(By Crystal Sykes)

There are a lot of places in the city to drink a beer and there are a lot of places in the city to eat a taco, but one San Francisco brewery removes the middleman and delivers both sensations in one spicy sip.

On Tuesday, Cellarmaker, San Francisco’s newest brewery, released Taco Hands, the brew house’s first collaboration brew project. Conceived from a joke with Tired Hands Brewing Company and made with real taco ingredients, Taco Hands is an IPA with a flavor profiles of corn tortillas, spices, cilantro and lime. Basically, it’s hops and tacos in a glass. Why, for the love of God did no one think of this earlier? But enough questions, let’s get right to it.

When we showed up to Cellarmaker, they were celebrating Taco Tuesday in full swing with a taco truck out front, mariachi music playing inside, a donkey piñata, and, of course, Taco Hands making its debut. But before diving in for the trendy beer offering, we decided to try out some of the other brews first.





The first beer we tried, Are you Afraid of the Dank???, is a strong, hoppy and tasty double IPA. A definite delight and at 8.5 ABV, we’ll definitely drink this again when we want to forget about the human feces we stepped in to get here.

Next up, the delicate Peach Nightmare, a petit sour ale soaked in peaches. Looking around the place, this one seemed like a house favorite. We loved it too.

Before Taco Hands, we grabbed two more beers purely for namesake -- an IPA called Hop Killah (we’ll buy anything with a CB4 reference) and Moonage Daydream (same with Bowie), an extra pale ale. Both were really good. Despite the hard name, the IPA label and a 7.2 ABV, Hop Killah was light on the tastebuds and easy to drink. Moonage was a personal favorite and we eventually bought a growler of this galaxy-hopped brew to take with us.



Growler is being filled with Moonage Daydream. (Photo: Crystal Sykes)

For Taco Hands, it was a mixed bag. While you can definitely taste the spiciness of cumin and chiles, some of us thought it was a tad off putting. The corn was a nice touch but compared to the other beers we tasted, it just wasn't the best. But again, some of us liked it and some of us were just ‘meh’. All and all, it wasn’t a bad execution because it definitely tasted like a taco but maybe a taco-flavored beer is the hero San Francisco deserves but isn’t quite what we need right now. But what do we know? Go to Cellarmaker and see for yourself.

Watch Taco Hands in the making:



Tasting room hours

Mon: CLOSED

Tues-Thurs: 3pm-11pm

Fri: 3pm-11pm

Sat: 12pm-11pm

Sun: 2pm-8pm

Cellarmaker: 1150 Howard (at Seventh Street), S.F.