Beer Hall Near Me in SoMa: East Brother's Rec Room at the Metreon

East Brother Beer Co. opened Rec Room inside the Metreon at 135 4th Street in September 2025, a room of more than 3,000 square feet with pool, darts and a patio looking over Yerba Buena Gardens toward SFMOMA. It pours roughly 15 beers, almost all of them classic lagers and ales brewed in Richmond, and there is no kitchen, so you eat from Joyride Pizza in the same building. For a beer hall near me search around Moscone Center, this is the one with a lawn view and a pool table.

Rob Lightner and Chris Coomber started East Brother by brewing in a home closet, and the company grew into a 12,000-square-foot brewhouse at 1001 Canal Blvd in Richmond's old shipyard district. When the San Francisco Standard covered the Rec Room opening, Lightner compared the brewery to a session musician: people come because it is very good at a narrow job. The brewery's own story page puts it more plainly, saying it does not chase trends.

That philosophy shows up on the tap list. Instead of a wall of hazy IPAs, you get styles that would feel at home in a Munich or Pilsen beer hall. East Brother also says it experiments with process rather than style, using the motto of improving 100 things by 1 percent. Rec Room was its first San Francisco location, and the company also runs Tam Tavern in Mill Valley. If you want to see the brewhouse itself, the Richmond taproom at 1001 Canal Blvd opens Wednesday through Sunday, from 3 pm on weekdays and late morning or noon on weekends, and closes Monday and Tuesday.

Start with Bo Pils, the brewery's 5 percent Bohemian pilsner and its best-known beer, which took a silver medal at the California Brewers Cup. Red Lager is a 4.6 percent amber lager with a toasty finish, and Mexican Lager at 4.8 percent is the one for a sunny patio afternoon. Blonde Ale is the lightest of the year-round beers at 4.2 percent.

For something heavier, the 5.4 percent Oatmeal Stout and the 7.3 percent Gold IPA are the year-round picks. In autumn the brewery adds a Bavarian-style Festbier for Oktoberfest, and the San Francisco Standard reported a Munich dunkel on the release schedule. Most of the board sits around 5 percent, so you can play two games of pool without needing a nap. Honest note: if you want rare, high-strength or barrel-aged beer, this is the wrong bar.

Cans of the core beers are sold in 4-packs to go only. The brewery asks you not to open them in the taproom or on the patio and says plainly that it is a legal requirement. East Brother also sells kegs with a deposit, and it asks you to call ahead so the team can set one aside before a party.

Rec Room is a games room first. There is a pool table, a dartboard, a shelf of board games and plenty of TVs, so it fills with conference badges at lunch and with sports fans in the evening. The brewery lists outdoor and indoor seating, heaters, and both kid-friendly and dog-friendly policies, which makes it one of the few places downtown where a family can sit near a pint.

The patio is the reason to come on a clear day. Blue-and-white East Brother umbrellas shade metal tables, and SFMOMA's brick facade shows through the trees across Yerba Buena Gardens. Arrive before noon on a weekday to claim one of the patio tables, because once a Moscone Center convention lets out at lunchtime, the outdoor seats go first. Indoors, big windows give the room plenty of natural light, and the brewery calls the look clean and urban, more modern taproom than oak-paneled German hall, so the beer list is what carries the beer-hall feel.

There is no kitchen at Rec Room. The brewery partners with Joyride Pizza inside the Metreon for Detroit-style pies, salads and sides, and you can carry them to your table. You are also welcome to bring food from the Metreon food court, or have something delivered to the taproom. A square of Detroit pizza with a Bo Pils is the classic order here.

If you want a sit-down meal with beer from a brewery kitchen instead, walk south down Third Street and over the Lefty O'Doul Bridge to Fieldwork's Mission Rock taproom at 300 Toni Stone Crossing, which serves smashburgers and sandwiches. It is roughly 20 minutes on foot and opens at noon every day.

East Brother's homepage and the Rec Room FAQ list hours of 11 am to 7:30 pm Monday through Wednesday, 11 am to 8:30 pm Thursday through Saturday, and 11 am to 7:30 pm Sunday, while the hours box lower on the Rec Room page shows a 2 pm start on weekdays. Plan an afternoon or early evening visit rather than a late night. The San Francisco Standard reported that the taproom generally runs until the Metreon closes, with extra hours during big Moscone Center conventions.

This is not a late-night beer hall. If your group wants to keep going after 8 pm, have dinner and a last round elsewhere in SoMa. If you want the quietest room, a weekday right after opening is calm enough to have the pool table to yourself.

Address: Metreon, 135 4th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. The taproom is inside the Metreon, steps from Yerba Buena Gardens and Moscone Center. Powell Street BART and Muni station is a short walk north along 4th Street toward Market Street. The space can also be booked for private and corporate events.

Who you will meet: convention attendees with lanyards, office workers from SoMa towers, families killing time between museum visits, and dog owners on the patio. After your beer, walk across Yerba Buena Gardens to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial waterfall, then cross Third Street to SFMOMA, which sits right behind the trees you were looking at from the patio.