Every year SF Beer Week kicks off with the Opening Gala, a beer festival of brewers from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Brewers tend to bring a good mix of their standard selections alongside very special releases.

This year the event took place at the future home of Anchor Brewing at Pier 48, just South of AT&T Park. The 2017 Gala featured at least 125 breweries, several food vendors, giant water stations, plenty of bathrooms (no lines), the return of VIP tickets, and a relatively spacious venue.

My favorite location for this event used to be the Concourse, but it has since been demolished and turned into apartments. Pier 48, however, was very good venue for an indoor beer festival. It was spacious, dry, and a reasonable temperature, unlike 2016, which was cold with water dripping from the ceiling. The Opening Gala was crowded but that’s to be expected at any popular beer festival. At least there were areas that were not crowded, if you needed a break.

The best thing about the Opening Gala every year is the beer. So many breweries bring out there special releases, that it’s difficult to narrow down which ones to try. For instance, here is a curated list of barrel-aged beers that were served. It’s hard to choose but you have to start somewhere.

My evening started at the media session where we were introduced to the SF Brewer’s Guild collaboration: New Frontier, a Kölsch-style beer made with Satsuma oranges and Douglas fir tips. While we sipped on this surprisingly delicious ale, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee briefly spoke, followed by Jay Brooks with his toast to kick off the event and SF Beer Week. Afterwards, I ate a complementary shrimp tostada, which were free of charge all night, and then headed over to Russian River for Pliny the Younger. I waited in line twice, while it was still reasonably short. Even if I had waited in line longer, it would have been worth it because the 2017 Pliny the Younger is really good.

The Beer

The following are a few of the beers I sampled at the 2017 SF Beer Week Opening Gala.

Russian River Pliny the Younger

The aroma has wonderful notes of citrus, pineapple, grass, pomelo, with touch fresh plums and stone fruit. It is amazingly smooth with a noticeable but smoother hop bitterness.

Henhouse Brewing Recurring Nightmare

This is a barrel-aged Imperial Stout made with Acre Coffee and aged in Bourbon barrels. The aroma has strong notes of freshly roasted coffee beans, a hint of espresso, and bitter sweet artisan chocolate. It also has a slight hint of candied citrus. Flavor has a roasted bitterness and it slightly sweet with vanilla and muted bourbon notes. It’s almost like a shot of espresso.

Alvarado Street Brewing When Doves Cryo

This beer was made in collaboration with Cellarmaker Brewing. This beer is made with a newer hop product, which is called cryo hops or lupulin powder. It was dry hopped Citra & Mosaic. The aroma is grassy, a little catty, some grapefruit, and intense onions and garlic chives. The flavor is balanced with a moderate hop bitterness, which was smoother than I was expecting after smell the intensity of the hops. Once you get past the onion/garlic aroma, it is actually quite refreshing and really delicious.

Alvarado Street Brewing City Club Malt Liquor

This is a standard malt liquor made with corn sugar and dextrose. The aroma is malty and corn with an herbal quality and some light caramel. It smells like a malt liquor but it’s nice, well, crafted, and non-offensive. The flavor is sweet and malty with a little bit of herbal bitterness.

Alvarado Street Being Trois Carbones DIPA

This New England style double IPA is a collaboration with Amplified Ale Works.

It is made with a yeast strain, Bruxellensis Trois, which used to be classified as a Brettanomyces yeast but was reclassified as Saccharomyces. After researching the White Labs site, however, both strains exist but this is made with the Saccharomyces Bruxellensis Trois, producing tropical fruit aromas. Thus, this beer has strong tropical aromas with notes of pineapple, and stone fruit, particularly apricot. The flavor has just a touch of sourness, a balanced malt backbone, and it has an herbal, smooth bitterness yet still has intensity in the hop flavor.

Woodfour Brewing Lydia ‘15

Lydia is a sour beer co-fermented with Russian River Valley Syrah grapes. The aroma is reminiscent of an artisan red wine vinegar, astringent, woody, and very slightly fruity. The flavor is tart, sour, and a little puckering but not over tht top. The taste also has some slight maltiness or sweetness to balance sourness. A very nicely crafted sour beer.

