Monday 23rd March

We managed to drag ourselves out of bed to make it to the tour of Anchor Brewery at 11am, which Greg had booked us in for a while ago. They are the oldest brewery in San Francisco, and they run free weekday tours of the brewery with samples of their beers at the end! We had already tried a couple of their brews, so we knew that there were good things in store. The tour was really interesting, I learnt a lot about the brewing process and the incredible scale of their operation. They make all their beer on these small premises but they manage to kick out 100,000 bottles a day! We had a sampling session at the end of the tour which was obviously very pleasant, got chatting to a few people including a wildlife photographer called Don who gave us some good ideas about which direction to head in after San Francisco.
We left the brewery somewhat light-headed, grabbed a coffee and decided to be lazy and get a taxi back to the hostel, it had been quite a walk to get to the brewery! We then decided to head for a bar called Toronados, another place that had been recommended to us last night. It was another great rock/metal bar, with an owner who had been born in Salisbury, and used to work at the hospital where Greg was born! We also had the Rosamunde Sausage Grill next to the bar which we had been told about, had a cracking smoked lamb banger. Back to the hostel for a freshen up, debated having a nap after the daytime drinking but thought that as we had got this far through the day, it would be better just to push on. We went to a burrito place called La Taqueria that had been recommended in the Lonely Planet guide, and we certainly weren’t disappointed. The burritos were awesome, and incredibly heavy (non-hippy use of the word). We had a drink in Zeitgeist, where we met a lady who told us about how San Francisco has changed in the last couple of decades, with the influx of yuppies during the dotcom explosion.
Then off to meet Bradley and his friend Roy, lovely pair of guys who took us to some bars we hadn’t been to yet. Firstly the 500 Club, where Greg got in trouble for giving the end of his beer to a bum who came in off the street. And then on to the Amber Bar, still a smoking bar which I was not delighted about. We met one of Bradley’s friends called Rob, a massive long-haired guy who was a perfect example of the classic drunk American metalhead! I bought a tamale from the legendary Tamale Lady (http://sf.wikispot.org/Tamale_Lady), and then we headed back to Kilowatt to finish up the night. So cool to meet these guys, so far on the trip we have met so many great people, it’s almost overwhelming.