SF Beer
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Bison Brewing
Sunday 2/8/98

Sunday night we took the BART across the bay to Berkley. Once we understood that some of the trains don't run on Sunday we got over to Berkley about sunset. We had some trouble finding Bison from the BART station. It's a long walk and we gave up about a block short thinking we'd gone too far.

After the long walk and since we'd spent all day one an airplane getting here we were starving. We all had great meals with a highlight being the sun-dried tomato pizza with eggplant and feta cheese.

Later in the evening they had open mic with an eclectic line-up of musicians. This was one of the coolest brewpubs I've visited. I especially liked the draft line up of relatively standard ales with the experimental bottled batches. That's an approach I think more pubs should try.

Coriander Rye Ale, 1996 World Cup Winner (O.G. 1.055)

We had a pitcher of this for starters. I had heard about Bison's adventurous styles and this was the only unusual thing on tap. I've only had coriander in Belgian style beers, but it was a good complement to the rye.

As we waited on the pitcher we saw a table tent advertising special brews in 22 oz bottles. Aha! This is what I came for. We started ordering the bottles and sharing them around the table. We asked our server to bring us everything they had in stock. She even chilled a couple of these early so we could drink them later in the evening.

Pecan Smoked Scotch Ale (OG 1.082)

This was a complex brew with a slight smoke flavor and a slight nutty flavor. The scotch ale was a strong ale to carry these heavy flavors without being overpowered.

Gingerbread Ale (OG 1.071)

This was an amber with a solid ginger flavor. A little ginger goes a long way. This was balanced with a ginger burn aftertaste. If you've ever had old fashioned ginger ale you know how it can leave an almost spicy burn.

Pumpernickel Ale (OG 1.068)

Wow. Two bread themed ales back-to-back. This is difficult to describe, but liquid bread would be close. It was dark with a flavor of pumpernickel bread.

Honey Basil Ale (OG Not listed)

This one got the most mixed reviews of the bunch. Everyone was a bit put-off at the flavor combination I think. It was a bit sweet as honey ales tend to be and the basil was a subtle presence.

Toasted Oatmeal Brown (OG 1.065)

This was a lot stronger than expected. Many of us remembered it as a stout until we reviewed the notes and pictures. I suppose the toasted oatmeal yields a similar flavor to the roasted barley.

Lemongrass Wheat Ale (OG 1.052)

I think everyplace in California serves something with lemongrass these days, but this was the only beer. This was a very refreshing beer that we all agreed would be great on warm summer day.

 

Triple Rock
Sunday 2/8/98

Being foolishly optimistic and determined to try as many places as possible we decided to go to Triple Rock before heading back to the city. It was very close to the BART station and we had a ride. The seven or eight of us loaded into Bill's Jeep Cherokee like clowns at a circus. It was a short and uncomfortable ride that would be repeated later in the week.

Triple Rock is a sister brewery to Twenty Tank in San Francisco. We didn't eat anything here and most of us had just one beer realizing how blotto we had gotten enjoying all the variety at Bison.

Stonehenge Stout

There's some confusion about this, but I remember a rich creamy head. Somehow this was spilled on Brian, but that's a sensitive issue and I'll say no more.

Tree Frog Ale, Bug Juice

As I recall these were an ESB and a Pale Ale, but poor notes were kept.

Gordon Biersch
Monday 2/9/98

2 Harrison St.
(at Embarcadero)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 243-8246

The Gordon Biersch Brewery is located right at the base of the Bay Bridge, which makes it easy to find. We walked here from our hotel. Jon and Brian walked ahead of the rest of us and were met by a homeless guy coming the other way who veered toward them and screamed in their face, "I'm not gay and I'm proud of it!". Apparently ... he thought they were a couple and wanted to make a statement.

The food was pure California cuisine. I had some sort of generally vegetarian pasta dish. We also had lamb satay and garlic fries as appetizers.

Helles bock (aka Blonde Bock), Dunkles, Marzen

All of these beers were excellent. GB's specialty is German Lagers and it shows in every glass.

The Thirsty Bear
Tuesday 2/10/98

The Thirsty Bear is located between the Moscone Convention Center where we spent our days and our hotel, so a visit was clearly mandatory. Lucky for us we came on Tuesday, which is cask conditioned ale night.The brewer taps a cask every Tuesday at 5:00 and is generally available to chat about the beer and share a pint with customers. We didn't know about cask night in advance and showed up much later. We did get to sample the cask conditioned ale before it was gone. Yum.

The menu at Thirsty Bear is Spanish. That means lots of rice dishes with seafood and chicken including classic paella. They also had wonderful bread, which is served with olive oil as an appetizer. I can almost taste it now. Their samples were available on a per beer basis, so I asked for samples of everything that wasn't ordered by somebody.

Valencia Wheat (OG 1.042)

A Belgian White with coriander and orange peel, a very good and refreshing beer. Several in our party made this their choice of the evening.

