Downtown Brewery, San Luis Obispo

by James III
(Beer Delegate, CA, USA)

Downtown Brewery, San Luis Obispo. Unremarkable

With a great location in downtown San Luis Obispo, a restaurant, and a full selection of craft beers, Downtown Brewery gave me high hopes, hopes that were dashed against the rocks in a tide of mediocrity. Perhaps I should have known with the realization that this brewery attempts to be all things to all people, by simultaneously being a restaurant, sports bar, neighborhood watering hole, drinking game Mecca and a concert venue.

While this meant that there was something for everyone, it also meant that no single something was fully articulated.

Consider the Sports Bar aspect. It did indeed have 17 flat screen TVs, but had all the sportsbariness of an Applebees. Granted, it seemed to be the only concert venue in downtown SLO, but I imagine being there on a concert night when you were not a fan of the band or, heaven forbid, just want to get drunk in a stony silence, is downright torture.

Once seated, I ordered a Red ale and took a look at the menu. Consisting of pretty standard brewery fare, I chose a burger with the above average name "Oh this is Hot", which I took to mean it was going to be a spice-a-thon. Well much to my chagrin, it turned out to be 'Oh', 'this' and 'is'," but it sure as hell wasn't spicy.

Also put on our tab was one of their signature salads. While the burger might have been underwhelming in its execution, the salad, due almost exclusively to its volume was quite the opposite. It was almost a bottomless pit. Recall that high school dance you went to with the ginourmous punch bowl. You know, the one that was spiked to such a high octane that Jaime Val ended up puking all over her date. That took her down a peg or two. Well in this case instead of hilarity inducing punch, this bowl was full of salad.

Before I get to the beer, let's have a fireside chat about the ambiance. As I mentioned earlier, this place tried to be all things to all people. So the upstairs had not one, not two, not five, but SEVENTEEN TV screens. All flat screens, almost all tuned to various sports events that were going on at the time. Well, except for the 13th, which described the modern marvel that is a modern aircraft carrier. The lunch crowd was pretty sparse, or at least seemed to be since the place had a large amount of floor space.

The bar had great specials everyday of the week including the always great $1 pint Tuesday nights. Additionally but unrelatedly, they have two drinking games leagues. Each season (as far as I could tell) the brewery sets itself up for a Beirut tournament where the winner gets accolades and their picture on the wall, the losers get taunted and booed and taxi drivers make, on average, an extra 25% in fares.

On top of that they hold cornhole tournaments, which are less of a drinking game and more of a kids' game. Of course any game, Snakes and Ladders included, when played at a bar instantly becomes a drinking game, so there you go.

As with all things at this brewery, the beers were unremarkable. In every case this sentence could and does apply: "The (insert beer style) tasted like a (insert beer style) but they sure haven't done anything special with it." It's as if Downtown Brewery went into a beer brewing supply store, bought some commercial beer brewing gear with the little flimsy recipe book that came with it, and had at it.

Instead of innovation or creativity, you get straight out of the box, boilerplate beers. The plus side to this lapse in creativity is that you get exactly what you expect out of the beer. The negative is that you get exactly what you expect out of a beer. A microbrewery should be a testing ground for creativity, where unconventional flavors mix and create great beer art.

Take the Red. Or the IPA. Or the Porter. In fact take any beer there. It doesn't have a catchy name, has no special flavor undertones and tastes like any other average red, IPA or porter you've ever had. To their credit none of the beers are bad, they are just not great. And to make matters worse, none of them have a very high alcohol content, which always makes an only ok beer bad.

So if you find yourself in San Luis Obispo on the beautiful California coast, and you need a drink and you are downtown, by all means go to Downtown Brewery. But if you are more that 20 miles away, skip it, there is probably something better closer.