Where to eat while you drink in San Francisco

I got a question by email tonight from someone coming in to SF from out of town, who wanted to know where to get dinner while he was here.  My go-to suggestion for these occasions is usually Magnolia, but this question came with a twist.  He’d already been to all the brewpubs/microbreweries in town.  Where else is there to go? 

Luckily, I have lots of thoughts on this.  I’m posting the 3 suggestions I gave him here, for all to debate.  This could have been a much longer list, but I wanted to avoid places that are really about their food and just happen to have good beer.  I wanted to focus on places that are very much about their beer (and in The Alembic’s case, all drinks) and just happen to have good food as well.  

So here they are, in alphabetical, not rank, order (because I just can’t choose between them, they have such different strengths and weaknesses):

The Alembic is owned by Dave McLean, the owner of Magnolia, and is just a couple blocks further up Haight Street, at Cole Street. 

 

 

• Beer: They have great beers, with a limited selection on tap (5 - 10 if I remember correctly), always including at least one Magnolia brew and at least one Moonlight brew, and a bunch more in bottles.
• Other drinks: They also have arguably the best cocktails in San Francisco, including traditional ones and inventive ones, so your non-drinking pal will be very happy. They make almost all their own syrups and bitters, etc., that go into the cocktails.
• Food: The food is very in the hard to define good “new American” sort of style. It is also small plates style and almost all local, organic, etc. If you get 2 small plates a piece, that’s about $18 - $20 per person on food.
• Ambiance: It’s dark and has an upscale ambiance, that gets somewhat overcrowded in the front of the restaurant by the bar, but is much better at the back where the tables are.
• Service: (1) it gets crowded on weekends, so go early if at all possible or you could find yourself on an hour long waitlist, (2) the bartenders get rude every time they get busy, so this is one more reason to go early.

La Trappe just opened in the last year, on the same block in North Beach that I moved away from a year ago.  I am so jealous of the new inhabitants of my old apartment!  It is a Belgian restaurant serving authentic Belgian food and all Belgian beers. 

 

• Beer: They have just about every potential Belgian beer you could imagine available. I’d love to list them for you, but their website has no information on it. I’ve had St. Bernardus Abt 12, Kwak, Duchesse de Bourgogne, and others there.
• Other drinks: I have no idea if they have hard alcohol, you may want to call to find out.
• Food: Ilovedthe chicken stew I had the one time I ate there (I usually just drink there), and the frites are great as well. I’d say entrees would be $14 - $24-ish, but I’m just guessing at my memory.
• Ambiance: The ambiance at La Trappe is probably the nicest of the 3 suggested here. It is all underground and designed to look like a monastery, with exposed brick walls, wrought iron lanterns handing from the ceiling, and rough hewn wooden furniture.
• Service: I’m not sure how busy it gets on weekends, since I’ve only been on weekdays, but I bet they’ll let you make reservations. It is much more a restaurant than the other two, which are as much bars as they are restaurants. When the owner is there, which is every time I have been, he loves to give beer suggestions, and once (only after he talked to us and realized we were beer people who would appreciate this) even sent over a different beer than I had ordered, offering to replace it with the original beer I had ordered if I didn’t think this one was better. Of course, it was better, so I kept it and drank it all down.

Monk’s Kettle is in the upper Mission, and it also just opened recently, in just the last six months or so. 

 

 

• Beer: They have a large beer list, about 20 - 25 beers on tap, and a six page long list of bottles. They have some great stuff bothin the tap and bottle lists, including Moonlight Working for Tips on tap, Gouden Carolus Tripel on tap, Ola Dubh 12 Year reserve in bottles, Aventinus Eisbock in bottles, andMountain Meadows Mead in bottles.
• Other drinks: They have some wines, but I don’t think there are any cocktails or hard alcohols of any kind available.
• Food: The food can be very good or just ok, depending on what you get. It is a mixture of upscale pub food & some Belgian items. My friends and I love their burgers, especially the blue cheese burger, but thought the pulled pork sandwich was pretty boring. They don’t have their prices on their menu online, but I can tell you that an entree will run you something in the teens.
• Ambiance: It’s pretty small, but did not seem too loud to me. Most of the tables are sheltered from the crowd by big booths and the bar has a chalkboard in front of where you sit so people can write notes or suggestions to the next customers, which I loved.
• Service: They also get very crowded, and do not take reservations. I’ve waited hours on weekdays before. However, their bartenders are really extra nice, and love to talk beer and chat, and they’ll make you think they are your best friend even if you’ve just met them. Sitting at the bar to eat can save you some waiting time, but not much, you still need show up early.