Polar Ale (OG 1.042)

Your basic Pilsner. Good, but we didn't go back for seconds.

Golden Vanilla Ale (OG 1.040)

Wow! This was unique ... and much better than it sounds. It's made with vanilla beans and has a strong vanilla aroma. This worked well with the Spanish food and several people drank this all night. (cont)

Thirsty Bear (cont)

Brown Bear Ale  (OG 1.050)

This was their cask conditioned ale for the evening and we got a sample of the non-cask for comparison. The cask ale was wonderful, malty, and smooth.

Meyer's ESB (OG 1.058, IBU 40)

This was nitrogen dispensed and my choice for the evening. A good balanced beer with a nice hop fragrance.

Yerba Buena Pale Ale (OG 1.054, IBU 38)

Classic west coast pale ale.

Howard Street IPA (OG 1.068, IBU 44)

Highly hopped, bitter ale.

Bearly Legal Barley Wine  (OG Not listed)

We just had a sample of this and huu-ahh! (pronounced a.l.a. Pacino in Scent Of A Woman) According to the menu this is about 10% alcohol and loaded with everything. Barley Wine's just not my thing.

Kozlov Stout

Temporarily unavailable :-(

20 Tank
Wednesday 2/11/98

We had a late dinner this evening opted for pizza. I had a BBQ Chicken and the others had a veggie pizza with eggplant and sun-dried tomatoes. They had a lot more beers than the two we tried, but luck was with us once again and Wednesday featured both cask conditioned ale night and souvenir glass night. The featured beer to get the glass was the nitrogen dispensed imperial stout and refills were only $2. I had to try the cask IPA. This is the sister brewery to Triple Rock.

Cask Conditioned IPA

This was excellent, but I only got one pint before the cask was dry. I switched to the Imperial Stout.

Nitrogen Dispensed Imperial Stout

This was very good. Imperial Stout is not my thing, but the nitrogen dispensing took the edge off and I thought worked very well for the style.

E&O Trading Company
Thursday 2/12/98

This was a lunch stop, so we only had one beer each. This place is between Chinatown an Union Square and difficult to spot even when you're across the street. The beer and food are both great. We had salads and satay for lunch with a beer for about $12. We sampled: Stout, Dragon Breath Ale, and IPA.

Beach Chalet Brewery
Thursday 2/12/98

This one is very far across town on the Pacific coast, near Cliff House. This would be a great place to watch the sunset. We arrived much after sunset and found this to be about a $20 cab fare from downtown. The beers were good and we were again fortunate to find the ESB on hand-pull. All of the beers were good, but I didn't keep detailed notes. The menu was pasta, seafood, and steak. Most interesting were the frescos in the lobby downstairs that were commissioned during the 30's in the WPA era.

Beers we sampled include: Riptide Red, Essex ESB, Playland Pale Ale, Churchyard Ale, Scottie's Scottish, Presidio Porter

Other styles that we did not sample include: Hoot Owl Light, West End Wheat, VFW Light, Endless Summer Creme Ale, Beach Blanket Blonde, California Kind Ale, Ocean Beach Octoberfest, Alexander Alt Amber

Anchor Brewing
Friday 2/13/98

All of the Anchor beers are definitive of their style with the exception of the wheat. The wheat is an American Wheat and just doesn't have much interest for me. It's a good clean beer, but very neutral.

We got a great tour of the brewery from Kendra. I was surprised how small the facility and staff are. We were there on Friday after lunch and they provide lunch for their employees on payday. How many places do that? The smell of hops was drifting down the hall from their small hop room. We could see several bales of hops sitting there. The beer is open fermented in large shallow stainless steel pans. They offered samples of all the beers after the tour.

Wheat Ale

They've recently started bottling their wheat beer again. It had been retired for several years.

Anchor Steam

The classic Anchor Steam, warm fermented in large shallow, open fermenters, same as always.

Liberty Ale

This is my favorite, a dry hopped pale ale. Along with Sierra Nevada these define the California Pale style.

Anchor Porter

A rich creamy porter that is definitive for the style.

Old Foghorn Barley Wine

Having Old Foghorn on tap completely redefined the beer for me. I've tried a couple of bottles and it didn't do much for me -  somewhat oxidized, strong alcohol flavor, very malty. The draft foghorn has a great hop aroma revealing that it is dry hopped. It's just a completely different beer on tap. Almost makes me wish I lived in California...

Steelhead Brewery
Friday 2/13/98

This Oregon based brewery recently opened a new location on Fisherman's Wharf. We had terrible service on Friday night from a waiter who was just not handling the stress well. He had a large party outside and us inside. The beers were all very good and the had a good menu as well.

We sampled all of the beers: McFaddin Oatmeal Stout, El Niņo Nectar, Razzmatazz, IPA Bombay Bomber, Hefeweizen, Steelhead Amber, Fort Point, Strong Ale. Except Lightship Lager.