Speakeasy, the other "big" brewing operation in San Francisco (big meaning more than strictly local--you can actually find their beer outside of the city) opens up their doors to the public on Fridays at 4 pm. I've been laying low with a headcold for the past few days, but my girlfriend had this Friday off from work, which is rare, and we'd been wanting to check out Speakeasy, so headcold be damned. I filled my pockets with kleenex and we set out.
The brewery is located in a warehouse in the industrial part of San Francisco, near Hunter's Point in the southeast corner of the city. We got there at about a quarter till four, because we'd heard you needed to be there at 4 pm sharp to get the tour. We were the first to arrive, and the place was desolate except for a few brewhouse workers drinking beers on the other side of the gate. They told us to wait at the door, and it'd be opened at 4.
In the next fifteen minutes, the parking lot filled up with cars. People started parking out on the street, and a few taxis came to drop off drinkers, too. There were even a few who arrived by bicycle, which impressed me because of the relative isolation of the place. Must have been 50 people waiting by the time the door finally opened. The guy in line behind me said he'd come from Texas, and was touring brewspots in the Bay. A lot of the other people waiting in line looked like repeat offenders (ie they'd been here before).
The door opened at four on the dot, and we walked through it to find ourselves facing a little office with a walk up window. You buy tokens, which look like poker chips, at the window, and then trade those tokens in at the bar around the side. One token gets you one glass of beer, and they cost $3 each.
Besides for the token office, restrooms, and a few other private offices (also grouped together near the front door), the brewery is a big, open warehouse, with high ceilings and no interior walls. There's an informal bar alongside the token office, and a refrigerated storage room beside that. Otherwise, everything is out in the open, and different parts of the operation are sort of loosely gathered together in different places. Maybe twelve big fermenter's are lined up along the back wall, as well as a huge vat they store the beer in when they force carbonate it with carbon dioxide, and the (relatively minimal) machinery for a bottling line. Most of the center of the warehouse floor is used for storing pallets of kegs (both regular and 5 gallon size) and bottle cases. The mash tun and brew kettle (both are pretty big, maybe fifty barrel size), and the cooling system (looks sort of like a car's radiator) are along the side wall. The milling room (hardly a room, just a few flimsy walls, one of which is made from hanging strips of plastic) is between the brewing area and a roll-up side door. In the fenced in, concrete yard outside that door is a huge grain silo, where they store tons of 2-row. And there's a lowered loading section, where the trucks pull in.
When I think of Speakeasy, I think of hop-heavy ales, specifically their Big Daddy IPA and Prohibition Ale. (We learned, during the tour, that Big Daddy comprises 50% of their production.) Being at the brewery was a great opportunity to try some of their other brews. They had Big Daddy and Double Daddy (a double IPA) on tap, plus Payback Porter, White Lightning (a wheat beer), Prohibition Ale, and an expiremental batch (known as Batch #5937, or something like that) which was supposed to be a Imperial Red but ended up more like a Double IPA. My headcold congestion didn't leave my sense of taste or smell in optimum conditions, but I made sure to try every beer on hand anyway. The porter (a favorite style of mine) was good, but the surprise standout for me was the Wheat. Very crisp and refreshing. (As for Batch #5937, I think they'd better go back to the drawing board.)
The tour itself wasn't very formal--it only lasted fifteen minutes or so, and a lot of the drinkers didn't even bother to come along. Interesting tidbits for me were these: the people who started Speakeasy came together through SF Brewcraft, the brew supply store where I get most of my grains and gear; the one remaining member from those early days is Forest Gray, who served as the money man in the start, and now holds the title of President/CEO; Speakeasy makes most of it's money from keg sales--70% of all business being within the Bay Area--and considers their bottle sales mainly a form of 'advertising'; the company's been around for almost 14 years now, in the current warehouse location for ten years, has doubled in size in the past four years, and has plans of doubling again in the next four; they're planning on taking over the other half of the warehouse, putting in a stage for events, and opening their doors to the public five days a week, instead of just on Fridays. Interesting brewing related facts were: they filter through diatemaceous earth (the same stuff you put in your garden soil to kill nematodes), which probably kills any living yeast, which is probably why they force carbonate with CO2, and which probably also gives the beer longer shelf life than regular bottle-conditioned beers; they use (unless I misunderstood this) the same California Ale yeast for every beer, pumping the fluccolated yeast directly out of one fermenter and into another before adding the wort; the base of every recipe is 2 row malt, and their hops use is limited to four different varieties; during fermentation they blow off into plain old five gallon buckets, which promptly overflow with froth that then puddles and runs across the floor.
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