BEAR REPUBLIC GO ENGLISH-STYLE

The wife & I tried to go see this geriatric punk rock cavalcade of 1970s San Francisco bands last Friday night (Avengers, Mutants, No Alternative etc.), only to be shut out at the door not for being too young (though even given our advanced age that was a possibility, given the crowd we peeked at inside), but for being clueless enough to think that such an event wouldn’t draw in 2007, thirty years after the bands entered their prime. Sold out. Punk rock mania. End of story. Time to find something else to do so the babysitter earns her keep. We figured it was best discussed over a beer, as so many things are, so we headed to SF’s EDINBURGH CASTLE to figure it out.

This English-style pub (Scottish, actually) has, for them most part, only English-style beers on tap, with oddballs like RACER 5 and FAT TIRE sneaking into the lineup on occasion. I go here often enough that I’m running out of new discoveries, i.e. beers I’m trying for the first time. This time I spied the words “BEAR REPUBLIC” and that was all she wrote. As you may know, BEAR REPUBLIC BREWING make the fantastic IPA RACER 5, as well as other beer geek stalwarts HOP ROD RYE and RED ROCKET ALE. I’ve yet to have the Double IPA RACER X, but I’m dyin’ 4 it. So here’s their contribution to the “session style”, BEAR REPUBLIC ENGLISH ESB. It is a refreshing, copper-colored ale with a distinct grainy taste. Very classic reproduction of an English pub beer, unlike the ales from near-local brewery ENGLISH ALES, who are decent enough but not as skilled in making something you’d want to drink again and again. I’d want to drink this again and again, given the right circumstances. It may not be OLD SPRECKLED HEN, but then what is, right? 7/10.