Monday, September 28, 2009

Charity movie nights on October 14 and 21.

Coming to our taps today

for the first time, eminently awesome beer from Moylan's Brewery in Marin County! The details:

Moylan's Moylander Double IPA (Novato, CA; $7/12 oz). Here's the nice brewery description: "Moylander Double IPA is fat and resiny, with aggressive and excessive hops swinging on on an enormous malt backbone like naughty monkeys on a vine. Double malt, double hops--do the math, it’s academic." 8.5% ABV.

Beer Nation Premiere Party Tuesday, October 6, 2009.

As many of you know, our buddies Seth Wright and Mike Winn, with the help of Dakoit Pictures, have been developing a web-based series of short movies called Beer Nation that explores the craft beer revolution. After months of production, the first episode of Beer Nation will premiere on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at Pacific Standard. It features Sixpoint Brewing and Pacific Standard, natch.

Please join us for a rambunctious premiere party, which will culminate in a screening of the first episode. We're planning on showing the episode at 8:30 and 10:30 pm, but we'll play it by ear--basically, you'll be safe if you show up around 8 pm. In the meantime, stay updated on all things beer by visiting the Beer Nation blog. Also, if you're a member of Facebook you can join the Beer Nation fan page or group.

Finally, psst--for the Beer Nation premiere, we'll be giving away some of our Sixpoint/Pacific Standard mashup t-shirts, among, perhaps, other things. It's a Tuesday that's definitely worth your time.

Tentative NFL Schedule for Sunday.

The same caveats as last week apply--this is just a guess, and as usual, we will honor our first-come, first-served policy. We're just trying to avoid any potential conflicts by giving you a heads-up as to what people will probably want to watch on our two screens. So here we go, for

Sunday, October 4:

1 pm: Baltimore vs. New England
1 pm: NY Giants vs. Kansas City
4 pm: Denver vs. Dallas
4 pm: San Francisco vs. St. Louis
8 pm: Pittsburgh vs. San Diego

GABF Awards for Beers We Serve Here.

Apparently the judges at the Great American Beer Festival, the biggest beer festival/awards ceremony in America, like a lot of the beers we have on tap. Here's a short list of beers we regularly serve here that won much-coveted GABF awards last week. Flying Dog, in addition to the beer awards you'll see below, won Mid-Size Brewing Company and Mid-Size Brewing Company Brewer of the Year! As you might expect, we'll continue to have their great stuff on tap.

Category: Session Beer, 27 Entries
Bronze: Bam Biere, Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, Dexter, MI

Category: Out of Category – Traditionally Brewed Beer, 82 Entries
Silver: Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse, Brooklyn Brewery, Brooklyn, NY

Category: Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer, 110 Entries
Silver: Barrel Aged Gonzo, Flying Dog Brewery, Frederick, MD

Category: German-Style Pilsener, 48 Entries
Bronze: Troegs Sunshine Pils, Troegs Brewing Co., Harrisburg, PA

Category: German Style Märzen, 45 Entries
Gold: Dogtoberfest, Flying Dog Brewery, Frederick, MD

Category: Bock, 40 Entries
Gold: Troegenator, Troegs Brewing Co., Harrisburg, PA

Category: German Style Kölsch, 43 Entries
Gold: Kolsch, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Chico, CA

Category: American Style Pale Ale, 108 Entries
Gold: Sweetgrass IPA, Grand Teton Brewing Co., Victor, ID

Category: American-Style Strong Pale Ale, 70 Entries
Gold: Racer 5 IPA, Bear Republic Factory Five, Cloverdale, CA

Category: American-Style India Pale Ale, 134 Entries
Gold: Union Jack, Firestone Walker Brewing Co., Paso Robles, CA
Silver: Sculpin IPA, Ballast Point Brewing Co, San Diego, CA
Bronze: Blind Pig IPA, Russian River Brewing Co., Santa Rosa, CA

Category: American Style Amber/Red Ale, 78 Entries
Bronze: Hop Head Red, Green Flash Brewing Co., Vista, CA

Category: Brown Porter, 38 Entries
Bronze: Black Butte Porter, Deschutes Brewery, Bend, OR

Category: Robust Porter, 57 Entries
Silver: Mocha Porter, Rogue Ales, Newport, OR

Category: American-Style Stout, 22 Entries
Silver: Troegs Dead Reckoning, Troegs Brewing Co., Harrisburg, PA

