About a dozen Sudzers participated in the brewing demonstration in the middle of the KraftBrew Fest at the end of Silicon Valley Beer Week, and Ron did a fantastic job of capturing the day in photos and video, as well as writing up the events of the day. Following is Ron’s account and documentation of the fun!

To wrap up the first Silicon Valley Beer Week, the Sudzers provided a homebrew demo, as part of the 45+ breweries pouring an amazing collection of beer on Saturday August 3 in San Jose. After setting up the equipment, Derek brewed a Granola Stout (oatmeal honey milk stout with cinnamon and toasted coconut), showing visitors how it’s done. There was also a display of several samples of malt, hops, and yeast, showing people the ingredients we use to make beer. Only one other person was brewing at the Festival, Keegan, the Beer Buyer/Manager from Whole Foods/Cupertino, which had two booths there. This week Whole Foods announced a new store they will build on the Alameda, near the Shark Tank, which will include a 5,000 sq. ft. brewery.

I think the consensus among the Sudzers anyway, the best beer of the show was the Clown Shoes Galactica Double IPA, where we met the Marketing Manager, Matt Smith. The brewery is located in Ipswich, MA, and just started shipping to California. It’s been on tap at Rootstock, a great wine bar in Los Gatos, where there was a tapping event during Silicon Valley Beer Week. Rootstock has a free wine tasting every Wednesday, 5:30-6:30pm, after which you can order one of the three or four good beers on tap, plus an impressive little collection of bottled beer you can inspect in their glass door refrigeration at the end of the bar.

Other than that, we all drank a lot of the Islander IPA from Coronado Brewing (San Diego), which was conveniently located right across from the Sudzers booth.

But the highlight of the day for us was to receive an award for the best homebrew in the “Dark” category, our Dark Matter club brew. Derek was called to the stage to accept the award on behalf of the Sudzers, and was well received by the not-too-drunk audience remaining at the end of the day.