Today is the 64th birthday of beer writer Jay Brooks, who other publications may not have credited but who broke the news about Drake’s buying (er, merging with) Bear Republic. His guidebook, California Breweries – North (Stackpole Books), came out long enough ago so as to be as obsolete as a guidebook to Oregon Breweries. Jay is a veteran beer writer (Celebrator Beer News, All About Beer, BeerAdvocate, etcetera etcetera) whose column Brooks on Beer appears in the San Jose Mercury News. He has contributed to the Oxford Companion to Beer as well as Playboy Magazine. He is the co-founder of SF Beer Week. To anyone who follows the brewing industry, none of this is news. But for years, a convivial component of his Brookston Beer Blog has been celebrating brewers and those in the beer community on their birthdays. So please…join me in wishing Jay a very happy birthday.

Jay, Chris the Beer Scholar, Shap, Jay, me, Bryan, Damian before founding Almanac.

Jay, Eric Rose, me at Hollister Brewing near UCSB.