My first visit to Toronado

I did not know what to expect of Toronado SF. I had purposefully not looked at any photos. All I had done was check the beer list and made advance selections (that I didn’t follow). I have been to enough beer sellers to know that this was A) a serious beer place B) a familiar beer hall style.

Toronado is like Horse Brass in Portland or Lucky Baldwin’s in Pasadena or Tied House in Denver. Old taps are attached to the wall everywhere. (They had a great year by year tap progression of the Anchor Christmas beers) Old signed bottles are on shelves and every bar stool is taken. Oh and the lighting was dim.

Don’t take this as a slam against the place. Toronado is authentic. The taps on the wall tell a history. There was a large grouping of historic Full Sail taps. You can’t fake this. Plus, I love that they had a large board that was easy to read of the current rotation. With prices! Why some places eschew that touch is beyond me.

My wife scored us a table by some sort of magic and I settled on a new Anchor Steam. Hey, we were in the home of Anchor. Huming Ale is made with Nelson Sauvin hops, supposedly. It was almost like two different beers fighting each other. A steam beer with layers of hops but I could not locate the grape-y Nelson in there.

I could easily have stayed for hours and tried all new (to me) beers. That is the mark of a great beer bar.

What I bought at City Beer SF

Goose Island Holiday 2009
Mikkeller Single Hop IPA – Nugget
Mikkeller Single Hop IPA – Cascade
Russian River Salvation

I also had my first taste of beer from Truckee, California’s Fifty-Fifty Brewing that was on tap!
Rockslide IPA was a big, bold West Coast IPA. If time had permitted, I would have tried more of their beer because City had most of their line-up on their 6 taps. City Beer does it again!

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Hollywood Brewery

On the heels of LA Beer Week, we lucky Angeleno’s will have Eagle Rock Brewing coming soon and now another entrant based in Hollywood,.

Hollywood Brewery is the brainchild of the people behind the newly opened Stout on Cahuenga near BoHo and Essex House. They are planning an ambitious amount of different beers when they are up and running.

Things are starting to turn the corner here.

Ithaca Brewing

Ommegang and Cooperstown are on my NY beer list and now add Ithaca as well. They have a couple of noteworthy additions in Brute and Eleven that sound great. Plus they have a nice regular line-up that includes a brown that makes me thirsty.

I would also love…

This sounds good too…

I have yet to try a Zwickelbier.

and I need to change that.

I would love a bottle of…

Open the door and let me in.

Manhattan Project from Brooklyn Brewery. I was scared but then shocked at how good the Cuvee de Cardoz was and now I want to try all of the weird beers that Mr. Oliver has cooking. This one is made with tart cherries and rye and is the beer equivalent of a Manhattan cocktail. Sounds good to me.

this month’s Beer Advocate

You should check out the print edition (I know…I know. I’m old fashioned) because there are some cool articles on Hair of the Dog, English IPA’s and Crafstman Brewing.

or you can see what the beer geeks are ranting about HERE

I am repeating myself but…

…it’s Thursday, so go check out FoodGPS for my latest column and let me know what you think.

Review – Grandsun of Spot