Latest news with #HarmonicBrewing
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Beer Week kicks off in Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO - Beer Week kicks off Friday night around the Bay Area, and breweries all around are ready. Local breweries are ready to serve up a pint, but are also keeping an eye on global politics. Beer Week is an opportunity for beer lovers to get a taste of some of the best brews the Bay Area has to offer. 21st Amendment Brewery is hosting a brews and bites night, bringing together two things people seem to love: beer and food. "Go to the San Francisco Beer Week website, and it's the entire Bay Area," said Shaun O'Sullivan from 21st Amendment. "All the way from Santa Rosa, I think down to Santa Cruz and out towards Sacramento and East Bay…At our production brewery in San Leandro we have the kick-off event for the East Bay." While beer may be fun for consumers, it's also big business. O'Sullivan said when 21st Amendment started nearly 25 years ago, there was room to grow. "Craft beer has gotten huge. Back when we first started in 2000, there were seven or eight breweries in San Francisco and I think at the peak in the last few years it was up to 45 or 50," said O'Sullivan. Eddie Gobbo from Harmonic Brewing said the San Francisco Bay Area Beer Week is an opportunity for people to try the product local brewers have been perfecting. "The high care that we put into the making of our beer and running tap rooms in a community-focused way, it is different than big beer and we're proud of it," said Gobbo. While brewers are asking people to think locally, brewers are thinking globally. Geopolitics threatens to increase canning costs with the Trump administration placing tariffs on aluminum. "You know this is a passion industry, we're donating a lot of time for something we love," said Gobbo. "So, when we get hit with additional costs it really hurts us and makes the business much harder to sustain." Brewers may also face increased costs associated with raw ingredients. At 21st Amendment Brewery, they sometimes rely on ingredients from Canada. The difficulty for many smaller breweries will be finding that balance point where they can purchase what they need, and not have to raise prices to the point where customers balk. "Customers will only pay so much for a glass of beer," said Gobbo. "So, you find yourself kind of in a conundrum where you can't charge too much more, but your costs are going up. So, that puts a strain on the breweries." Organizers say the winter months can be a little lean for breweries, so they're encouraging those of legal drinking age to take part, find a local brewery and hoist a pint. While it is called Beer Week, this week actually has 10 days of activities at breweries around the Bay Area starting Friday through next Sunday.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Bay Area rallies to help LA fire victims with donation drives
SAN FRANCISCO - In the wake of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, donation drives and fundraisers have been continuing to pop up all across the Bay Area. In San Ramon, two middle school students organized a large donation drive asking the community to drop off clothes and other supplies. At Harmonic Brewing, steps from The Chase Center where the Warriors took on the Lakers, bar staff urged the crowd to set the rivalry aside for a day to do some good. "It felt like a really good opportunity to recognize, even if there's a problem in a different part of California, we're still all Californians, and anything we can do up here to help those people affected in the areas of the fires, we're happy to do it," said Harmonic Brewing General Manager Jimmy bar is hoping to funnel customer donations to victims of the Los Angeles wildfires through GoFundMe QR codes posted on table tops. "I just remember the fires up here in Northern California, reminds me of that, and people losing their livelihood, their houses, it's horrible, and people coming to help out, it's a wonderful thing," said Warriors fan Mark Chin. Sitting at a nearby table was Vik Bhasker, whose sister's family lost their home in the Palisades Fire. "Insurance companies dropped a lot of people recently, so a lot of people aren't covered, and so any money that they could use to rebuild their lives would be helpful," said in the East Bay, images of the devastation in Southern California inspired two middle school students to take action."It makes us just feel like the community really supports each other and everybody just comes together," said Pierce and Gautham, students at Pine Valley Middle School in San Ramon. "It made me feel bad, so I felt like I needed to take some action in this." They reached out to their principal for help last weekend in an email "He asked…'can I do something to help the victims of the LA fire. I have a couple ideas. Will you help me?' I usually don't message students back on the weekend, but when I saw that I did," said Sandy Kontilis, principal of Pine Valley Middle School. With the help of Kontilis and the school's leadership class, their efforts paid dividends. On Saturday afternoon, a constant stream of cars drove up to the school dropping off toiletries, games, and so many clothes that they eventually had to turn donations away. "I'd like to say thank you so much. We really appreciate everybody who has donated and all the support we've gotten throughout the community," said Pierce and Gautham. The students said the donations would be packed up and held in a storage facility until they could be driven down to LA and distributed to those in need.
