A recent conference in San Francisco gave me an opportunity to try out the brew in a number of the downtown brewpubs. The conference was held in a hotel adjacent to the convention center which is fortuitously located fairly close to three of the city's brewpubs.

Conference activities kept me close to the hotel the first evening, but most of the nearby watering holes had either Anchor or Red Hook products on tap, so the evening was not a complete zymurgical loss.

My first evening out, I walked over to the Twenty Tank Brewery which is located on 11th Avenue between Folsom and Harrison. It was a rather long walk through what turned out to be a somewhat seedy neighborhood. (Rating a walk through Highland Park on a Sunday morning as a 1 and a stroll through Cabrini Green on a Saturday night as a 10, I'd put the trip from the hotel to Twenty Tanks as a 7). For those not looking for additional excitement in their lives, I'd recommend a cab. The Twenty Tank Brewery is located in a reclaimed warehouse district and caters to a relatively young and body-pierced crowd. In spite of the fact that my only piercing was my tie tac through my tie (still being clad in my conference costume), I entered. The brewery specializes in ales, five of which were on tap when I visited. I started out with the Grimace Stout, which had a nice roasty aroma and flavor and hefty hop finish. I followed this up with a pint of the High Top Satanic Ale (an IPA). This seemed pretty off; poorly attenuated and with a pretty funky aftertaste. I ordered dinner with the IPA and found the special, their Unabomber Black Bean chili very good. Twenty Tanks shows relatively recent videos on the TV screens over the bar and I amused myself watching 'Strange Days' as I ordered a pint of Rottweiler Red Wheat Ale. As a red ale, the Rottweiler was not too bad, but any wheat character seems to have been lost in the process. All in all, the beer was a little disappointing, but it's an interesting place, the food is good, and would definitely be worth a return visit to see if I hit the place at a low point.

The next night, a relatively short and pleasant walk through Chinatown took me to the San Francisco Brewing Co, located on the corner of Columbus and Kearney. This brewpub appears to have been a turn of the century corner bar that has had an on-site brewery installed. The elaborate mahogany bar is, itself, worth the trip. Five beers were on tap during my visit, two lagers and three ales. I started with their IPA, definitely better than that at Twenty Tank, but not as dry as I would have preferred. After the IPA, I tried their amber lager, mildly malty and reasonably pleasant. I decided against dinner, as the bar was pretty small and getting increasingly smoke-filled during my stay.

Leaving SF Brewing, I hoofed it down through the financial district to Gordon Biersch. Following the directions I'd been given over the phone, I walked down Harrison towards the bay and, as I was rapidly running out of land to walk on, I began to despair of finding the place until I detected the unmistakable smell of a mash in progress. Following this, I soon found the brewery, which, being located at the corner of Harrison and Embarcadero, is virtually under the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. It being a Tuesday night, the pub was not very crowded, so I took a seat in the front that gave me a view of the bay, the bridge, and the passing traffic. The neo-industrial architecture in the pub interior nicely complements the view of the bridge out the window and makes for a very pleasant atmosphere, made all the more pleasant on this particular evening by the smell of the brew in progress. Gordon Biersch specializes in German lagers and they do a good job of it. The brewhouse is a highly automated system that permits multiple decoction mashes. During my visit, they had an export, a Märzen, and a dunkel on tap, plus a pilsener as the special. I started with the Märzen, which was excellent, and had the pilsener, good, but not as hoppy as I would have liked, with dinner. Prior to calling it a night I tried a half-pint (being somewhat saturated) of the dunkel.

Having enjoyed the stop at Gordon Biersch so much, I stopped in for lunch the next day prior to leaving for the airport, tried the export, and once again had the opportunity to see the brewhouse in operation. All in all, the beer, the ambience, and the food puts Gordon Biersch close to the top of my list of great brewpubs and a must stop in San Francisco.