NOTE: See bottom of this column for a blog update.
Shortly after I began working at j. a year ago, I contacted a former co-worker at the Oakland Tribune and asked if he’d write a freelance article for us about Jews and beer. After all, Bill Brand was one of the country’s foremost beer writers, and he was Jewish.
I offered some possible topics: local craft brewers who are Jewish; European beers with a Jewish heritage; the fledgling microbrewery scene in Israel; any mention of beer in the Torah?
“I’d love to do it, Andy,” he replied. “When would you need it?”
Over the next 10 months, despite several more promises, Bill never wrote that article. Yet for some reason, I didn’t begrudge him. I knew he wanted to do it, but with daily entries on his nationally known beer blog and his weekly Tribune column and his work for monthly beer publications — in addition to attending myriad beer events and working as a regular news reporter up until four months ago — he had a lot on his plate.
Plus, he was such a nice guy, I could sense it was his heart saying yes, while the rest of his body was going in 100 different directions.
It was only last month, at his memorial at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette, that I learned Bill said “yes” to everyone. In a moving eulogy, his stepson, Zach Walter, talked about how Bill was the most generous man he’d ever met. “He couldn’t always live up to his promises,” Zach said, “but he tried to.”
That’s one reason Bill’s untimely death stung so many people so hard. He was a genuinely sweet and friendly person, full of energy and always emanating passion (both for reporting and for good beer). And he touched many people, from the thousands he had met at beer festivals to the thousands who read his blog and column regularly.
Bill died last month, 12 days after getting hit by a Muni train Feb. 8 in what can only be described as a tragic turn of events.
San Francisco Beer Week — a first-time event that Bill’s reporting and fervor had helped grow from a seedling of an idea into a huge, Bay Area–wide festival — was only three days old when Bill attended a dinner at a brewpub in San Francisco.
Although I wasn’t with him that night, at several events I had attended with Bill, his modus operandi was always the same: Sampling in mouthfuls, rather than in ounces or pints, and always being responsible by taking public transit. It was no different Feb. 8 — but, as Bill walked to a Muni stop, he was hit by an N-Judah train in what authorities have deemed an accident.
At events the rest of Beer Week — including a beer and chocolate dinner where my wife and I were supposed to meet up with Bill — there was always an official toast to Bill. Knowing his spirit, everyone was optimistic he would survive. More than 150 people posted well-wishes online.
But after nearly two weeks in a coma, Bill died. He was 70, a revelation that stunned me (I truly thought he was in his late 50s).
After Bill’s death, there was an even wider outpouring of love, with several hundred online tributes, some 300 people at the Temple Isaiah memorial and a well-attended gathering at an Oakland tavern.
Whenever Bill attended an event, be it a cask ale festival in Berkeley or a panel discussion on Belgian beers in San Francisco, he was a whirlwind: taking notes, snapping pictures, interviewing brewers, sampling beer and tearing into his backpack so he could tap ideas into his laptop. All the while, he’d be talking about a great stout he recently tasted, or a new pizza joint with a great beer selection, to anyone and everyone.
As for that article Bill never did write for j., well, it’s not as if he never touched on Judaism in his Oakland Tribune column. He wrote about the counting of the Omer in May 2008 when naming He’Brew’s “Rejewvenator” his beer of the week, and he referenced the Torah (Genesis 10:10) in 2006 when reviewing another beer.
And in a 2005 article for the Northwest Brewing News, he wrote: “It’s not widely publicized, but Jews have an incredible drinking and brewing tradition.”
May his memory be a Double IPA.
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AN EAST BAY BREWPUB NAMES A BEER AFTER BILL BRAND …. AND A STORE IN LAFAYETTE IS GOING TO HOLD A FINAL TOAST TO BILL …. CLICK HERE TO READ MY BLOG ENTRY.
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Andy Altman-Ohr lives in Oakland. Reach him at [email protected].