Success Is Brewing on the Waterfront

SAN FRANCISCO —  Along the city’s revitalized waterfront is one pub that has rolled out the barrels. Now it’s reveling in standing-room-only crowds and rave reviews for its brews.

The Gordon Biersch Brewery doesn’t use barrels, which is part of its secret for success. The largest production micro-brewery in the world, it prides itself on a gasless, pure brew that goes from cooling tanks directly into the patron’s glass.

“We wanted to take a different approach,” said Dean Biersch, who along with partner Dan Gordon runs three restaurant-pubs in the San Francisco Bay Area. “I think it really shows in the beer.”

Brewing is done twice a week, and the beer is stored in four 1,500-gallon dispensing tanks in the basement, from which it travels directly to the tap through pneumatic tubes.

Three blends are offered: export, a smooth, pilsener-style beer; marzen, a thicker, smooth blend; and dunkels, a dark, malty unfiltered beer.

Only glasses of beer, not pitchers, are served because glasses keep the brew at the proper temperature.

“What makes us characteristically different is we produce lager beers. We definitely like a lager beer when it comes to beer styles,” Gordon said.

And it’s a formula that’s working. On a big Friday, Biersch notes, “We sell about $15,000 of beer--and that’s just beer.”

Appropriately, the entrance to the pub-restaurant is next to a large silver container of hops.

But Gordon and Biersch concentrate on more than just beer. Simple pub fare, such as onion rings and fries, are joined by more exotic cousins such as tuna sashimi with smoked salmon and won ton skins.

“We put so much energy into the food,” Biersch said. “That’s really sort of our mission. When Dan and I started years ago, there was mostly pub food. Most of the places were quite small and doing very limited menus.

“We really felt there was a very clear niche for an operation to develop the kind of beer we’re making that would give us a more interesting concept, more durability, establish us as a restaurant.”

The upstairs restaurant, with its stunning view of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the city’s Embarcadero, is indicative of the waterfront’s revitalization, spurred mostly by the removal of the earthquake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway.

“I’m convinced that it was a major psychological barrier,” Biersch said of the freeway. “It’s opened up the waterfront the way it hasn’t been since the 1950s.”

Some have viewed the micro-brewery, which opened in March, as a prime singles spot, but since it is located close to downtown and the city’s ferry terminal, patrons are a mix of professionals, tourists and locals.

“I think people are still missing the point because of the scene,” said brewery publicist Jeffrey Nead, referring to the yuppie stereotype some have bestowed upon the pub. “But it’s surpassing anything dreamed of on a Thursday or Saturday night. It’s crazy here.”

Gordon, who studied the brewer’s art at the Technical University of Munich and was its first American graduate in 30 years, teamed with Biersch to open a pub restaurant in Palo Alto in 1987.

“I couldn’t sleep for months--three, four months,” he recalled. “I thought it might be a bust.”

If he’s losing any sleep now, it’s because things are so busy. The largest micro-brewery and 29th-largest beer brewer in the nation, Gordon Biersch plans to open a regional brewery next year to bottle and sell its wares in the greater San Francisco-Sacramento area. A fourth restaurant also is planned.

Biersch said the team has learned a lot from its gradual expansion and from being in one of the most competitive restaurant markets in the country.

“We really are taking what we do and scaling down an industrial process into a mid-size company,” he said.

But in the eyes--or mouth--of the beholder, the product stands on its own.

“It really is the beer, you know,” Nead said. “It tastes good.”