San Francisco Beer Week launch boosts breweries with MUNI partnership

By Andrea Nakano

San Francisco Beer Week kicked off Friday night with a big event in the Mission. It combined brews, buddies and buses for a fun and safe night.

While people were enjoying the specials on tap for this special event, it was a win-win situation for breweries as well.

The Standard Deviant taproom was filled with beer lovers as they celebrated the kickoff of SF Beer Week. This place opened almost 10 years ago, when Mark DeVito from the bar industry teamed up with his business partner in biotech to craft local brews. While they are known for their German ale, they went all out with special brews for this event.

“This week is huge for all the breweries in the whole Bay Area,” DeVito said. “People come out and support us and we’re able to showcase a bunch of new beers. We’re releasing 10 beers over 10 days.”

Standard Deviant also teamed up with MUNI for the 2nd year in a row. To mark the occasion, a west coast IPA named Hop on MUNI was flowing from the tap.

“So, we made this in collaboration with MUNI,” DeVito said. “We made it a nice color to kind of match the old vintage MUNI colors on the buses. Just thought it was a really cool way to get community together. Get out in the city and have fun and kick off beer week.”

Jim McCunn had rave reviews for the Hop on MUNI. Jim and his best friend Kim say they have been coming to SF Beer Week for years, and while they love the brews, they also love the people they meet.

“The people who like beer tend to be really nice and friendly,” McCunn said. “We always have a good time.”

“A lot of times you meet people who have traveled here just for this week,” said Kim Larsen. “People from the Midwest, California, San Diego. So it’s very social and a lot of fun.”

For people to enjoy all the participating breweries without having to worry about driving, SFMTA organized the Hop on Muni Pub Crawl. The hope, people will try new local businesses, and new riders will give MUNI a try as well.

“Daily riders grabbing a friend to come to an event is exactly what we would hope for,” Julie Kirschbaum, MUNI director said. “We want new people to try MUNI. People that haven’t taken it in a while to come out.”

Breweries say this event is needed to get through what was a slow January. Between now and March 1, local businesses are counting on people to check out what they have to offer.

“Support all local,” DeVito said. “All these people are working really, really hard to keep their business afloat and this is a great way to get people out there. Checking it out, go to neighborhoods they might’ve not been to, seeing places they might have not seen before.”