The Toronado Pub San Francisco
By Chris Galvin

<It’s almost been a year since this came out in the 2010 Fall issue of Beer Connoisseur, so I think it’s safe to post this now…>

It’s another cold and foggy summer day at 547 Haight Street in San Francisco’s gritty Lower-Haight neighborhood. Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy” and stale beer wafts out through a Dutch door below two Chimay signs that hang like guardsmen. Inside, two surly bartenders behind a long, L-shaped, metal-top bar pour beers while patrons wait patiently to be served. An extensive collection of beer tap handles, stickers and beer memorabilia line the walls.

The draught menu rests perpendicular above the bar with beer names displayed on dangling placards – Russian River: Blind Pig, Concentration, Damnation, Pliny the Elder; Moonlight: Reality Czech, Death & Taxes; Sierra Nevada: Pale Ale; Speakeasy: Big Daddy IPA, Anchor: Steam, and the menu goes on and on. Michael Jackson once called this place “a punk rock club with a good selection of beers.” The jukebox reflects that punk rock attitude. It’s a place that Henry Rollins would hang out if he wasn’t straight edge. This is the Toronado.

Since 1987, the Toronado Pub (www.toronado.com) has been a West Coast epicenter for brewers and beer geeks alike. As the label from a bottle of Lost Abbey Brewing’s Cable Car, which was brewed for the Toronado’s 20th anniversary, reads: “Welcome to Broadway for brewers everywhere. Everyone who is anyone has poured kegs here. For the last 20 years, this place has launched careers, confirmed legacies…” But it’s not all punk rock and heavy metal. It’s more than just a bar that launches careers. Rather, it’s the brewing and local community that gathers at the Toronado that has made the place what it is today.
When the Toronado first opened its doors there were only two beers on draught. Now they have 60 beers on tap and a bottle list that reads like the best of “Michael Jackson’s Great Beer Guide.” The owner, Dave “Big Daddy” Keene, fell in love with Belgian beer back in 1986, when he tasted his first Chimay after watching Bryant Gumbel drink one on the “Today” show. Curious, Keene went out to a local San Francisco liquor store and bought out all the Chimay Red. He immediately fell in love with Belgian beer.

Since then, Keene has transformed the Toronado into one of America’s best all-around beer bars. It seems like each week the bar features exclusive beers from local breweries like Sierra Nevada and rare and hard-to-find Belgian beers from brewers like De Proef and Dupont. Then there are the always-packed annual events, like the famous, two-day Barley Wine Festival that pulls patrons from around the world each winter.
Since the festival’s inception, patrons have lined up for hours to get a seat and dibs on the first pours, willing to wait to sample never-before served barley wines. Typically by mid-afternoon several of these special offerings have run out, but the line of patrons remains out the door. It’s one of the beer world’s most prized events.

Greg Koch, the owner and master brewer for San Diego’s Stone Brewing, remembered his first Barley Wine Festival recently. “I joined my future Stone partner-to-be Steve Wagner on the first day of the 1992 Toronado Barley Wine Festival,” he said. “It was a Sunday, and I’d been stuck in traffic for hours on the way into San Francisco from out of town. I was late. I was feeling uptight. I was in a generally poor mood by the time that I got there, feeling that I’d been missing out. Steve and our other couple friends had started without me. I couldn’t blame them. I had the benefit of being able to taste from the ones they suggested, bypassing any but the best. In very short order, I was in a great mood, enjoying fantastic barley wines with friends knowing that I was in the only place in the entire world at that moment with even half the selection they had, which I think that year was around 35.”

Now that list tops over 60 barley wines, and the Toronado’s Barley Wine Festival serves as one of the preeminent events of the San Francisco Beer Week. That’s quite an accomplishment.

Many brewers and breweries have paid tribute to this beery institution and Dave Keene, its patron saint, by naming beers after him, such as Anderson Valley Brewing Company’s Brother Dave’s Double and Triple, and Speakeasy’s Big Daddy IPA, just to name a few. For its 20th Anniversary, brewers like Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River brewed a special batch of beer for the celebration.

Richard Brewer-Hay of San Francisco’s Elizabeth Street Brewery, a “brewpub in planning” based in his garage, remembered: “I couldn’t attend the 20th anniversary party of the Toronado because I was traveling. A friend went for me and bought a bottle of the 20th anniversary ale brewed by Vinnie at the Russian River Brewing Company. I decided to wait until the 21st anniversary to crack it open in my pub at home before heading over to the Toronado for their 21st anniversary party. It was delicious. When I arrived at the Toronado I found out they were selling the same individual bottles – I bought another one right then and there.”


Stories like these abound from brewers and patrons alike. They could fill a book about the Toronado. Maybe they will someday.

An old truism maintains that there are few things more pleasant than a village graced with a good pub. A good pub is a true reflection of its neighborhood and the Toronado is that pub in the village of San Francisco – it reflects the true hipster neighborhood of the Lower-Haight but with a common theme of community and great beer that extends beyond its rough exterior.

As Dave McLean, the brewmaster and owner of the nearby Magnolia Pub & Brewery, put it, “The role of a good pub in its community, how deeply woven into that community it is, and how a good pub is versatile enough to be enjoyed in multiple ways at multiple times. That’s always been completely true for the Toronado.”

Famous Patrons’ Go-To Beers at the Toronado

Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing:
“I would say our Christmas Ale, because they got our first neon signs for that brand and they
have done a great job managing it, i.e., keeping it and putting it up each year.”

Greg Koch of Stone Brewing:
“Something Moonlight.”

Mark Dredge, British Beer Writer:
“Bear Republic Racer 5.”

Dave McLean of Magnolia Brewery:
“Russian River Blind Pig.”

Richard Brewer-Hay of Elizabeth Street Brewery:
“I’ve never had the same flight of beers when I’ve visited
The Toronado. I love the diversity. Having said that, I’ve
never NOT had a Moonlight Death & Taxes.”

Shaun O’Sullivan of the 21st Amendment Brewery:
“IPA IPA IPA IPA.”