Beer in the Bay Area

My wife, 11 week old daughter and I recently went on a trip to the bay area for a wedding. It was the first time I'd been in Northern California and I was excited to sample as many beers as possible. Sadly I wasn't able to get to the Anchor Steam Brewery, but I was able to go to several brewpubs and a couple bars and taste a ton of west coast beers that I can't get my hands on in the Midwest, but have always read about.

In San Francisco we went to two brewpubs. The first one was the 21st Amendment Brewery close to the SBC park, the Giants stadium. The name is clever, since this was the amendment that repealed prohibition. I only had time to try one beer, which I wasn't blown away by. Their award winning beer was a Watermelon wheat, which sounded intriguing, but ended up being unimpressive. I've thought in the past about watermelon in wheat beers and the problem seems to be that it's not a strong enough flavor to really come out. The beer tasted watery and lacked enough watermelon character, despite a slice of watermelon on the side of the glass. Instead of having a second beer, we decided to head to another brewpub.

The second place we went to was much better, and it's the picture above. The San Fransisco Brewing Company is a small, cool, old bar located in the North Beach area. My wife had the hefeweizen which was very good. I tried the San Francisco Pale Ale. This was a really great example of the Pale Ales I had on the west coast. Very hoppy and using mostly cascade hops. I also tried a sampler of the Albartross Lager, which was a nice smooth lager. Sorry, I'm not feeling like providing too many specific beer details. Overall, great beers and cool setting.



I also visited the Hopyard Ale House in Pleasanton, California. Here I tried several different beers that aren't available in Minneapolis. I tried Stone Brewing Company's Arrogant Bastard Ale. This is a beer that I've heard a lot about. The name says it all. This beer is big in all ways; super hoppy, super high alcohol and a plethora of flavors. It pours a dark redish color with a white head. Its hard to describe, but is an excellent beer! I had tried their Levitation Ale once, which was good, but Arrogant Bastard lives up to the hype.

The next beer I tried was Russian River's Pliny the Elder. This is an Imperial IPA, weighing in at 8% ABV. It pours a golden-orange-ish color that has a heavy hop presence in the aroma. It drank smooth and had a nice after taste.

I tried Bear Republic's Racer 5 IPA. It was good, a pretty standard IPA. Nothing stood out too much.

A beer I was really excited to try was a unique beer I had read about before. It's called Mateveza and it's an all organic beer brewed with Yerba Mate tea. Yerba Mate is a type of tea usually drank in Argentina. This beer is a really interesting concept and I was excited to see a 22oz bomber in a small grocery store near my hotel. This beer was a bit of a letdown for me.

The beer poured with a thin white head and a golden color. It had a smooth taste and didn't have much of a hop presence. The thing that disappointed me about the beer was the lack of mate tea present. I would drink this beer again, it's a good organic brew, but the tea was a draw for me. Without much of it evident, its just a pretty basic pale ale.

It was cool to be in a region where there were such a great deal of beers that I don't have access to here in the midwest. Hops are definitely the theme in the bay area. Overall, I tasted some great beers. The San Fransisco Brewing Company had to be the highlight of the beer experience, mostly because of the cool ambiance and great beers.