Welcome to the Bay

On Wednesday the 19th we headed into San Francisco to meet up with a friend of Michael’s and check out the Haight-Ashbury district, where Magnolia’s Brewpub is located. After walking around and seeing the sights (and smells) of the district we dipped into Magnolia’s for a brew and some food. Magnolia’s had a great selection of cask beers, which was a real treat.


The brews on tap at Magnolia's

Cask beer is the traditional style of serving ales in England. The beer is kept in wooden casks for serving. There is active yeast in the cask, which naturally carbonates the ale, giving it a less carbonated but creamer mouth feel (this is especially noticeable since cask beer is served at cellar temperature). When the cask is ready to be tapped a hole is made in the top of the cask, along with the tap hole, so that a vacuum won’t be created when the tap is used. Along with preventing a vacuum from forming, the extra hole allows oxygen to enter the cask and mix with the beer. This means that there is a short life-span for cask beer, but it also means that the beer changes over time as more oxygen enters the cask, causing the beer to evolve in both flavor and mouth feel.

The best part about the beer selection at Magnolia’s is that they had a couple of beers, like the Blue Bell Bitter, which were in both a cask and a keg. This made it possible to really see the differences between cask beer and keg beer. Michael and I split pints of the Blue Bell Bitter, one pint from the keg, one from the cask. We both preferred the cask version to the keg version. It was creamy, crisp, and refreshing, even though it was served at a substantially warmer cellar temperature


Beer decorations at Toronado

After a beer at Magnolia’s we grabbed some Thai food and headed to Toronado. Toronado is a world renowned bar with over 30 beers on tap. There was a wild, loud, vibrant energy and tons of exotic beers, mostly from Belgium and The West Coast. One highlight was a Russian River Brewery beer called Consecration. A strong, dark, and slightly sour Belgian style ale aged in red wine barrels. It almost tasted more like a red wine than a beer. There was a pronounced sour tartness along with plenty of tannins, all balanced by subtle and spicy hop bitterness, making it a great beverage to sip slowly.


Alan contemplating his glass of Consecration

Thursday we spent the afternoon in the Mission district with my cousins Leasie and Adrianna. We grabbed some huge burritos from Taqueria Cancun and headed to Dolores Park to eat and do some serious people watching



Thursday night we had dinner at my Uncle John’s, which included prime rib, grilled asparagus, and plenty of Pliny the Elder which is so quaffably quaffable it is hard to put into words.

Saturday we headed to Beer Revolutions in Oakland and met up with Eric Sabo. They had a relaxed, everyone welcome atmosphere with 12 beers on tap. The tap line-up included Drakes Denogginizer, a triple IPA that was so well balanced and tasty you couldn’t detect the 10% alcohol hiding in the background waiting to pop your head off.

Next it is up to the Redwoods on the northern coast of California, with a couple of breweries along the way of course.