Who needs IPA? At new Sunset brewpub, lager and Pilsner steal the show

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Sometimes, all you want is a simple meal with no surprises — say, an unfussy pork chop washed down with a pint of Pilsner.

A dinner like that can be hard to find in San Francisco, where the middle tier of neighborhood restaurants has been hollowed out to make room for fast-casual on one end and tasting menus on the other. But it’s exactly what you’ll find at the Sunset’s new brewhouse Fifty Vara.

Located on Noriega Street — a mile inland from the excellent places to eat and drink near Sunset Dunes park — Fifty Vara offers a host of familiar pleasures. Call its menu of calamari, little gem salad, and baked chicken “ambitiously unambitious,” maybe. But that’s not a knock. This is exactly the kind of chill, beer-forward operation this city needs.

Named for a defunct unit of measurement from the Spanish colonial era, Fifty Vara has a tight menu of five beers, a reaction to the dominance of hoppy, hazy India pale ales and the occasionally macho culture around them. Sure, other city brewers have expressed that they’re over IPAs, but Fifty Vara owner Brian Reccow, a longtime Sunset resident, took that sentiment and built a two-story restaurant around it. “What we’re presenting is something that flies in the grain of everything,” he said. 

Of those five beers, two fall under the pale ale umbrella: a hazy and a “dank, malty, hoppy” California IPA. But the lager and Pilsner are what stand out. Fifty Vara’s take on lager — arguably the definition of an unexciting beer —  is straw-colored, with an easy body, a hint of sweetness, and almost no bitterness. It’s eminently drinkable — and it’s the backbone of the house michelada and the batter for the green beans.

“It can play a lot of roles, because it’s confident,” Reccow said. “But it’s also a great entry point for a low-alcohol, easy-to-drink beer.” Versatility means it’s easy to pair, as with a $24 bowl of orecchiette with pork sugo, peas, toasted breadcrumbs, and shaved pecorino. The price points are notable: The lager is $6; the Pilsner, $7.

Having inherited the beer-making equipment from Sunset Reservoir Brewing Company, which previously occupied the space and closed last August, Reccow didn’t reinvent the wheel at Fifty Vara. Rather, he let the layout and the neighborhood guide him to create an environment free of the beer world’s nerdiness and intimidating terminology.

He has decades of experience under his belt: He has worked at Beach Chalet, the defunct Thirsty Bear, and other brewpubs, and was part of the team that recently brought Haight Street institution Magnolia Brewing back to life. As a 22-year-old during the early 1990s, he lived in Czechia, historically known as Bohemia, the birthplace of Pilsners, where he wandered through villages to find pubs that poured only a handful of brews. 

Reccow wanted to pay tribute to that vigorous drinking culture while acknowledging the economic reality of the U.S. craft-beer industry, which is in a consolidation phase after a long period of overexpansion. Still, Fifty Vara is a large space, and there’s something for everyone. A menu of eight cocktails, all in the $12 to $16 range, maintains the spirit of approachability, with the Manhattanesque (rye, amaro, sweet vermouth, and chocolate bitters) clocking in as the stiffest.

The restaurant is family-friendly, too: Reccow notes that he has reprinted the kids’ menu and ordered and reordered crayons. But beer is at the heart of it all. Stainless steel fermentation tanks are visible from the dining room, and Fifty Vara is rolling out 32-ounce crowlers and a Sunday-afternoon program called “Come for lunch, stay for happy hour.” In other words, it’s Bohemian — and bohemian.