While the rest of the city wrung their hands over a gaggle of alpha males smashing windows on whimsically posh Valencia Street, the real world was mainlining last night's finale of RuPaul's Drag Race, the most culturally relevant and critically astute TV programming since Roots. Making last night's show all the more important? Sharon Needles. And beer. A Pittsburgh drag queen with punk rock coursing through her veins, she's much more than that. She turned into a cult figure during her Logo tenure, snatching the crown away from the formidable Chad Michaels and Phi Phi O'Hara, this season's bitch. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Last night Needles sported a beer mug gown that made an all-too-brief appearance. And you must look at it. Right now. more ›

The massive Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant beneath the Bay Bridge on the Embarcadero will close at the end of April, Inside Scoop reports. When it opened twenty years ago, the waterfront outpost was only the chain's third location. Now that Gordon Biersch has gone global with a location in Taiwain and a handful in airports around the country, local folks thirsty for a wheaty beers and mounds of garlic fries will have to find them either inside AT&T park or at the airport for the time being. more ›

SF IndieFest films at the Roxie, artists explore glamor at Glama-Rama Salon, and $1 off drafts at the Sycamore. more ›

Friday marks the kickoff of every local beer geek's wet dream made real: S.F. Beer Week. We may not be Portland or San Diego when it comes to the quality and proliferation of craft breweries in our midst, but San Francisco is coming up in the beer world, and for $70 you can essentially drown in the stuff on Friday evening for four hours at the Concourse Pavilion in SoMa. more ›

San Francisco's Beer Week returns for ten days in February 2012 and thanks to the overwhelming, sloshy success of last year's festivities at YBCA, this year's opening day event will be making a change of venue to the larger, more accommodating Concourse Pavilion at 8th and Brannan in SoMa. Since the first day of festivities tends to be the most popular and brings with it some exclusive tasting opportunities, in-the-know beer nerds, hop fiends and malt mavens are lining already lining up for early bird tickets to the marquee event which promises "newly minted nanobrewers* pouring alongside legendary craft brewing pioneers." more ›

Over in Portrero Hill, photographer Bhautik Joshi snapped this Laverne & Shirleyesque shot from inside the Anchor Brewery, home of 10 noted beers. We can only imagine how many times factory employees have placed a white glove atop a bottle of beer. Because we'd get fired for doing it every single day. more ›

A frothy legal spat is pouring out between iconic local microbrewers Anchor Brewing Co. and Boston's patriotic macrobrewers at Sam Adams, the San Francisco Business Times reports today. The Boston Beer Co., Sam Adams' parent company, have filed suit against the local makers of your favorite Steam beer for allegedly violating a non-compete contract when they hired a former Sam Adams salesman to manage Anchor distributors in the North Bay. Although the career move was obviously a good one for the 26-year-old beer salesman, Sam Adams doesn't see it that way: they claim Anchor's hire is an attempt to steal the larger company's trade secrets. Anchor CEO Keith Greggor, meanwhile, laughed of the allegations of what he calls a nuisance suit with typical San Franciscan sarcasm: more ›

Beer. It is gross. Pabst Blue Ribbon. Even nastier. Which is why we were saddened and shocked to read that a Dolores Park goer was recently robbed of his 12-pack of the blue-collar-fetishizing brew. "He was sitting in Dolores Park at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday when a 20-something male approached him, pulled out a knife and demanded a beer," Mission Local reports. "The suspect then decided he wanted more than one. He took the 12-pack and fled." No injuries were reported. We can only hope that a pal bought the victim a new 12-pack. Gross or not, stealing someone's poison is just plain cruel. [via Mission Mission] more ›

Happy St. Paddy's Day, folks! Are you drunk yet? No? Well, that's not very festive of you. Let us remedy that situation right-quick: For those of you working in Mission Bay/SoMa, Public House opened at 9 a.m. today to serve patrons special green (as in organic) beers, food, and lots of March Madness. (The latter, we're told, has something to do with college basketball.) more ›

Last Monday, we tried to get inside SoMa's Bloodhouse bar, which proved a fruitless endeavor. Alas, the popular Folsom watering hole was far too packed. Defeated, we instead headed down to Lone Star Saloon on Harrison. Enter breath of fresh air! The place was well lit, unintimidating, casual, tipsy, and boasted bowls of popcorn on the pool table. What's more, it was $2 beer night. Any beer, all night, a mere $2. While we don't recall how we stumbled home that night, we're sure glad Bloodhound was filled to the rim. more ›

