Emil DeAndreis’ New Novel Inspires IPA At SF Beer Week

Photo Courtesy of Emil DeAndreis

San Francisco is a city that is constantly changing, but one thing that doesn’t change is its affinity for books and booze. 

Luckily I was privileged enough to chat with Emil DeAndreis, a San Francisco author who has dabbled with both the written word and the liquid courage that allows them to flow. 

His new novel, Tell Us When To Go, a title inspired by none other than E-40’s hyphy masterpiece, “Tell Me When To Go” has gone on to inspire a new beer by SF-based Anchor Brewing Co: the “Tell Us When To Go” IPA. The beer will be available at Anchor Brewing Public Taproom during SF BEER WEEK. 

The best part is that a percentage of the proceeds will be donated to the Council of Community Housing Organization, which works to find permanent housing for San Franciscans experiencing housing insecurity. 

As a writer (and drinker) from the Bay, I was excited to interview Emil, and found myself eager to learn more about his book and the beer it helped create.

What part of the Bay Area you from, Emil? 

“I grew up in the Sunset here in San Francisco.” 

When did you start writing?

“My parents would say when I was a kid I would compose these long winded stories about things like cereal being alive, accompanied by illustrations. Then I just stopped doing that entirely for about 20 years. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in my early twenties which ended my baseball career, and that was when I turned to writing again as a way of managing.”

What inspired the book?

“Originally the novel was about a failed ballplayer working in a public school– the setting could have been anywhere. But over the 5 or 6 years I spent rewriting this book– this was like 2017-ish– I couldn’t help but notice the ways tech and money were changing San Francisco, commercially, socially, aesthetically. Sort of subconsciously, those changes started to figure more and more into my plot, ultimately making this a very San Francisco book.”

What do you want people to take from the book?

“What I don’t want is for it to be perceived as an indictment to this most recent shift in San Francisco. The Bay Area has always been beloved, attracting people from all over, and everytime there’s been an influx of change, there are people for and against, people on the winning and losing side. Thirty five years ago, my parents were transplants too, right?  This book is less a commentary and more observation of SF’s most recent evolution, with characters who are both excited and disgusted by the idea of a 15 dollar crepe. Inevitably, Tell Us When To Go is an ode to the city of my childhood and those impacted by its change. Or I guess the book’s dedication page speaks to this more succinctly: for those at the whim of cities that shift beneath them like tectonic plates“

What city in the Bay Area had the biggest influence on you as an artist?

“As a kid I never thought of San Francisco as more than the place where my friends and family lived. Only now as I’m older can I appreciate that this home happened to have every kind of person and every kind of experience, and with that an open mindedness conducive to art and creation. In terms of the influence of this book, the district I grew up in, the sunset, figures prominently. So does Silicon Valley as the epicenter of tech. But I was, and remain, pretty unfamiliar with that world and so nearly all of it was crafted through research and a bit of imagination.”

How did the beer come about?

“In an opening chapter of the book, the two main characters are at Ocean Beach celebrating the fact that they’ve just found jobs. (It’s 2010, the tail end of the recession, when jobs for college grads were mercilessly scarce.) They observe a group of fellow millennials: Dudes sat on driftwood drinking Fat Tire, this being the beer our generation chose to announce they were adults now. 

To write this story, set in 2010, about a couple of twenty-somethings in the bay, it would have been false to not have craft beer. There’s a scene at El Toronado. There is pumpkin ale from Dogfish brewing, there’s a fictitious elderberry IPA. So it seemed practical, if a bit meta, for this book to become a beer. Dane Volek, headbrewer at Anchor, vibed with this concept, and we moved forward with a SF Beer Week release. Given the nature of the book, it felt right to make it a west coast IPA.”

How can people learn more about you?

“They can follow me on Twitter @emildeandreis or visit my website: emildeandreis.com.“

FOLLOW MY WRITING ON INSTAGRAM HERE

FOLLOW BAY AREA MEMES ON FACEBOOK HERE

FOLLOW BAY AREA MEMES ON INSTAGRAM HERE

PURCHASE MY BOOK HERE