{"id":2030,"date":"2017-02-17T17:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-02-18T01:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/?p=2030"},"modified":"2017-02-03T10:01:48","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T18:01:48","slug":"beyond-bottle-magic-tap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/beyond-bottle-magic-tap\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Bottle: The Magic Tap"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"high-water-brewing1\"<\/a>I\u2019ve had the pleasure of knowing Steve and Barri Altimari\u2014creators of this month\u2019s featured Aphotic imperial porter with cacao nibs\u2014for nearly a decade now. Steve\u2019s previous brewing work at Valley Brew crossed my radar while I was still living back on the opposite coast, and I\u2019d been actively trading for limited releases like Effinguud (a tart strong ale aged in French- and American-oak port barrels), \u00dcberhoppy Imperial IPA, and Decadence Grand Cru 2007 (a Belgian-style quad blended with \u201cpomegranate lambic\u201d) long before I met their makers.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I remember of that first meeting. My wife and I were traveling in from northern Nevada, scouting out possible places to settle down along the way, and Steve\u2019s brewing spot at the time was our first major stop in California before heading farther north. We hung out at their production facility, sampling through a surprising number of stellar beers from a tiny brewery, many pouring through what was readily deemed \u201cthe magic tap.\u201d This consisted of one single stainless-steel faucet mounted to the outside of a gigantic cold-storage room\u2014and every half hour that tap would be changed to pouring a different beer from Steve\u2019s stockpile of barrel-aged offerings. One fellow taster was a snake geek, and I learned firsthand there\u2019s a challenge to drinking with a ball python on your head. The beers were precise. The company was kind. And I\u2019m grateful that that initial stop set the tone for our time in California since.<\/p>\n

We drove up to Ashland, Oregon afterwards\u2014my wife driving safely, while I snoozed in the passenger seat\u2014and by the time we would finally settle in NorCal for good, Steve and Barri would already be in the process of transitioning to their next venture. High Water\u2019s proven a far better outlet for them\u2014it\u2019s been refreshing to watch the creativity they generate together. While I prefer High Water\u2019s lack of snakes, I still dream of having my very own magic tap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve had the pleasure of knowing Steve and Barri Altimari\u2014creators of this month\u2019s featured Aphotic imperial porter with cacao nibs\u2014for nearly a decade now. Steve\u2019s previous brewing work at Valley Brew crossed my radar while I was still living back on the opposite coast, and I\u2019d been actively trading for limited releases like Effinguud (a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[7,4,5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nBeyond the Bottle: The Magic Tap - Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/beyond-bottle-magic-tap\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beyond the Bottle: The Magic Tap - Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve had the pleasure of knowing Steve and Barri Altimari\u2014creators of this month\u2019s featured Aphotic imperial porter with cacao nibs\u2014for nearly a decade now. Steve\u2019s previous brewing work at Valley Brew crossed my radar while I was still living back on the opposite coast, and I\u2019d been actively trading for limited releases like Effinguud (a […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/beyond-bottle-magic-tap\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/beermonthclub\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-18T01:00:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-02-03T18:01:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/high-water-brewing1.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ken Weaver\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@KenWeaver\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@BeerMonthClub\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ken Weaver\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Beyond the Bottle: The Magic Tap - Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/beyond-bottle-magic-tap\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Beyond the Bottle: The Magic Tap - Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club","og_description":"I\u2019ve had the pleasure of knowing Steve and Barri Altimari\u2014creators of this month\u2019s featured Aphotic imperial porter with cacao nibs\u2014for nearly a decade now. Steve\u2019s previous brewing work at Valley Brew crossed my radar while I was still living back on the opposite coast, and I\u2019d been actively trading for limited releases like Effinguud (a […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/beyond-bottle-magic-tap\/","og_site_name":"Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/beermonthclub\/","article_published_time":"2017-02-18T01:00:44+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-02-03T18:01:48+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/high-water-brewing1.png"}],"author":"Ken Weaver","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@KenWeaver","twitter_site":"@BeerMonthClub","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ken Weaver","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/beyond-bottle-magic-tap\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/beyond-bottle-magic-tap\/","name":"Beyond the Bottle: The Magic Tap - Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-02-18T01:00:44+00:00","dateModified":"2017-02-03T18:01:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e58340b4e53188c364ce801bfd0849d8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/beyond-bottle-magic-tap\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/beyond-bottle-magic-tap\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/beyond-bottle-magic-tap\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Beer Blog Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Beyond the Bottle: The Magic Tap"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/","name":"Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club","description":"A craft beer blog written by the experts of The Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e58340b4e53188c364ce801bfd0849d8","name":"Ken Weaver","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe584ee75fa1de83a7be3ee5d9ace376?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe584ee75fa1de83a7be3ee5d9ace376?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Ken Weaver"},"description":"Ken Weaver is a freelance beer writer and watercolor-and-ink artist based in Petaluma, California. New original artwork is available from his webshop every few Fridays: kenweaver.com\/shop.","sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/KenWeaver"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/author\/dabeerguy\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2032,"href":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030\/revisions\/2032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beermonthclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}