Category: Imperial Stout, 56 Entries
Gold: Gonzo Imperial Porter, Flying Dog Brewery, Frederick, MD
Silver: Yeti Imperial Stout, Great Divide Brewing Co., Denver, CO

Friday, September 25, 2009

The first in a series

of guesses as to what we'll be showing on Sunday, NFL-wise. We want to emphasize that this is just a guess, and as usual, we will honor our first-come, first-served policy--if you come first, and ask us for a game, we'll put it on and keep it on for you. We're just trying to avoid any potential conflicts by giving you a heads-up as to what people will probably want to watch on our two screens:

Sunday, September 27:

1 pm: NY Jets vs. Tennessee
1 pm: San Francisco vs. Minnesota
4 pm: Pittsburgh vs. Cincinnati
4 pm: Denver vs. Oakland

Monday, September 21, 2009

We're extending the Sixpoint Challenge!

Because a valiant few of you drank nearly 12 Sixpoint beers, but came up a few short at the end and couldn't make it up given the beers we had on tap then, we've decided, in our infinite forgiveness, to give you a second chance to finish and earn your limited edition Sixpoint/Pacific Standard t-shirt. Here are the details:

--If you drank nine or more Sixpoint beers during the course of the week, you still have until October 1 to get to 12 beers and earn your shirt.
--You can drink any Sixpoint beers you want, even if they're repeats of beers on your list, or each other. For instance, if you have 9 Sixpoints already on your list, you can just drink three Sweet Actions to get to 12, or a Sweet Action and two Brownstones, etc., etc.

Those of you who have completed the challenge but haven't picked up their shirts yet can come in any time to do so. Hope to see you 9+ people soon and reward you justly for your efforts.

Football update.

Cal beat Minnesota 35-21 last Saturday (with your gentle owners present and yelling themselves hoarse at the stadium), moving them up to #6 in the country, and setting the stage for two incredibly important Pac-10 games: at Oregon this Saturday at 3:30 Eastern time, and at home against USC the following Saturday at 8 pm ET. We'll have both games on our big screens, of course, and a hearty contingent of fans. We also donate a portion of game proceeds to Cal scholarship programs, so your drinking will do some good for some bright young students. In other news, we're showing plenty o' NFL games and lots of other college football action, without the madness and frattiness of other sports bars. Go Bears, and see you around soon.

Next Chin Music October 1.

Chin Music: The Poetry Reading Series @ Pacific Standard Bar
Featuring Wendy Mnookin, Farrah Field & MC Hyland

Thursday, October 1, 2009 @ 7:00 PM

Please join us for our next evening of Chin Music @ Pacific Standard.
On October 1st, we are excited to feature three excellent poets: Wendy
Mnookin, Farrah Field, and MC Hyland. Other writers to be featured in
Chin Music this season include Monica de la Torre, Alison Hawthorne
Deming, Aaron Fagan, Steve Gehrke, Aracelis Girmay, Stuart
Greenhouse, Jason Koo, Philip Levine, Roddy Lumsden, Jynne Dilling
Martin, and Akilah Oliver.

FEATURED WRITERS

Wendy Mnookin's most recent book, THE MOON MAKES ITS OWN PLEA, was
published by BOA Editions in 2008. Her other collections are WHAT HE
TOOK and TO GET HERE (BOA Editions), and GUENEVER SPEAKS, published by
Round Table Productions. Wendy is the recipient of a book award from
the New England Poetry Club and a fellowship from the National
Endowment for the Arts. She teaches poetry at Emerson College and at
Grub Street, a non-profit writing program in Boston, and lives in
Newton, Massachusetts. You can learn more at her website:
www.wendymnookin.com.

Farrah Field's first book, RISING, was published by Four Way Books in
early 2009. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the
Mississippi Review, Margie, Chelsea, The Massachusetts Review, Harpur
Palate, Typo, Harp & Altar, 420pus, Cortland Review, Pebble Lake
Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Fulcrum, and The Pinch. She was born
in Cheyenne, Wyoming and raised in Nebraska, Colorado, Louisiana,
Arkansas, Sicily, and Belgium. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

MC Hyland is the author (or co-author) of four chapbooks, most
recently Residential As In, an e-chap published by Blue Hour Press in
February 2009. Her poems have appeared in H_NGM_N, The Paris Review,
42Opus, LIT, Colorado Review, and several other magazines, and new
work is forthcoming in Cannibal and Slant. She also runs DoubleCross
Press. She lives in Minneapolis, where she makes books, writes,
teaches letterpress printing and writing, and works in a cheese shop.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Fire at 80A Fourth Avenue.

