First impressions can be misleading. My friend David snuck his first beer as a pre-teen at a party his parents hosted in the mid-seventies in rural Vermont, and the bottle he snuck had been spiked with LSD. The young fellow held it together, but wondered how his father could manage to drink as many as two or three of these in a sitting after work. It was a long time before David had his second beer.
Years ago, when my friend Stephane moved from Marseille to a garden apartment in San Francisco, he awoke that first morning, opened his blinds to an eye-level sea of leather chaps and genitalia, and thought: “I guess I’m not in Kansas anymore!” Stephane was unaware that his arrival coincided with the Folsom Street Fair, and that this was unusual, even for SF.
And our friend Natalia told me just yesterday that when she moved into her apartment off of 40th Street on a Friday last July, she was greeted Saturday morning by blaring electric guitars and whining, crunchy feedback. “Is this my new neighborhood? She wondered.
Yes and no. Natalia had gotten here just in time for the annual 40th Street Block Party, which will happen again, one week from Saturday, on July 14th. If you haven’t been, you’re missing out. They shut down 40th from Webster to Opal and there’s live music all day long, food trucks, and general merriment in the street. It’s usually hot (though always cool inside the shop), and very loud and lots of fun, and you won’t likely see any of us in chaps, but we may wear shorts for a change, and I promise we won’t put anything besides beer in your beer.
But before all of that…here’s THIS week’s tasting lineup:
TONIGHT: THURSDAY NIGHT FLIGHTS – Reds & Whites from AUSTRIA – Gruner Veltliner, Orangetraube, Zweigelt and Blaufrankisch – $12 from 4-8pm
SATURDAY, July 7th: CILIEGIOLO Three Ways – Tre Ciliegioli: Rosato from Liguria and reds from Tuscany and California - all from the Ciliegiolo grape - $15 from 2-6pm
SUNDAY, June 8th: 2017 ROSÉ FLIGHTS – 3 rosés from around the world - $15 from 2-6pm
See you soon,
Max