The SF Beer Week Opening Gala Is Back, Reuniting the Bay Area Craft Beer Community, and Showcasing Expanded Offerings
SAN FRANCISCO — January 10, 2024 — Poised to sweep through the greater Bay Area February 9-18, this year’s SF Beer Week will mark the return of the SF Beer Week Opening Gala for the first time in four years along with showcasing the many dozens of craft beer events planned across the region.
Produced by the Bay Area Brewers Guild, SF Beer Week and the Opening Gala have been a powerful tandem for celebrating not just craft beer as a product but as a communal experience — where a locally produced labor of love made in small batches in one’s own neighborhood often using local, artisan ingredients and techniques, brewed with passion and creativity, was shared with reverence and revelry, and as a social experience that helped keep people and communities connect.
In that context, and dating back to the first Gala in 2010, this premiere tasting event earned its reputation as the heart of the Bay Area’s craft beer community — until COVID stopped this annual gathering of Bay brewers and beer aficionados cold.
For the Guild, bringing the Gala back would mirror the unprecedented challenges and need to persevere and adapt faced by its brewery members individually, and the industry as a whole, ever since. Last held February 7, 2020, the Opening Gala featured 130 breweries. This year, nearly 100 breweries are confirmed, an amazing number but still a 25% drop.
“Considering the well-documented struggles of small food-and-beverage businesses, and especially for small breweries that shoulder capital-intensive manufacturing costs on top of that, we are surprised and grateful so many members are able to make it out for the Gala’s return,” says Joanne Marino, executive director of the Bay Area Brewers Guild.
“Still, a lot of breweries who were at the Gala in 2020 are gone, so we’ll toast them February 9 even as we welcome new faces and celebrate the chance to be together again.”
New, too, will be the chance to sample non-alcoholic options and complimentary products like wine at the Opening Gala, another sign that things are changing in the industry.
“Members like Barebottle and Barrel Brothers will be pouring wine and near-zero alcohol craft beer, respectively, showcasing how craft brewers are expanding and diversifying,” says Marino.
Accentuating the point, 2024’s yet-to-be-revealed Official SF Beer Week Collaboration Release, brewed by Barrel Brothers Brewing Co. with Humble Sea Brewing Co, will be an “NA” beer — that is sub .5% alcohol by volume, yet a true beer in delivering both the craft and the community.
“Meeting friends over a beer is a special time. The last few years, we all collectively lost too many of these opportunities. Recapturing these moments is what’s important, not the ABV,” says Marino. “This special collaboration beer will be joining dozens more at the Gala, and it will fit in just fine.”
See participating breweries and Opening Gala ticket details, including the new Astro Lounge, at:
https://sfbeerweek.eventbrite.
The other half of the tandem, SF Beer Week itself, is when the community shifts back to the neighborhoods each brewery calls home, from Santa Rosa to Monterey and east to the Livermore Valley. Nearly a hundred craft beer events are already posted on the SF Beer Week listings page, with many more to come. Over Beer Week’s ten days, enthusiasts, brewers and anyone who enjoys craft beer will get together to explore a wonderland of flavor right here in the Bay Area where the craft beer renaissance was born.
In addition to the SF Beer Week Opening Gala, event highlights include:
Celebration of Craft, a CA Craft Brewers Association Fundraiser – Trumer Brewery, Berkeley
24th Annual Double IPA Fest – The Bistro, Hayward
10th Annual West Coast Craft Can Invitational – Devil’s Canyon, San Carlos
8th Annual Wake & Break – Taplands, Santa Clara
Admiral Malts Showcase – Holy Water, San Francisco
Books ‘n’ Brews – 21st Amendment, San Leandro
Brewer vs. Brewer Dinner with Drake’s Brewing Co. v Tenma Beer Project (on sale Jan. 12) – Drake’s Dealership, Oakland
Mixology Night – Barebottle Brewing Co., San Francisco
Pinballs & Pints – Pacific Pinball Museum, Alameda
Twilight Cruise – San Francisco Brewing Co., San Francisco Bay
Slow and Low Lager Showcase – Armistice Brewing Co., Napa
West Fest – Ghost Town Brewing Co., Oakland
Watch SFBeerWeek.org as more and more events, happening in dozens of cities and towns throughout the region, are posted, with calendar, day guides and other features added for planning a killer ten days of community gatherings and delicious craft beer.
Beer Week Supporters
Making SF Beer Week possible are Bay Area Brewers Guild members along with devoted trade partners and craft beer venues, including top-level sponsors Visit Santa Rosa, HenHouse Brewing Co., 21st Amendment Brewery, Drake’s Brewing Co., Barrel Brothers Brewing Co. and Barretto-Co., along with Barebottle Brewing Co., San Francisco Brewing Co., Woods Beer Co., Printed Image, Custom Label, Core Cans, Admiral Maltings, Holy Water, Livermore Valley Craft Beer Foundation, Trumer Brewery and the California Craft Brewers Association.
About the Bay Area Brewers Guild
SF Beer Week is coordinated by the Bay Area Brewers Guild, a non-profit 501(c)(6) trade association whose mission is to support and promote local independent craft beer and breweries throughout the greater Bay Area. Stay atop the region’s world-class craft beer scene year round at DrinkBay.Beer
Photos from past SFBW events and last held 2020 Opening Gala
SF Beer Week 2024 – Media Assets
CONTACT:
Joanne Marino
Bay Area Brewers Guild
415-915-5173
Third-party news items that are posted on the Guild website’s news section come from press releases received by the Guild. These press releases are posted as they have been received and their publication on the Guild website is intended as an informational service provided to our members and website visitors. As such, the publication of a story from a third-party source is neither an endorsement of the content, nor its sender, by the Guild. For enquiries on any news item, please use the contact details that can be found at the bottom of each post.