It’s that time again, our third year of San Francisco Beer Week.

Details are still being hammered out about events up in SF itself, but we’re more solid on our area. San Jose’s Tied House is hosting their second annual Meat the Brewers event. Tickets are available for the February 18th beer and food extravaganza.

Hope to see a few of our fans there.

The new canning line is up and running. Many thanks are due to Jamie with Cask Systems for sticking it out an extra day to get things going.

The Porter from this run will be hitting store shelves in the next few days.

Once we get photo linking going on the blog again, we’ll have some shots up.

We’re just into the third week of the year, and here comes the start of the 2011 beer Festival season.

We’re pouring at an invite-only cheese and beer event this coming Monday, so if you know what that is, you’ll see us there.

Less privately, the Brewing Network is hosting their 2nd Annual Winter Brews Festival, taking place this year at MLK Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley from Noon-4pm. Proceeds from the event go to benefit the Coral Reef Alliance, and BAD RAP (Bay Area Doglovers
Responsible About Pit bulls).

In other brewery news, we have in the last week successfully brewed the largest batch of beer ever produced in Santa Cruz County. The new system is, in many parts, going operational. Expect to see a lot more Uncommon beer out on those shelves in the coming months.

Time Out New York has a nice little piece out today about pairing beer and food, based on suggestions from the manager of Kin Shop, which prominently features our Siamese Twin Ale.

Kin Shop is one of several places where people can find our beer in NYC.

It’s also around at DBGB, Full Circle Bar, Dive Bar, and the Houston St and 96th St locations of Whole Foods.

Look for more beer in the coming months, including cans of the Baltic Porter and Golden State Ale, just as soon as we have enough to start shipping it out.

There have been a few hiccups in the recent months.

Well, more than a few hiccups. They’ve been more like tactical nuclear strikes on the business plan, but we’re soldiering through.

On the upside, we’re passing some milestones and goals along the way. The cans for the Golden State Ale and Baltic Porter are in our hands. We’ll be filling the first runs of those cans next week. They’re beautiful cans, and the beer inside them is even better.

Fans of our beer up in the SF area have reason to rejoice as well. A keg of Baltic Porter was sighted headed into the hallowed grounds of the Toronado late yesterday afternoon. That’s an aged keg from our repeat win at the Cal State Fair, a beer brewed back in late 2008.

Happy holidays, and we hope to have good news about the long-anticpated expansion in the coming weeks.

It’s worth noting that in all of the excitement about the new cans coming out, some important information about the Siamese Twin Ale was almost forgotten.

Fans of our beer in the Central Valley (Hi there Sacramento) can now find the Siamese Twin Ale at all of their local Nugget Markets.

There are glimmers of light at the end of 2010. Almost unbelievably there will definitely, absolutely, undoubtedly be cans of Golden State Ale and Baltic Porter hitting store shelves by the second week of December. The long wait is coming to an end for fans of the Porter.

It really is happening.

Meanwhile we are keeping production of everything else rolling as smoothly as possible amidst construction. More on that progress later. In the meantime, here’s a nice video of our original canning line at work, shot by local brew enthusiast and brewer Mark Taylor. He may have caught video of the last run of Siamese Twin Ale to come off the original canning line.

We’ll be up and around the Bay and beyond pouring beer in the coming weeks. First up is Taste of Santa Cruz, coming up this Thursday evening at the Coconut Grove.

On Sunday the 7th we’ll be up in the crowds at Snowbomb San Francisco, which takes place at Fort Mason.

Fans of our beer out in Nevada (we know a few exist), can find us at the Brews Best Beer Fest, happening out at Lake Las Vegas on the 13th.

And then finally there will be a return to Fort Mason for the BevMo Holiday Beers Festival on Saturday the 20th. There may or may not be a sighting of our American Special Bitter at this event.

Insane that it’s already eight months into the year, and eight months into our expansion project. The Great American Beer Festival, which seems like it happened a few weeks ago, is only one month away.

We’re getting beer ready to send out to Colorado next month, but we have more events happening near and far in the next few weeks.

Fans on the East Coast may want to check out the Brouwerji Lane bottle shop and import house in New York this weekend, where the Siamese Twin Ale will be pouring.

Congrats to those of you who got your tickets to the annual Stumptown BBQ and Beer Revival already. The event is sold out, as usual. We’ll have at least four or five of our current beers pouring up there, including the return of the renewed and revised Golden State Ale. The Golden had been a temperamental beer, prone to complications. We’ve been working on it for the last few months, and think that you all will be pleasantly surprised.

Further North and a week later, we’ll also be at the annual Hops in Humbolt in beautiful Fortuna, CA.

Keep an eye out in your local BevMo stores for cans of the Twin. We’ve expanded into a few more as of today.

Also, don’t despair if you’re still waiting for the Baltic Porter in cans. We’re down to working out the last color details on those labels, details common to all of the cans. Once the colors are set, we’ll be pushing quickly on cans for the Baltic Porter, Golden State Ale, and Bacon Brown Ale. ETA… sooner than it was yesterday.

Reed and Dave are up in Portland this weekend at the North American Organic Brewers Festival. They hit the road with a van full of Siamese Twin Ale and Bacon Brown Ale. Hit them up early if you make it out to the festival, because they managed to snag some face time with the local news, and the word is out.

The 2010 California State Fair results are in.

We took 1st place in two categories.

The Baltic Porter held on to 1st Place in the Robust and Baltic Porter category for the 2nd year in a row.

It was joined by the Siamese Twin Ale, which claimed a surprising 1st Place in the Belgian Blonde category.

It’s a day for a little celebration.