OK, no actual celebrities — sadly Allan from Mission Mission wasn’t able to make it — but regional breweries were finely represented: Sacramento Brewing, Triple Rock, Drake’s, Firestone Walker, Oskar Blues, and the “Born-On-Valencia” Shmaltz (more on them in a bit).

Obligatory pictures of food — Jen Biesty of Scala put together an astounding course.  Below we see a poorly lit, low rez picture of an amazing risotto topped with chorizo-stuffed squid. DAMN.

The other courses were all great but my lack of photographic skillz do not do them justice.

All of the beers were excellent, and came in many shapely glasses:

They were especially well paired with each course, something I have never really appreciated until now. My favorite beer of the evening was probably the Drake’s Special Wine Barrel Blend (50% Merlot Barrel BrettAmber 50% Pinot Barrel Belgium Triple). Then there was the Albino Pyhton, paired with the risotto-squid-chorizo-palooza.

All the brewers got a chance to talk about their beers, and Shmaltz even brought Donnie Vomit, the namesake of the Human Blockhead Tough-As-Nails Lager.  Who proceeded to:

A) hammer a nail into his nose:

B) Remove said nail:

C) drill a masonry bit into his nose:

D) Swallow a sword:

As you can tell, Schmaltz Brewing definitely has style.  This is, of course, due to their humble roots in the Mission — they started off in the old Sears building on Valencia and Army/Cesar Chavez.

“Wha? Sears? On Valencia?” you are likely saying. “Unpossible!  Valencia is and always has been is a secret garden of small and delicate boutiques!”

Not so, oh blog reader.  Both Mission and Valencia were a commerical hub up until the 60s, and “3435 Army” building was a Sears Roebucks, as we can see from the SF Public Library Historical Photo Collection.

1956:

1929:

A strike in 1947 (looking north up Valecia from on top of what now is Aamco):

(That’s almost the turnout of the AA hearing!)

More photos of the “The Miracle Mile” that was the Mission 50 years ago here.

And on a more contemporary note, I won the beer making kit in the raffle at the dinner! La Lengua Lager, anyone?