In theory, the Brew Coop could be a beer fan’s dream situation.

The bar, or “self-pour taproom,” as owner Gore Song describes it, lets you fill your own glass from any of 21 different beer taps — or a few more offering cider, kombucha, sake and wine. You can try an inch or a pint, watch whatever game is on, then try another.

“It’s more of a tasting experience,” Song explained to a group of hesitant newcomers who arrived shortly after I did one evening. Song, who opened the Valencia Street spot this month, says he was inspired by a self-pour bar in Prague that he visited six years ago, but the model seems custom-fit for San Francisco’s tight labor market today.

Here’s how it works: When you enter the Brew Coop, you start a tab by exchanging cash or a credit card for a plastic payment card, then proceed to the neon lights reading BEER YOURSELF. You’re the bartender. Activate the tap by sliding your payment card into a slot above your chosen brew, then pour as much as you’d like. (Prices appear when you insert the card, before you start pouring.) The card tracks every ounce you pour, spitting out a long receipt at the register before you leave.

The setup feels unfamiliar. At most bars, you know what to do: Pull up a seat, exchange pleasantries with the barkeep, and choose a drink. If it’s not too crowded, you might linger over your pint and talk about your neighborhood, what’s on TV, what you do for a living. There’s often music, a feeling of being somewhere cooler than your kitchen table. You might be rooting for the same team as everyone in the room, or you might give your barstool neighbor a hard time about their starting lineup.

That human exchange matters. We can drink at home, but bars invite us to be together, to drink well with others.

If we’re just here for the beer, then the beer better be damn good. And that’s where Brew Coop doesn’t live up to its promise as an innovative “tasting experience.”

About half of the list comes from local breweries, including HenHouse’s Stoked on Mosaic Pale Ale, Standard Deviant’s hefeweizen, Social Kitchen’s pilsner, and Seven Stills’ hazy IPA, with the rest filled in with familiar choices like Allagash White and Ballast Point’s Grapefruit Sculpin. The taps are arranged by general style — hoppy, lighter, malty, tart.

On my first visit, I spent $1.05 on 1.981 ounces of Johnny Utah Pale Ale from Seattle’s Georgetown Brewing Co., and $4.66 on 7.767 ounces of a hazy IPA from Black Hammer Brewing in San Francisco. The self-serve process draws your attention to the cost of every sip, but the prices aren’t really egregious for today’s Valencia Street: That IPA, at 60 cents an ounce, comes out to $7.20 for a 12-ounce pour.

Song, who most recently worked as the manager and beer buyer at Soda Popinski’s, will offer beer recommendations if you ask, but in general, customers take the reins here, learning what they like by tasting, not talking. You’re unlikely to stand around near the wall having a long conversation about dry hopping. Song hopes the setup will feel accessible to intimidated beginners who might not have tasted the products of many different breweries before.

But more than any other bar I’ve been to in recent years, I’ve found that people need a simile to wrap their heads around the Brew Coop.

One friend tried to follow the operating instructions, then exclaimed: “Oh! It’s like a gas station, but with beer!” She sprang to the taps, her eyes widening as the ounces — and dollars — rolled up.

When I proposed this review, my editor asked if the system was something like the soda station at a McDonald’s. On one hand, the Brew Coop seems to inspire a similar glee. The bar’s fans on Yelp crow about their “suicide” concoctions — mixes of every beer on the back wall in one (full) glass. I’m not sure I have the patience to insert the payment card into the slot above each collection of taps more than 10 times in a row, so I haven’t tried it. Also: gross.

Rest assured, the tap area is significantly less sticky than your standard soda machine, though some achievement-oriented patrons do run up their tabs tasting their way through, leaving a pool of discarded beer in the drain that spans the spouts.

Brew Coop feels less like a taproom than like the basement rec room — or converted cafeteria — in a college dorm, the cement floors crammed with unadorned tables and benches. It’s not a very comfortable place to watch a game, though Song installed so many flat screens that there’s barely more than a foot between them. (“Man, you guys need more TVs,” snarked a customer who arrived shortly after I did.)

My fellow professional barfly Camper English of the Alcademics blog summed up the experience in a tweet as being akin to “drinking beer in the TV department of Best Buy.” They’ve adjusted the lighting in recent weeks, which helps, but he has a point.

On a recent Monday, there wasn’t a game on the docket, but several tables of drinkers were raptly following the closed captions as former linebacker Colton Underwood practiced his tongue kiss on “The Bachelor.” Some watchers drank the white wine, a generic California Chardonnay; others liked Holy Craft Brewing Co.’s slightly tart yuzu-tinged Japanese rice lager.

My tablemates had given up on trying different options, though, finding that they’d already sampled many of the beers on tap elsewhere.

Most drinkers these days — even those who consider themselves beginners — don’t need to sample an ounce of Lagunitas IPA or Firestone’s 805 Blonde. Most people who have been to a bar in San Francisco have already tried Speakeasy’s Baby Daddy at least once. If Song would diversify, focusing more of the list on rare options and new releases not often poured elsewhere, the Brew Coop could be a destination for beer lovers — or a spot that could encourage newbies to care about beer.

Otherwise, I’d just as soon fill ’er up somewhere else.

More Information To order: Founders Porter; Far West Cider’s You’ve Guava Be Kidding Me. Available beers are always in flux and cost 48 cents to 84 cents per ounce. Where: The Brew Coop, 819 Valencia St., S.F. www.thebrewcoop.com When: 4-11 p.m. Monday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Super Bowl reservations for groups can be made via the website.

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Maggie Hoffman is the author of “The One-Bottle Cocktail.” Her new book, “Batch Cocktails: Make-Ahead Pitcher Drinks for Every Occasion,” comes out in March. Email: food@sfchronicle.com