NNTP-Posting-User: kpapai Summary: San Mateo, Burlingame, S.F., Marin Keywords: bay area brewpubs Xref: madeline.INS.CWRU.Edu ba.food:23443 rec.food.drink.beer:20114 alt.beer:71341 Saturday afternoon & evening concerned four brewpub visits, hopefully this makes good rainy day reading. The rating scale is the MJ scale of zero to four stars, my examples: Zero star is: Budmilloors Labattsons megabrew tasteless Four star is: Anderson Valley IPA, S.N. Celebration Ale, Anchor Liberty Ale ---------- Barley & Hopps, 201 South B St., San Mateo ** - Golden Pale Ale, crystal hops, light & spicy hoppy **1/2 - Pale Oatmeal Honey Wheat ale, crystal hops, sweetish ** - Roaring Red Ale, vienna malt, perle & cascades *** - Bitter Brown (brewmaster special) ** - Raspberry Wheat, typical **1/2 - Oatmeal Stout, med. body, chinook All these beers merited at least the two stars but none came close to more than three stars. It's always good to see one of the brewers (Jim) taking a lunch break at the upstairs bar (Lisa) and enjoying. It's also good to see beer lovers enjoying good cigars in the upstairs bar too. I really like this brewpub. Superb chili here. ------ Burlingame Station, 333 California, Burlingame ** - Hefeweizen, crisp & very clean ** - Rye Gold, sweet, 10% rye malt **1/2 - Steelhead Amber, crisp, clean "hop tang" ** - Bombay Bomber IPA, sweet & citrusy nosy hops **1/2 - French Pete's Porter, med. body, chocolatey creamy,sweet,"zero" hops **1/2 - Razzmatazz, raspberry wheat, raspberry colored, tasteful ** - Holiday Spiced Ale, spicy esp. cinnamon, too gimmicky for me *** - Bombay Bomber IPA from Cask, chinook & tettnanger dry-hopped, yum! ** - Terrapin Ale, ESB, dry-hopped w/fuggles, very light (too lite for me) Two to three stars prevail again. Nothing was really awful and the Cask IPA is by far my favorite here. For dessert: an awesome blueberry-apple crisp ala mode washed down w/cask IPA. Steelhead just opended a new brewpub down in Irvine according to the cover article on the new Dec.-Jan. edition of the Celebrator. Paddy Giffen is on the cover too along with Michael Jackson. ------ Twenty Tank, 11th St., S.F. *** - XXXmas Ale, an extra-hoppy version of their red, YUM! ***1/2 - Polywanna Porter, creamy, hoppy, superb **1/2 - Bowser's Brown, hoppy, med. body, tasteful Chris Sheehan, 20 Tank's head brewer, clearly has it all together. He said he wishes he could do his beers more often like the XXXmas ale too, but not all customers are hopheads unfortunately. 20 Tank has pizza on their menu now. ------ Marin Brewing, Larkspur Landing Shopping Ctr, Larkspur *1/2 - Hoppy Holidaze, way too much cinnamon and whatever spice for me ***1/2 - Pt. Reyes Porter, rich, creamy, spectacular, esp. when fresh How will the loss of Grant Johnston as head brewer (he is going to a new brewpub in Santa Rosa) going to affect Marin? I spoke with one of the assistants who also works under Paddy at Moylan's and he has confidence in the continuing excellent beer quality. ------ Cheers!
San Francisco Bay Area, CA