Woodfour Brewing Sticky Sour

Sticky Sour is a dry hopped sour beer. It has an aroma of fresh cut lemons, white vinegar, and citrus peel. The flavor is sour with just a small hint of bitterness and a some hop flavor. The sourness is pleasant juxtaposed against the hop flavors and aromas.

Drake’s Brewing The Void

The Void Intergalatic Stout comes in at a hefty 18.6% abv. The description of this beer is as follows:

Brewed as a 12% Imperial Stout, and then coaxed to over 18% with multiple additions of dark Belgian Candi sugar. After 16 months in High West bourbon barrels, this beer is ready for a trip through space. You will be too, if you drink enough of it.

The aroma is like brownies, bourbon, freshly churned chocolate, ground light-roast coffee beans ground, vanilla, artisan chocolate syrup, and chocolate liqueur. The flavor is very, very sweet with plenty of bourbon flavors. It is so sweet that even the roasted bitterness does not balance. Furthermore, the sweetness seems to cover up the alcohol making it not taste like an 18% beer.

Sudwerk Farmers Market Citrus Gose Lager

Even though this beer uses a lager yeast it is fermented at ale temperatures. This beer won a bronze medal in the German Sour Ale category at the Great American Beer Festival in 2016. The aroma has some notes of citrus, Meyer lemon, Valencia orange, and sea salt. This is a balanced Gose; it is sour but it’s is balanced by sweetness and malt as well as salt. It is probably closer to the traditional definition of this style than most gose beers these days.

Ol’ Republic Brewery Strong Scotch Ale

This beer was aged in Laphroaig barrels for 3 months and it definitely as a strong aroma of Laphroaig Scotch,including iodine, peat, and malt. The flavor has a smokey peat quality to it and is malty anda little bit sweet. It’s quite an interesting beer that does a great job of combining an Islay scotch with beer.

Ol’ Republic Brewery Vienna Lager

This is a nice traditional Vienna lager with a good amount of maltiness but not overly sweet. It’s also a little refreshing. It also has bitterness in the flavor,w which comes off as herbal.

Fort Point Animal IPA

The sign at the table said this is a “tropical modern IPA.” The aroma comes from the Amarillo and Meridian hops that give is a wonderful citrus and fruity aroma.

Bartlett Hall Brewing Double Chocolate Waterfall Porter

I’ve always enjoyed the porters from Bartlett Hall and this beer is no exception. The aroma has tons of chocolate and the flavor is very sweet with a nice roasted quality to it.

Black Sands Brewing SMASH Galaxy

SMASH stands for single malt and single hops and is usually an IPA or pale ale. This SMASH was a fantastic allowing the Galaxy hops to really express themselves with notes of topical fruit and citrus.

Temescal Brewing Zig Zag IPA

This IPA is made with a couple of my favorite hops: Mosaic and Citra. This gives it a strong citrus quality. It also has hints of smarties candies juxtaposed with a dank hop aroma. It’s a really nice IPA.

Alameda Island Brewing Company Idahop 7

I was first introduced to Idaho 7 hops at a brewing in Idaho, called Boise Brewing, and I instantly liked these hops. This beer was no exception. The aroma is dank and citrusy yet earthy and mellow.

Ale Industries Raw Ale

This is quite an interesting beer. It is a no boil beer and no hop beer made with bay, rosemary cardamon, and juniper. The flavor is like the first runnings of a mash and has a mead, honey-wine quality to it. The botanicals give it a pleasant aroma of rosemary and juniper, almost gin-like.

At this point, with the SF Beer Week Opening Gala being so great how it get any better? One suggestion, that I’ve heard, is to make it a two-day festival starting on Thursday night (Anchor will have to move their VIP pre-party).

The upside for a two day festival: many venues charge less for the second day, more tickets can be sold, and thus more money can be raised for the SF Brewer’s Guild. The downside, however, is that this would be a lot more work for both the breweries and the SF Brewer’s Guild. At the same time, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Cheers to an awesome SF Beer Week Opening Gala in 2017!