We just wanted to get the word out to those of you who haven't stopped by today or yesterday that our building and everyone who lives here, thankfully, are completely fine despite the fire next door on Monday. Also, our neighbors on the second floor next door made it out with only minor injuries. The property damage to the building, however, is pretty bad--everyone should consider donating to our AIDS Housing Network/Books Through Bars friends over there. We're taking up a collection here at the bar too, so come by anytime if you want to support a worthy cause. Finally, you can donate online at www.nycahn.org.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Some details on Hops of Love

which is coming on Thursday for our Sixpoint extravaganza:

Sixpoint Hops of Love (Brooklyn, NY; $6/16 oz). A West Coast-style IPA made in Brooklyn, Hops of Love is hoppy, light, and crisp, without an intense malty background. It's a hop bomb, yet carefully formulated so the bitterness doesn't come across too harshly. ABV unknown, probably moderate.

Special Craft Beer Week beer now on tap.

We've just put on NY3, the brand-new and one-time-only official Craft Beer Week beer for 2009. It's a collaboration between three great New York state breweries, Captain Lawrence, Ithaca, and Southampton. Here are the details:

NY3 (Pleasantville, NY; $6/16 oz). The official beer of NYC Craft Beer Week 2009 is a collaboration between Captain Lawrence, Ithaca, and Southampton Publick House. A farmhouse ale brewed with local honey from each of the three brewers, it's dry-hopped with hops from Pedersen Farms, predominatly Willamette. ABV unknown, probably moderate.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Exact Craft Beer Week Sixpoint schedule

including a one-off beer that's almost never seen in NYC. To wit:

Friday the 11th: Sweet Action, Bengali Tiger (one of our three $2 Beer Week specials), Brownstone, and Righteous Rye.
Saturday the 12th: Mason's Black Wheat
Sunday the 13th: Emasculator
Monday the 14th: Carob Porter
Tuesday the 15th: Gorilla Warfare
Wednesday the 16th: Bolshoi
Thursday the 17th: Hops of Love (brewed specially for a wedding, almost never seen in NYC)
Friday the 18th: Diesel
Saturday the 19th: Apollo Wheat

We'll also put a Sixpoint cask on soon, which will count as a separate beer, in order to assist people who might miss one of the beers that went on early in the week in completing the 12-beer challenge. Remember, if you drink 12 different Sixpoint beers during Beer Week (September 11-20), you get a limited-edition Pacific Standard/Sixpoint t-shirt.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Last Topsham Pantsuit show Wednesday.

Join us at Pacific Standard in Park Slope for Topsham Pantsuit: an apocalyptic evening of comedy, book cases, and craft beers.

LAST SHOW EVER: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH

With host RITCH DUNCAN

FEATURING:

MICHAEL KUPPERMAN (Cartoonist, and according to Conan O'Brien, "One of the best comedy brains on the planet")

JOSH FADEM (It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia)

TED TRAVELSTEAD and JULIE WRIGHT (Beloved Topsham Pantsuit Favorites)

JOE RANDAZZO (Editor-In-Chief of The Onion)

AND A SPECIAL GUEST??? OR TWO?????

Thursday, September 10, 2009

First two fiction readings of the season coming up October 13 and 27.

The Pacific Standard Fiction Series: Storytelling
featuring Lev Grossman and Hannah Tinti
Tuesday, October 13th, 7:00 p.m.

Lev Grossman's new novel, THE MAGICIANS, has been likened to "Harry Potter for grown-ups" by The London Times and to "poppin' peyote buttons with J.K. Rowling" by GQ. It is a New York Times Bestseller. His previous novel, Codex, has been published in 11 languages. Grossman, who lives in Brooklyn, is the book critic for Time Magazine.

Hannah Tinti's bestselling first novel, The Good Thief, won the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize, and was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times, which praised its "strong plotting, pure lucidity, and visceral momentum." Her debut story collection, ANIMAL CRACKERS, was nominated for the Hemingway Foundation/Pen Award. Tinti is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of One Story.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Pacific Standard Fiction Series
featuring Victor LaValle and Robert Lopez
Tuesday, October 27th, 7:00 p.m.

