Weekend Eats & Drinks

If you can brave the rain this weekend, Oktoberfest continues with three beer events Saturday.

From noon to 5 p.m., head to Linden Street Brewery for a family-friendly beer and brats festival benefiting Bay Area Community Services. Drake’s Brewery will also be pouring at the event that features live blues music by Al D Bop & the Boptroplis Band and barbecue. Admission is free, and $10 for a souvenir mug and two beer tickets.

Also in Oakland, Pacific Coast Brewing Co. is celebrating 22 years with 1988 rollback prices Saturday from 8 p.m. to midnight. Catch live music from the Damn Liars, 8 to 10 p.m. with no cover.

If you want more variety, try the Bay Area Craft Beer Festival in Martinez from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is $45 (or $35 if purchased in advance online tonight) for unlimited pours from over 30 microbreweries, including Bear Republic, Eel River, Dogfish Head, Lagunitas, and New Belgium Brewing. Click here for a full list. Get in an hour early at noon with a $50 VIP ticket. Three bands will provide entertainment, and food will be sold.


Linden Street Brewery Beer and Brats
Noon to 5 p.m.
95 Linden St., Oakland
http://www.clubrunner.ca/Portal/SitePages/SitePage.aspx?accountid=3190&pid=55019

Pacific Coast Brewing
8:30 p.m. to midnight
906 Washington St., Oakland
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120008781391284#!/event.php?eid=120008781391284

Bay Area Craft Beer Festival
1 to 5 p.m.
333 Ferry St., Martinez
http://www.bayareacraftbeerfestival.com/

Weekend Eats and Drinks

Whatever your epicurean vice, there’s probably an East Bay event for you this weekend.

On Saturday, start the day at noon in Old Oakland for Pacific Coast Brewery’s festival. Admission is free, and $20 gets you a commemorative glass and 5 beer tasting tickets. Separately, the glass is $5 and extra beer tastings are 6 for $20. The usual suspects are on tap, all California craft brews pouring anniversary ales: Bear Republic, Drake’s, Speakeasy, Lost Coast, Stone, Rubicon, Port, Sudwerks, Sierra Nevada and Pacific Coast. The event runs until 7 p.m. and is billed as family-friendly with live music and food from local restaurants.

If beer’s not your thing, head to JC Cellars a mile away at Jack London Square to see the winery in full production. The harvest is here and the winery has two free tours at 1 and 2:30 P.M. Afterward, head to the tasting room to try some Syrah, Zinfandel and Pinot Noir, to name a few, for $5. The fee is refundable with any purchase.

The gluttony continues early Sunday at 9:30 a.m. in Berkeley for Pyramid Ale House’s $10 all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet with NFL ticket. The buffet ends at 11:30, but you can catch all the games on one of the 6 HD TVs all day.

If you’re a late riser, Blue Bottle Coffee’s free Sunday cupping will wake you up. A must for coffee connoisseurs, the noon cupping is a way to evaluate Blue Bottle’s coffee aromas and flavor profiles side-by-side. See whether you notice the difference between a washed and natural Amaro Gayo. One caveat: Everyone dips their spoons in the same cups, so it’s not for germaphobes.

Afterward, head to North Berkeley’s Spice of Life festival, a celebration of food and art, running until 6 p.m. Catch cooking demos and samples by local eateries alongside open yoga studios and art exhibits. Stop by the wine garden on Vine Street, featuring local winemakers and importers, and listen to live music from the JazzSchol and Freight and Salvage, or get fresh, organic produce from the farmer’s market.

Running the same time is Spenger’s annual Crabby Chef Seafood Festival from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Benefitting the Berkeley Cal Recreational Sports Development Fund’s camp scholarship program, the event includes a 2 p.m. Iron Chef cooking competition with a crowning of a Crabby Chef. Food booths offer the gamut of seafood from crab cakes to clam chowder.

Saturday
Old Oakland Beer Festival
Noon-7 p.m.
906 Washington Ave., Oakland

JC Cellars harvest tour
1 and 2:30 p.m.
55 4th St., Oakland

Sunday
Pyramid NFL breakfast buffet
901 Gilman St., Berkeley

Blue Bottle Coffee cupping
Noon
300 Webster St., Oakland

North Berkeley Spice of Life
10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Shattuck Avenue from Rose to Virginia, Berkeley
http://www.gourmetghetto.org/2010%20spice%20of%20life%20info.htm

Spenger’s Crabby Chef seafood festival
11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
1919 4th St., Berkeley
http://www.yelp.com/events/berkeley-spenger-and-39-s-to-host-10th-annual-crabby-chefs-seafood-festival-on-october-17-2010