The Bay Area as a whole is pretty much its own appellation as far as beer goes. Aside from Beer Revolution's East Bay vs SF night during beer week, there's rarely much distinction made, and we all coexist as a very happy, supportive, tipsy family. But being that we are on SBN, and that so many of the folks at Athletics Nation are loonbags, I shall have to choose the A's beer representative solely from the East Bay. Which, thankfully, isn't hard to do.

So. As the Giants head east to the Oakland Coliseum, three exits south lies Drake's Brewing Co. "But wait, Troy," you say, "aren't you applying for a job there? Aren't you just sucking up publicly to a potential employer?" To which I respond, "yeah, what of it?"

See, the thing is, I want to work for them because they're good. They've been around longer than some of you lawn-traipsers, in a weird little corner of San Leandro between Walmart, Home Depot, and a shooting range. In fact, when you bring someone here for the first time, they will absolutely think you're about to kill them and dump the body (ed note: this is highly discouraged by the staff).

They've done (and continue to do) a First Friday event, where they throw open the doors to the brewhouse and pour around a dozen taps as a few hundred people mill around out front & have some nosh from Fivetenburger or another of the usual rotating food trucks. And a little under a year ago, they opened the Drake's Barrel House. With it came the public face of their barrel program, which had existed for several years but whose results were difficult to find. The Barrel House is open five days a week and has not only the usual 1500, Drakonic, and Denogginizer, but a handful of their barrel aged beers, as well. One of the recent pours was an imperial stout with Blue Bottle and TCHO, which was amazing. They also had a sour blonde last year named Amy Beer-In-Winehouse, which I really loved. Also, they'll be releasing a pair of twin beers next month, Aroma Coma & Aroma Prieta- the same beer made with different hops.

But! We know how A's fans can be around these parts, and you can't be too careful. You want to stay alert and agile. So I suggest their seasonal bitter Alpha Session. All the hop bite that they've always been known for, clocking in at a very responsible 3.8% ABV. As the west coast continues to flood with brewers trying to one-up each other with hoppiness and/or ABV (with some spectacular results, I emphatically point out), it's good to have an option along those lines that won't get you shithoused over the course of nine innings.

Edit: Duh. It's the Barrel House's first anniversary party tomorrow (Sat 6/23)!

As an aside, Caple says we have the third-best beer selection in MLB. Having not seen a game at either Safeco or Coors, I suppose I can't really argue, and Seattle and Denver do have thriving beer scenes, but they better be damn good to compete with Public House.