there's a tear in my beer

Wow, seriously terrible news. Sacramento Brewing Company is closing down. My interview with the brewer, Peter Hoey is in the SNR that comes out this afternoon. Good timing. He talks a lot about special beers he is making that might never see the light of day, including barrel-aged beers and Brettanomyces beers. I also hype his Collaborative Evil beer, which won a bronze at the Great American Beer Fest. I think he will find other work, because he's a well-respected brewer, but this is a serious blow for beer lovers in Sac. Peter had brought in over 20 guest taps starting in January, and had had festivals and brewer appearances-events that Sacramento now doesn't really have a venue for.

Peter already has another company, Odonata, and he has just started brewing some beers that people are going crazy for. It's hard to get your hands on one. I think the local stores are sold out right now.

If you've been to Sac Brew, you know it had problems. Every single time you would either be over or undercharged, quite often under. Last time we were there, a couple of weeks ago, I had to beg the server to bring us second beers. We sat there for probably 15 minutes between the first and second, even though it wasn't very full. Many of the servers didn't seem to know much or care much about beer. I'm not saying I know how to run a business, at all, but I'm pretty sure these problems contributed to the downfall.