On Thursday nights on Clara street, you can smell a wisp of malt aroma drifting through SOMA.  Follow the aroma down a thin alley street, by garage doors and parked cars, and you’ll find an open garage as the source.  Poke inside and you’ll find  Patrick Horn of Pacific Brewing Laboratories and Bryan Hermannsson of Clara St Brewing adding hops and pouring pints for welcome guests.

Welcome to the Clara Street Brewing Collective.

Born out of a love of brewing, this expanded, kinda-sorta open to the public private homebrew event join Elizabeth Street Brewing as a halfway point between making beers in your kitchen, and actually opening a licensed brewery.  The beers are free (it’s illegal to sell homebrew to public) and a empty malt extract plastic bucket is placed out to invite donations (all of which gets put right back into the cost of brewing.)

There is a refreshing purity to what they’re doing. The enthusiasm is infectious, and without the normal restrictions of brewpubs, you’re welcome to walk around, sipping your pale ale (that’s what was on tap last week – expect something next Thursday,) asking questions, even helping out.  Want to throw in the next hop addition?  Just ask and the task is yours. No one ever volunteers to help sterilize.

Their small gatherings seem to attract all type – from fellow homebrewers, curious neighbors, to lovers of things homemade and free.   The back way is covered in chalkboard paint, and details the status of each brew, and it’s state in the process.  Typical of homebrewers, it’s a mix of classic styles, and wild variations.

By the end of the evening, the keg is nearly dry, ten gallons of IPA have been brewed, and the curious imbibers are finishing up their pints.  The yeast is pitched, and the bar and brewery closes down until next week.

Want to join in?  See the Pacific Brewing Laboratories page for details about their upcoming events.

Tags: clara, homebrew, pacific brewing laboratories, SF

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 11:54 am and is filed under Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.