 

Two Brew Books (say *that* five times fast)

Yesterday was the annual Bay to Breakers “race” in San Francisco.  While I had a fun time dressed as the letter ‘A’ in an alphabet (plus full punctuation contingent) of friends, and beer certainly featured prominently in the day’s activities, I’m afraid B2B has no place in the blog.  Quality over quantity, my friends. 

In fact, I figure this is the perfect time to roll out reviews of two beer books I read recently, to counter with literacy any impressions of idiocy I created yesterday in the midst of the “beer cheer”.

Brewing Up a Business by Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head Brewery)

The short of it: Interesting and funny, but in the end, probably not incredibly helpful to a budding entrepreneur.  Ironically, despite the fact that balance among competing strong flavors is a hallmark of Dogfish beers, balance is exactly what this book lacked.  I don’t want to sound too harsh about it though, because I did enjoy it, but I just felt unsatisfied in the end and wish I had gotten more.  But, on to the positives first…

There is no doubt that Sam is a natural-born story teller.  The anecdote about his worst day ever (the multiple car wrecks are only the beginning) is hilarious and I loved the story of him rowing across the Delaware.  What can I say, I’m a sucker for historical re-enactments of any kind. Also, I was thinking Allie would really love to have seen it. 

Plus, the business lessons are in here, if you can cut through the smarminess of hearing “we make off-centered ales for off-centered people” for the 5,000^th time.  The ones I will take away are:

• Do your research: make sure the market needs your product before starting your company.  I think this is one of the most depressing lessons in microbrewing today.  The market expanded hugely 15 or 20 years ago where there were so few brewpubs and microbreweries.  If only I had been a legal drinker, or even out of 3^rd grade, during this era…  Now?  They’re everywhere and even if you make great beer, well, there’s already a lot of great beer on the shelves.  It’s not enough to be able to brew beer and run an operation, there needs to be a market opportunity if you expect your beer to take off. 
• Fall in love with sales.  If no one’s buying your product, you don’t have a business.  And, especially in an industry like brewing, no one can/will by your product if you’re not out there selling it.  All. Day. Long.  It’s a cliché complaint of small business owners, that they got into XYZ because they love XYZ but now all they do is take phone calls from customers and prepare invoices.  Yup, that’s what being a business owner is about, and if you don’t like it, you’re probably better off working for someone else.
• There’s a lot of do-it-yourself mechanical tinkering in brewing.  Sure, obviously commercial brewing involves lots of equipment for producing the beer.  And of course the brewer needs to know how all this equipment works and how to maintain and fix it all.  But I was surprised at how much re-use of equipment there was across breweries, from dairies to breweries.

However, there was an odd mix of personal and professional focus.  Sam seemed to want to give the viewer an insight into his personal life, but never commits to it.  You’re left wondering if this is (A) a lopsided biography or (B) a business how-to guide.  More likely it is (C) a book that does each reasonably well, but could probably be better if it chose to go one way other the other. 

On the personal side, I wanted to know more about how he got interested in brewing and how he developed his home brewing skills.  We get one story about hot, newly sanitized bottles that melted into his synthetic carpet, but that’s about it.  It’s all over before the first 18 pages are up.  I also wanted to know more about his wife, because she’s mentioned in passing references so frequently, but we never get the full story on her role in the business, or how becoming a small business owner affected her.  