Victor LaValle's second novel, the newly published BIG MACHINE, has given The Wall Street Journal and Mos Def something they can agree on (sort of: the former likened the book to Ralph Ellison and Thomas Pynchon, where latter name-checked Edgar Allen Poe and Gabriel Garcia Marquez). His previous book, The Ecstatic, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. LaValle is also the author of a story collection, Slapboxing with Jesus. He has earned a Whiting Writers' Award and the key to the city of Jamaica, Queens.

Robert Lopez's second novel, the newly published KAMBY BOLONGO MEAN RIVER, is "disturbing and inspiring and at all times hypnotic," writes Bookslut. His previous novel, Part of the World, garnered numerous comparisons to Samuel Beckett. Lopez's fiction and poetry has appeared in Bomb, The Threepenny Review, and The Mississippi Review. He teaches at The New School.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Craft Beer Week strategy.

If you're interested in drinking all twelve Sixpoint beers in the ten days of Craft Beer Week (September 11-20) to get a limited-edition Sixpoint/Pacific Standard t-shirt, we'd recommend stopping by early in the "week." We'll put four Sixpoint beers on tap on the 11th, and you don't want to miss one of them and lose out on the complete set. We'd say definitely come by from the 11th-14th to be sure you nail the first four. Then you'll have more time to finish the twelve; we'll be putting on one beer a day through the 19th.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Sports update.

Lots of sporty stuff going on now that it's the fall season:

--Our college football package is in full effect. We have the ESPN GamePlan package, as well as all the Big 10 network games, and all the games carried on the Western regional networks. Basically, everything gettable is being gotten here.
--We also have all the NFL games, and will be showing as many as we can on our two big screens starting Thursday, with Pittsburgh against Tennessee.
--U.S. World Cup qualifier this Wednesday against the evil empire of Trinidad, which apparently has been joined by the equally nefarious Tobago in an attempt to defeat these United States. The ESPN coverage will start at 6:30 pm from Port of Spain, and we will have it, and a lot of fans, here. Join us for the island vacation; we'll have the usual $1 off all drinks special every time the U.S. scores.
--Cal embarrassed Maryland by the ridiculous score of 52-13 last Saturday, and we all enjoyed it. Next up is Eastern Washington on Saturday at 5:30 pm, and if you think we won't have the game here, you're grievously mistaken.
--Also upcoming is Cal's game against Minnesota on Saturday, September 19, at 12 noon. We'll open early, at 11:30 am (maybe even earlier), to let people get settled in and get drinks before the game starts.

Friday, September 4, 2009

First Chin Music of the fall season on the 17th.

Chin Music: The Pacific Standard Poetry Reading Series
Featuring Randall Mann, John Casteen, and Will Dowd

Thursday, September 17th 2009 @ 7:00 PM

Please join us for opening night of Chin Music’s Autumn/Winter 2009 season. On September 17th, we are excited to feature three fine poets: Randall Mann, John Casteen, and Will Dowd. Other writers to be featured in Chin Music this season include Alison Hawthorne Deming, Farrah Field, Major Jackson, Philip Levine, Roddy Lumsden, Wendy Mnookin, Akilah Oliver, and Monica de la Torre.

FEATURED WRITERS

Randall Mann is the author of two collections of poetry, BREAKFAST WITH THOM GUNN (University of Chicago Press, 2009) and COMPLAINT IN THE GARDEN (Zoo/Orchises, 2004), and co-author of the textbook WRITING POEMS (Pearson Longman, 2007). He lives in San Francisco.

John Casteen was self-employed as a designer and builder of custom furniture for ten years after graduating from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has taught at The University of Virginia and at Sweet Briar College. He has contributed poems to The Paris Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and other literary magazines; he has also written for Slate.com and Virginia Quarterly Review, where he serves on the editorial staff. His book, FREE UNION, appeared this spring from the University of Georgia Press. He lives outside Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and their two young children.

Will Dowd's work appeared recently in 32 Poems, The Comstock Review, and Post Road Magazine. He received a B.A. from Boston College and an M.S. from MIT. In 2007, he was named a Jacob K. Javits Fellow. He is currently pursuing an MFA at New York University.