SAMER KHUDAIRI’S BEST IN 2021 - Top 10 BEERS OF THE YEAR

by Samer Khudairi
(Craft Beer & Brewing)

AltBrau Sorry About That (Santa Rosa, California) Tim Decker’s emphasis on local agriculture finds it way into most AltBrau beers and this ‘happy accident’ packed with cherries and pluots - brewed at Shady Oak Barrel House - is no different. A saison aged on oak for 18 months got two and a half pounds of fruit per gallon. It’s rich, bright, and tart, with funk that separates it from cherry-based contemporaries.

The craft breweries opening in 2020 that will change the Bay Area’s beer scene

by Alyssa Pereira
( SF Chronicle / SF Gate)

“You could say Tim Decker’s reputation preceded him. Or at least, his stickers did.

Decker, a longtime punk and metal concert promoter and Sacramento-area homebrewer who turned “pro” in 2012, has been a roving brewer for years, collaborating on mostly farmhouse-styles ales with Santa Rosa’s Shady Oak Barrel House and other local breweries. His beers have yet to be seen in the wild, but chances are, drinkers who’ve frequented the area’s famed beer bars have likely seen his stickers, depicting a glass of beer atop a skull, with a snake slithering where its jaw should be.

In 2020, Decker’s going legit, releasing three beers through Shady Oak this spring under his moniker as he seeks business partners and financial backing for his project. But what the concept of the brewery AltBrau will end up looking like is still anyone’s guess. Will it be a taproom? A contract brewery? Decker’s not sure yet — not that he minds.

“Because I‘m not [currently] a legal licensed brewer, I don’t have the hard lines with how [AltBrau] exists,” he tells SFGATE. “I’m open to a lot of ideas: contract brewer, nomadic brewer. If I got the money to open a brick and mortar, would it be a blendery like The Rare Barrel? Having [the intention] be not so clear has benefited me.”

One thing that is clear is that, in the meantime, Decker’s honing in on his strengths: meeting people and making connections.

“You have to take the things you’re good at and push those and take the things you’re not and delegate,” he says. “I don’t know how to write a business plan, but something that’s not intimidating to me is that public interaction. I wanted an excuse to hang out with brewers who knew more than I did.”

From those brewers, Decker’s learning a lot, particularly when it comes to the styles that most interest him: mixed-culture wild and farmhouse ales.”

Brewer finds unlikely home at cidery

by Austin Walsh
(San Mateo Daily Journal)

"What is a beer maker without a brewery?

For Tim Decker, it is an opportunity to travel and collaborate with fellow brew enthusiasts across the globe while growing a network of fans and friends who appreciate his craft.

The hearty Rolodex established over Decker’s past few nomadic years making beer at others’ facilities is also helping him move toward his goal of one day owning a brewery, as an online fundraiser launched to finance his next experiment ticked past $17,000 in just over one week.

The funds raised will pay toward Decker collecting dozens of oak barrels, which he plans to use for fermenting a batch of wild ales he will make at Shady Oak Barrel House in Santa Rosa."

Beer in the Bay: AltBrau launches crowdfund campaign and SF gets a new brewpub in Hop Oast

by Alyssa Pereira
(SF Gate)

"A former concert promoter from Fresno named Tim Decker, currently working at South City Ciderworks in San Bruno, is looking to the masses to help him get his new brewery project, called AltBrau, off the ground. The new brewery, currently operating out of a space shared with Shady Oak Barrel House in Santa Rosa is seeking $15k in funding to buy barrels, blending tanks and other equipment to make mixed culture ales inspired by the sour beers of Belgium. The IndieGoGo campaign for the project is online now, and it's already appearing well on its way to the cash goal."

The Newest Thing in Beer: Ancient Yeast

by Mike Cherney
(The Wall Street Journal)

"Tim Decker hoped some lichen he found in the California hills last summer would contain an exotic strain of yeast that would give a unique flavor to his home-brewed beer.

Mr. Decker put the lichen in a jar with a sugary solution to see if the liquid would ferment, a sign that yeast, which consumes sugars and releases alcohol, could be present. Weeks later, a small wormlike grub appeared, likely crawling out of a bit of wood attached to the lichen.

“I knew pretty quickly that wasn’t going to be something I was going to want to put in my beer,” says Mr. Decker, 33 years old, who writes the AltBrau beer blog and plans to start a commercial brewing operation. In another such experiment, he found a spider floating in the jar.

Mr. Decker is in the vanguard of a brewing movement in the beer world: trying to find the weirdest, funkiest yeast. Even global drinks companies are entering the contest, hoping new and exclusive brews with a story behind them will entice consumers who are increasingly migrating to wine and spirits."

The Farm-to-Glass Movement Hits East Bay Breweries

by Janelle Bitker
(East Bay Express)

" On a much smaller scale, Oakland homebrewer Tim Decker is attempting to make beer using exclusively local ingredients. He sources fruit from regional farmers, spices from Oaktown Spice Shop,
malt from Admiral, and isolated strains from The Yeast Bay.
He even captured his own wild yeasts from the Oakland hills.

Branching off of his beer blog and podcast, AltBrau, Decker plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign this year in the hopes of finally starting his own commercial brewery. His inspiration for locality isn't the East Bay, though, but Belgium. He loves brewing barrel-aged sours and idolizes Belgian lambic producers.

'Their whole thing is to make a beer that represents a time and place,' he said. 'When people think of these rare, wonderful, sour lambic and gueuze beers from Belgium, they think of Cantillon and they think it's in the beautiful countryside. In reality, it's in an urban area. With AltBrau, I want to take the local focus, that attitude, but do it in Oakland and show you can make really rustic farmhouse-style, nuanced beers in urban areas.'

Will Decker be able to maintain that local focus on a commercial level? With new brewing products and ingredients constantly appearing on the market, it's entirely possible."

5th Annual Brews For New Avenues Raises Record-Breaking Amount

by Brewpublic.com

"Brews for New Avenues also featured AltBrau, a collaborative brewing project, and Oregon’s de Garde Brewing who together created two special releases, Avenue No. 1 and Avenue No. 2, for the event with bottle sales raising more than $20,000."