The structure of the book is pretty clear, each chapter has a theme (e.g., building a brand), starts with a summary of the coming chapter, then a story about how Dogfish Head dealt with this issue, then a “moral of the story” type section on what the lesson he learned was.  I think it was this last part that irritated me - it came off as a bit pedantic.  As in, “Ooh, I once was as naïve as you, but now I am so wise.”  That’s probably true, but it emphasizes the gap between himself in the reader in the way a straight-forward how-to book doesn’t.  A how-to book just delivers instructions and assumes you are capable enough to follow them, without constantly reminding you that before reading it, and probably after as well, you have no idea what you are doing. 

There were two other items that I have to admit bugged me:

• I just have never liked the “off-centered ales for off-centered people” slogan.  I know he can’t really help that, but I always think: what does off-centered even mean?  Who wants something ‘off-centered’?  It sounds like ‘unbalanced’, I’d rather have something ‘innovative’ or ‘experimental’ or ‘original.’  Doesn’t “Original ales for original people” sound so much better?
• I find his obsession with certain subjects bizarre.  He seems to fixate on certain ideas like the Northfield Mt. Hermon School, Black Mountain College, or Andy Warhol, in undue proportion to their relevance.  I guess my stint in corporate America has left me jaded, but I just can’t get that excited about a motto or a mission statement, I care much more about the product (is it tasty?) and the business realities (are we making a profit?).  I’ve seen what happens when you agonize over a mission statement or a strategic plan, and in the end it just seems like most of that effort would be better spend honing one’s operations.  

 

Beer School by Steve Hindy & Tom Potter (Brooklyn Brewery)

I thought this one was the more helpful of the two books, but lacked some of the charisma of Brewing up a Business.  I think both differences stem from the fact that although Hindy homebrewed, it’s clear from the beginning that they are business-savvy beer lovers, not brewmasters.  They’ve had Bill Moeller or Garret Oliver overseeing the brewing, and F.X. Matt doing most or all of the brewing on contract until their own brewery was built.  The upshot of all this is, they are good at business and communication, it’s what they do full time and what they did before opening the Brooklyn Brewery (commercial banking and foreign war correspondence). 

 Part of the helpfulness of the book comes from their specificity.  They don’t just tell you the incorporated, they’ll tell you which ownership structure they chose, a limited partnership, and why, and what the alternatives were.  They don’t just tell you that raising the initial capital is hard, they explain how many dollars they needed, how long it took, what increments it came in, and the external factors that almost sunk them. 

The structure also makes it a little easier to understand.  Each chapter contains some storytelling and some instructing, as with Brewing up a Business, but the instruction comes packaged in its own sub-section with a clearly marked header proclaiming the main point of the lesson. 

Sure, there was some annoying cheerleading (for themselves and for the reader) in this book as well.  At the end of each chapter, they give themselves a letter grade, assessing how well they did at each of the facets and phases of their business.  Of course, this is as silly as it sounds because it gives the reader no extra useful information they had before and the grading criteria seems a little ludicrous.  They don’t give themselves all As, but when they give themselves a D on something, they usually also give themselves an “A for effort” as well. 

It is peppered with good stories as well, most of which make me realize I had no idea how much the crime situation has improved in their part of Brooklyn since they opened the brewery.  Between being robbed of $30,000 at gunpoint, losing their forklift battery to a break-in, and fending off thuggish mafiosos, there’s plenty of entertaining material. 

At the same time though, because the beer itself isn’t their baby as much as the business, it doesn’t seem to sparkle with the same reader-engaging joy of Brewing up a Business.  Don’t get me wrong, they’re not cold-hearted cutthroat businessmen and Sam Calagione isn’t a naïve creative type without an eye on the bottom line.  All of them care about their businesses and profitability, and all of them want to offer a well respected beer.  The difference is that Sam seems to be more interested in imagining what more beer could be (what if we put finished beer through a fresh hopping filter on the way to the glass?), while Hindy and Potter seem more interested in what more Brooklyn Brewery could be (what if they sold beer direct to the consumer online?).  The world needs both, innovators in beer, and innovators in business to make sure those beer innovators reach us consumers.  The difference is that the first feels romantic and adventurous to the beer lover in me, while the second sounds practical and responsible.  It’s closer to what I’m good at, but you know at least that the first type came to business for the love of beer, the second type may have come to beer for the love of business.  And there’s nothing wrong with loving business, I do, there’s a difference between those who are really intrigued by a cool new business idea, and those who just want to make a buck.  I think Hindy & Potter fall into the love of ideas camp, but it’s never quite possible to tell with business where the enthusiasm for an idea ends and the enthusiasm for cash begins. 

