Huge Ghirardelli Square Brewery Lets Patrons Pour Their Own Pints Next Month

San Francisco Brewing Co., a 2012-founded business with a straightforward name and easy-drinking beers, will arrive in Ghirardelli Square in a serious, 12,000 square foot space late next month. At 3150 Polk Street (between Beach and North Point Streets), the new brewery and beer garden hopes to win over tourists and locals with something besides the chocolate for which the square is named and best known.

Bottles from SF Brewing Co. can be found in stores, and the business operated a small, temporary taproom at the now-closed Myriad hall on Market Street. The brewery is owned by couple Jennifer and Josh Leavy and Josh’s brother Aaron Leavy. For the new brewery effort, the team has added brewmaster Justin Boehle, who spent more than a decade at Gordon Biersch.

BCV Architects

At the new brewery space, patrons are invited to serve themselves beer — you know, like at a college party — with the advent of a “self serve beer wall.” It’s a technology called Walltender, which is trademarked, so back off. Per Walltender’s website, with its technology, bars can:

Create a centralized wall of taps that allow any patron in the entire establishment to pour their own by purchasing a beer card. Issue pre or post-pay beer cards and customers have the chance to try as little as they want of a beer and their tasting pours will automatically be added to their tab. Since you are charging by the ounce it isn’t a problem if someone tries 1 ounce of 10 different beers or 4 ounces of 5 different beers; either way, their tab will reflect exactly what they poured and how much.

Meanwhile, a full kitchen at SF Brewing Co. will turn out pub food like “zesty Tabasco onion rings” and “artisan pizzas.” The space was designed by BCV Architects, a firm who previously devised locations for Gott’s Roadside, Schroeder’s, and the Oxbow Public Market. On top of indoor seating, there’s an outdoor beer garden space, complete with fire pits for cooler evenings on the waterfront.

SF Brewing Co’s new space opens just as word of another Ghirardelli Square project makes its way around town: The Coi Palace folks are planning a massive new dim sum restaurant for the area. Whether that business — and SF Brewing Co. — can fill sizable spaces in a corner of town where big name restaurants like Waxman’s could not remains to be seen.

• The Table Tap [Official]