San Francisco's Beer Week--which started on Friday--runs until the 20th of this month. So if your Valentine's Day ends up being craptastic, there are still 200+ events that will not only drown your sorrows but hit them like a tsunami. Here are twenty of them worthy of your beer googles: more ›

Had such a great time this weekend that you're counting down the days 'til the next one? Take it easy this week and rest up for the big SF Beer Week 2011, featuring over 250 events that include specialty tastings, talks, beer-pairings, dinners, and beer brunches. more ›

Photo by Demetrios Lyras. Have a good weekend, folks! Remember, it's going to be a hot one, so stay cool. more ›

SFist commenter DJ Tennessee (a onetime SFist contributor) raises the bar on drunken marathon madness. After creating a liquor store map for Bay to Breakers, he decided to upstage his very own un-upstageable brilliance. During Sunday's San Francisco marathon, DJ Tennessee drank 13 beers in 13 miles. more ›

We've been avoiding posting about the sweet happy hour deal at Cup A Joe Coffeehouse for fear of it getting too popular, but we need your help to keep the deal going (read further). more ›

"Beer at 21st Amendment" by SFNoobs. more ›

Anchor Brewing Co. will soon be known as Anchor Brewers & Distillers, LLC after the Griffin Group, an "investment and consulting company focused on beverage alcohol brands," bought the brewing company today. Anchor, in addition to the wildly popular Anchor Steam Beer, includes a slew of "craft beers and artisan spirits." The Griffin Group is located in Novato, Marin County, California. [via Draft Magazine] more ›

For us, beer means only one thing: constant streams of urine. However, many of you love a frothy brew, which is why the kind folks at SF Weekly want to help you learn how to pronounce German beer styles and brands correctly. Märzen, Rauchbier, Schwarzbier, Weihenstephaner, Radeberger -- once they help you pronounce these seemingly nonsensical words with glottal Germanic flair, you're guaranteed to be the toast of Bender's. Or not. Anyway, check it out. more ›

Join Monk's Kettle's Sayre Piotrkowski, one of the city's very few cicerones (i.e., a beer sommelier) and Broke Ass-Stuart as they honor SF Beer Week by going on a walking tour of San Francisco’s best beer places. more ›

Just in time for the (anti-abortion/anti-gay dating) Super Bowl, SF Beer Week kicks things off on Friday, ready to fill your belly with hops, brain with a buzz and liver with a bust. The week-long event kicks off at Yerba Buena with a party featuring beers from 30 Northern California craft breweries; a ceremonious tapping of the SF Brewers Guild collaborative brew, a barrel-aged Imperial Common; live music and more. more ›

"All-American Hero" by Plug1. (Image from the Russian River Beer Festival.) more ›

Now that mainstream media has sunk its dentures in the seemingly fascinating world of social media -- which means they now have the editorial filter of The View's Sherri Shepherd -- they can't get enough of it. Today, CNN reports on Foursquare and EveryBlock, mentioning San Francisco hot dog retailer Showdogs. What CNN had to say about e-new media 3.0 is not important. What is important is that Showdogs is handing out free 8oz beer today to customers who bark at the cashier. [via Eater] more ›

The first annual SF Street Food Fest went down on Saturday, and pretty much half of San Francisco showed up to the one-block-long festival. The thing got a ton of buzz, a piece on NPR, links on a hundred websites, and as we all know, street food and nonstaurants are all the rage right now. As the folks at Beer & Nosh put it, "It was crowded, expensive, and with long lines for food that wasn't exactly street food. Yet the crowds were docile and friendly, the food delicious, and in spite of all of the problems, it seemed like a good time was had by all." We give special props to Jamie Lauren's gourmet sausage dog from Absinthe and the BBQ chicken sammie from Zella's Souful Kitchen. Also, KQED has a nice slideshow. more ›

According to an annual fan cost index, the beer you buy at AT&T Park is baseball's most expensive suds. NBC Bay Area has the full report: "That $8.75 you pay for a 20-ounce beer is more than any other team in baseball in America charges -- by a full 75 cents." Coming in at second place was beer at Tampa Bay Rays' Tropicana Field in Florida, who charge $8 for a 20-ounce beer. But the beer that wins the title of worst deal? NBC Bay Area gives that distinction to Boston's Fenway Park, where "7.25 only buys you a 12-ounce beer." more ›

Oh, don't you "slow news day, huh?" us, dear readers. Not when the face of God (or Our Alien Supreme Commander) is busy inhabiting our microbrews. more ›