Saison Tasting Event: an update!

Hi Everyone,

So, nothing makes me happier than how overwhelmingly enthusiastic the response to the Saison Tasting event has been.  For those who RSVP’d, if I haven’t gotten back to you personally yet it is because 40 people want to come (!) and I’m trying to figure out:

•(A) if there is any way I can make it so that everyone can attend

•(B) if not, who the lucky few saison & biere de garde tasters will be

 

As far as point (A) goes, I have a few ideas:

• (1) Split it into two nights, a Friday tasting and a Saturday tasting: This is the idea that is most likely to work, and to keep costs down. I like the idea of keeping everyone together though, because we have a nice mixed crowd of people from all levels of beer tasting and brewing experience, and I’d like everyone to be able to talk to each other and learn from each other.
• (2) Find an alternate venue: This may be hard because I can’t think of any venue that will have this range of beers on hand, or be willing to let us bring in our own, that will want to host 40 of us on a Saturday night. If you can think of one, let me know!

So stay posted!  I haven’t forgotten about you RSVP’ers, I’m just still trying to figure out how the logistics will work out.  I’ll keep you all updated as I make decisions about how to handle this.

I also got quite a few suggestions to add to the beer list, both in the comments section of my last post, and by email.  Here is a revised list of which beers we may be tasting, though this is all still subject to availability:

Saisons

• Brasserie de Silly Saison de Silly
• Brasserie a Vapeur Saison De Pipaix
• Clipper City Red Sky at Night
• Dupont Foret
• Dupont Saison Dupont
• Fantome Saison
• Fantome [Seasonal] - lots of others available, not sure what’s out right now
• Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere
• Lagunitas Sonoma Farmhouse Ale
• The Lost Abbey Red Barn Ale
• Ommegang Hennepin Farmhouse Ale
• Firestone Walker Lil’ Opal - only if Brandon can get his mitts on a growler that week
• Russian River Erudition - may only be available on tap

Biere de Gardes

• Castelain Blond Biere De Garde
• Jenlain Original French Ale
• Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza
• La Choulette Ambree
• The Lost Abbey Avant Garde
• Flying Dog Garde Dog
• Russian River Perdition

Presidio Brew Club at Brewcraft

It is beautiful outside so I may end up giving this event short shrift (sorry PBCers!), but I want to get it on the site before I forget about it.  

On Friday, I skipped pre-Boontfest camping (probably a good move in retrospect, given the way Saturday night went) to attend a Presidio Brew Club BBQ at Brewcraft.  

This was apparently the first event of this kind that Brewcraft has hosted.  Though their space is pretty small, I think this is pretty hard to believe given how starved for company the homebrewing community here seems to be.  

When I arrived the back room was already packed with attendees, mostly members of PBC themselves and friends they actually knew, unlike me, their virtual friend up to that point in time.  They had brought at least 4 kegs of home brew from various PBC members and were dishing it out as fast as they could to their thirsty patrons.  I remember the Rye PA and the Red, both of which I tasted, a brown that I didn’t taste, and I forget what else was on tap.  I really loved both the Rye PA and the Red.  This was incredibly encouraging to my homebrewing aspirations, since I’ve only had my own stuff to-date and so far it’s been drinkable but less than tasty.

They were also grilling hamburgers and hot dogs out front, all of which was very generous considering there was no charge for this event. 

I had a chance to talk say hi to several members of PBC who I had previously only spoken to online: Mandy, Sam, Kevin.  I also learned that cider is even easier to make then beer.  Allie & Melissa, I know you’re reading this right now and I hope this is all it takes to get you on the brewing bandwagon too. It seemed like everyone from PBC had a batch of cider going and that some sort of future cider-off was in the works.  

