An assortment of beer from Two Pitchers Brewing Co. in Oakland, Calif.
Everett M./Yelp
A popular Oakland brewery known for its $3 beers on tap is expanding to San Francisco. And yes, that includes the cheap beer price.
Two Pitchers Brewing Co. is set to open its second taproom, this one to be at 3821 Noriega St., directly across from the famed breakfast sandwiches at Devil’s Teeth Baking Co. The brand is known for making craft radlers, lager-based beers mixed with citrus or other fruit juices for a zippy, refreshing taste. For this taproom, Two Pitchers collaborated with the buzzy Maillards smash burgers pop-up to create a one-stop-shop of bites and brews near Ocean Beach. The space is slated to open on April 22 at 4 p.m.
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“When we started, that was a really big focal point of ours — cheap beer. We said, ‘We could price this at five bucks, six bucks, and even that would be pretty good,’” Two Pitchers co-owner Tommy Hester told SFGATE in an interview. “But we thought, ‘You know what? We really want this to be something that brings people in and it’s different from what other folks are doing.’”
Hester said he is pretty confident that it will be the cheapest beer in town.
Hester and business partner Wilson Barr sold their first beer in the summer of 2012. The two became friends in college while on the baseball team together at Williams College in Massachusetts. Looking to get into the beer business, they decided on radlers because there wasn’t much of a dent in that market yet in America, Hester said.
“It was really an untapped market, especially here in the Bay Area,” he said.
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They started out in distribution only, selling kegs of their beer to local bars. A decade after their first sale, they opened their first taproom, in 2022, at 2344 Webster St. in Oakland. At that taproom, they partnered with Lovely’s Burgers. So it only made sense to partner with another burger joint in San Francisco. It was just pure coincidence that Maillards owner Max Ponzurick also played baseball in college.
“Just like in Oakland, our thought was, ‘Let’s find somebody who’s really gonna put their heart and soul into the food program while we run the bar side of things,’” Hester said.
Chef Max Ponzurick makes smash burgers at his pop-up, Maillards.
Nico Madrigal-Yankowski/SFGATE
While the smash burgers will surely bring in a crowd, no doubt the $3 Baseline Lager brew will also attract attention. It worked very well in Oakland, after all.
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“We want anybody to be able to come in here and feel comfortable and feel appreciated,” Hester said, speaking of the Oakland location. “And so we thought, ‘Well, let’s put our money where our mouth is. Let’s do something that is affordable in an area that’s getting less and less affordable by the day.’”
That same logic is to continue in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset, where Hester lives. For the record, they don’t make money on that $3 beer. They only break even with their $3 beer.
“We’ve actually gotten comparisons to the Costco hot dog, which I thought was not too far off,” Hester said, with a laugh. “In some ways, it’s just a marketing expense to get people in the door. But also it’s just something that we think kind of hits a lot of the core components of what we want to do with our brand, what we want to do as a company.”
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Two Pitchers Brewing Co., 3821 Noriega St., San Francisco. Opens April 22. Open Wednesday and Thursday, 4 p.m.- 10 p.m., Friday, 4 p.m.-11 p.m., Saturday, noon-11 p.m., Sunday, noon-9 p.m.