Broken Drum Brewery and Wood Grill

No Longer In Business

Sort of 40s-50s atmosphere. good variety of BD beers. Decent menu. Good service. Good music/muzak. Nice place.!

An interesting place...Small patio where a couple homeless people seemed to be just hanging out and smoking out front of the restaurant. Inside it was empty. The bartender was just standing there and one other person was in there at the bar...kind of depressing. They had 8 beers on tap and they were not very good...all were appley and buttery. Service was at least good.

The best part about the visit was the lone other patron, who was quite drunk and seemed to be slamming down a few 32 oz mugs of one of their beers. He kept trying to talk to me and was convinced that I was taking notes because I wanted to open my own brewery. He was seriously into the music too. At one point Peter Frampton’s "Baby, I Love Your Way" came on and he was really starting to rock out. He asked me if I knew who sang the song. I replied "Peter Frampton" and he said "No, that’s not it. I know for a fact it’s not Peter Frampton." Somehow, I feel that anecdote sums up my experience here well.

Visited May 2010.

This was my first time in San Rafael (off the freeway at least) and the town itself didn’t disappoint. It was a sunny spring day and there happened to be a street fair and car show going on at the time. Looking at the hotrods, listening to live music, and experiencing a quaint little town were the highlights. Then there’s Broken Drum Brewery...

Picture a Denny’s that serves beer. 50’s style diner with lots of decorations on the walls and some brewing equipment on the one wall. All that is fine. The food unfortunately resembles Denny’s food as well. And there’s the beer. Most of it was bland, some showed some flaws, and one or two were alright. If Denny’s made beer it would probably taste like this. Prices were reasonable as was the service and they do offer flights... in those hexagonal liquor glasses. No offense to the owners of this place but if I come back it’ll be while doing something else in the area.

A small town brewpub, and the beers reflect that. Quality control seems to be none present, as too many of the beers were dms infused, and none of them were very interesting. But the place was quite nice anyway, the service wasn’t bad and the food at least seemed decent.

8 beers on tap and 6 of them in bad condition with clear signs of DMS. The did have a good vanilla porter but the rest was very bland and boring.

I am a hop head and I was not impressed. Not worth going out of your way for.