Everyone was really welcoming and friendly, which was awesome since, as usual, I hadn’t bothered to rope in a co-attendee.  We even got a picture of us female homebrewers:

I will definitely be attending their next event, on May 31^st, before I head on home for my own event.  The one thing that I hope PBC will do at some point in the future, and which I realize wasn’t the purpose of a big event like this, is to hold some kind of BYOHB event in which everyone brings their own hombrew and everyone gets to taste & discuss it.  I’d love to hear how everyone else feels about these beers and to get some advice from them about my own.

American Craft Beer Week in San Francisco

So, apparently this week is the official ‘American Craft Beer Week’ nationwide.  I’m not really sure what this means except that: (A) our Congress spent our tax dollars passing a resolution to this effect that is actually pretty hilarious, and  (B) we’re all being encouraged to drink craft beer. 

Well, I don’t know about you all, but at least with respect to part (B) above, in my apartment, every week is American Craft Beer Week…and Belgian Craft Beer Week, and German Craft Beer Week, English Craft Beer Week, you get the picture.   

The showcase event of the week is SAVOR, which sounds amazing but is unfortunately in Washington DC, far out of my usual traveling-for-beer radius (usually extends across the bay to the north and east, and occasionally up to Seattle).  A blurb on the event:

SAVOR: An American Craft Beer and Food Experience (May 16-17), will be held to commemorate American Craft Beer Week in Washington DC. The event will showcase craft beer and food pairings with participation from 48 independent craft brewers. SAVOR signifies food and beverage lovers’ increasing interest and knowledge of beer and food pairings.

Sadly, I’m a little late in announcing this so the most exciting of the local events, the Sam Adams dinner, has already occurred.  But here is the full listing for San Francisco (below) should you feel like checking any of these out and the lists for other areas can be found at the Brewers Association. 

Brewery: North Beach Public House - Rogue Ales
City: San Francisco
State: CA
Phone: 415-362-7880
Website: www.rogue.com
Description: Rogue Ales celebrates American Craft Beer week with a special tapping of a new American Craft Beer each day. All 38 taps plus our cask engine will be will be pouring American Craft Beers, and daily tasters of our American Amber Ale will be available. Stop by for lunch and enjoy a Hoppy Meal, that’s a beer of your choice for only $2.00 more with your meal.
Tours:

Brewery: Shmaltz Brewing Company
City: San Francisco
State: CA
Phone: 818-825-8765
Website: www.shmaltz.com
Description: Join Shmaltz Brewing Company as we celebrate American Craft Beer Week with the launch of our newest beer: Rejewvenator. Half doppelbock, half Belgian-inspired dubbel, and brewed with the sacred fig; this year, we’ve pitched the yeast of monks. We will also be joined in the celebration by San Francisco’s own Speakeasy Ales and Lagers. Wednesday, May 14th 6:00 PM City Beer Store 1168 Folsom St. San Francisco, Ca, 94103 No Cover
Tours:

Brewery: 21st Amendment
City: San Francisco
State: CA
Phone: 415-369-0900
Website: www.21st-amendment.com/
Description: Four dozen independent craft brewers have been selected to showcase the pleasures of fine food enjoyed with world-class beer in Washington, D.C., May 16-17. SAVOR: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience will highlight the culinary delights of beer as part of the Brewers Association’s annual American Craft Beer Week
Tours:

Brewery: Boston Beer Company
City: San Francisco
State: CA
Phone: 415-865-9523
Website: www.samueladams.com
Description: Samuel Adams Celebrates American Craft Beer Week with Beer Lovers in San Francisco What: Join Samuel Adams Brewer, Grant Wood for a three-course beer dinner in celebration of American Craft Beer Week. Where: Monk’s Kettle, 3141 16th St., San Francisco, CA 94103 When: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 @ 6:00PM Cost: $50 Experience: Whether you’re new to the craft beer scene or a craft beer connoisseur, the night is sure to leave you with an appreciation for the variety and high-quality craft brews available today To make reservations call 415.865.9523. Seating is limited so don’t delay!
Tours: NA