San Francisco, California:
Southpaw BBQ & Southern Cooking
Sunday 27th May 2012
Bob Thompson
Although this pub promotes itself as Southpaw BBQ and Southern Cooking my first impression when I visited was that it was just a normal bar. On this late Sunday afternoon it was very full. I managed to grab a stool at the end of the bar. This was on the right of the room and at the end was the very small brewery. Rather than being a brew pub this is more of a beer speciality pub that happens to have a brewery.
There was an extremely good collection of guest beers from many distant parts of the country and these were: Sudwerk (Davis, CO) Pilsner (5.0%); Abita (Abita Springs, LA) SOS Wit Pils (7.0%); Deschutes (Bend, OR) Obsidion Stout (6.4%); Firestone Walker (Paso Robles, CA) Union Jack IPA (7.5%); and Allagash (Portland, ME) Curieux (11.0%!).
There was also Telegraph (Santa Barbara, CA) White Ale (4.5%); Ninkasi (Eugene, OR) Tricerahops Double IPA (8.8%); Ommegang (Cooperstown, NY) Hennepin Saison (7.7%) and finally from North Coast (Fort Bragg, CA) Blue Star Wheat (4.5%) and Brother Thelonius Abbey Ale (9.0%). They also had Anthem (Salem, OR) Cider (6.6%).
However I passed on all of these as I just wanted to try the only beer offered that was brewed in the pub and it was Match Head Brewing Red Ale. I have to say that red ale is not my favourite style of beer yet I did think this was pretty good, having a little bitterness; this is not always the case.
There only ever seems to be one beer from the home side on at any one time.
This pub is in the Mission district and is well worth stopping off if you are in the Bay area and contrary to my thoughts noted above about my visit, the Southern BBQ cooking has been subsequently highly recommended. And of course, you would be very lucky to get the beers from their micro brewery anywhere else.
Important Information:
Southpaw BBQ & Southern Cooking, 2170 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA-94110
Tel: 01 415 934 9300
Open: Monday/Wednesday-Friday 17.00 to 23.30; Saturday-Sunday 15.00 to 23.30. Tuesday: Closed.
Any bus that goes along the southern part of Mission Street will get you to the pub; alight
at around 19th Street. There are others but I found the 49 trolleybus to be useful as it crosses Market Street with all its good transport connections. In addition the 16th Street station on the BART system is only a few blocks away.
