4 Best Nightlife in San Francisco, California

The city's best brewery within actual walking distance of downtown resides on a warehouse stretch of SoMa that is better known for Bay Bridge on-ramp traffic than food and drink. The cozy, colorful tasting room is always friendly and full of great fresh beers on tap. It's hard to pick from the extensive list of brews, but there's a wide variety of styles and usually a few funky choices and gluten-removed options included.

Most San Francisco brewery taprooms are lacking in decor since they're usually just part of a warehouse-like brewing complex. That isn't the case with this sleek, beautifully designed bar-restaurant serving approachable, fun beers from a brewery next to Crissy Field. This is also the rare San Francisco brewery with a notable food menu. Here, San Francisco's deep seafood history is featured, led by the terrific Dungeness crab roll, and nicely accompanies the IPAs and KSA Kölsch. 

Known for its food as much as its beers, Magnolia is a San Francisco institution, thanks in part to its prime location near the Haight-Ashbury intersection. Come for the smoked trout croquettes, falafel salad, and famed burgers, or just grab any one of the dozen-plus beers on tap, many brewed in-house. The brewpub occupies the site of The Drugstore Cafe, one of the first hippie hangouts in the Haight in the 1960s. 

You'll feel like you're in a cabin in the woods as you relax in an Adirondack chair under a heat lamp, enclosed by the greenery of Golden Gate Park. In addition to serving pub food, such as burgers, salads, steaks, and fish-and-chips, the brewery churns out its own beer. On sunny spring and summer weekend days, there's live music on the lawn. The Park Chalet shares a building with the Beach Chalet—but it isn't waterside, so you won't freeze if it's overcast. There's indoor seating too, but the outdoor seating area is the highlight.