In the thick of SF Beer Week (through March 1—check out my guide to the festivities here), I found myself reflecting on first meeting Sayre Piotrkowski when he was the cicerone at Monk’s Kettle in the Mission, shortly after I’d just moved to the city in 2009. I’d heard the lore about how Monk’s was the craft brew pub to check out in town, and was both hyped and overwhelmed when I perused the loaded list of drafts. We were on the precipice of the craft beer revolution, and that list reflected it.
Sayre approached our window table, enlightening us to the finer points of beers like Moonlight’s Reality Czeck Pilsner (a perfect beer), telling anecdotes like one about how brewer Brian Hunt would drive down from Santa Rosa to deliver the kegs and lower them downstairs into the keg room himself. I knew I liked Rodenbach Grand Cru’s world-renowned sour ale, and Sayre had a wealth of stories to share about the storied Belgian beer.
In short, he got me even more engaged and excited about craft beer and the brews I was drinking and discovering.
But a lot happened in those 15 or so years since: The craft beer industry blew up and then came back down. San Francisco changed, the Mission changed, heck that Monk’s location on 16th Street changed (it’s now a bar specializing in wine on tap—sigh—and Monk’s moved to Oakland and Marin). Local craft beer as a whole has changed A LOT.
One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is Sayre’s passion. The Petaluma native and advanced cicerone is now parlaying it into his new role as executive director of the Bay Area Brewers Guild, where he’s the chief advocate for 71 member-breweries in the Bay Area. And this year, he’s at the helm of his first SF Beer Week.
“This new role really lets me do the work I’m good at; engaging the end consumer to be more savvy and interested,” Sayre says. “On behalf of all the small breweries in the Bay Area between Monterey and Windsor.”
He has the right juice for the job, making a career out of evangelizing and sharing the stoke of what makes craft beer so special. After Monk’s, he worked at the North Bay’s Henhouse Brewing for over seven years and was the beer director at beloved bygone craft spots like Oakland’s Hog’s Apothecary and St. Vincent on Valencia. Through his Beer and Soul consulting business (a nod to his love of beer and music; catch him regularly hosting hip-hop and R&B trivia nights in Oakland), he’s worked with everyone from emerging to gigantic craft breweries, as well as taprooms and beer festivals.
“A lot of the advice I give is sobering news… namely, that sound business practices in this industry will only get you so far,” he says. “What grew this industry was a ton of ingenuity, hard work, creativity, and getting people to understand what was special about what we were doing.”
In this new era of craft beer, it’s the small businesses that are still standing and ready to show off that very Venture capital exodus be damned—Sayre Piotrkowski will advocate for the pours of 71 Bay Area Brewers Guild members until last call.creativity during SF Beer Week. There are over 200 events currently on the schedule (our picks below!) and it’s the main vehicle (along with the highly informative Brew Deck newsletter) for Sayre and the Guild to pump up the state of craft beer in the Bay. One that’s largely devoid of the venture capitalists who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the industry a decade ago.
“The ‘smart money’, if you will, is elsewhere now,” Sayre says. “People looking to participate in an industry for the four-times, five-times, six-times return in a short amount of time? Those people don’t usually make things better. If that’s your desire, you’re not playing in craft beer anymore.”
And while the dynamics of craft beer are far less globalized and well, more localized now, SF Beer Week 2026 is a prime opportunity to get out there and sip high quality beer made skillfully by locals.
“Beer has never been better in this country,” Sayre says. “The world’s best beers are really easy to get and we’re making the best beer we’ve ever made in the Bay Area right now.”
SF BEEK WEEK runs through March 1. Various Bay Area venues. More info here.
