Each week, former sf.myopenbar.com editor Allie Pape brings you her picks for the best places to booze on the cheap in SF. This week: Endless beer, cheaper wine. Have an event coming up? Want to share a tip? E-mail her.
1. Cocktail Club: As the younger set goes back to school with new notebooks and shiny shoes, it can be a little dispiriting to continue living in the working world. Luckily, there's a way to get an education and celebrate an essential facet of being a grown-up: Elixir's Thursday booze-meets-booklearnin' panels continue with a salute to gin, featuring Beefeater, Beefeater 24, and an LTB favorite, Plymouth. It's a great opportunity to learn more about the botanical beverage and sample a few high-priced iterations for free. (Thursday, August 27, 7-9 pm, at Elixir, 3200 16th St., Mission.)
2. Casual Friday: Bar on Church's bottomless beer special has been featured before on LTB, but this week, it's moving to Friday-- a day when the majority of us can actually handle an evening of free-flowing suds, or at least regret it slightly less on Saturday morning. DJ White Mike will play hip-hop, soul, and funk to accompany your $9 glass of magical, free-flowing foam. (Friday, August 28, 5-8 pm, at Bar on Church, 198 Church St., Castro.)
3. Vin Club Happy Hour: This wine-centric new bar is offering a number of cheap opportunities to expand your palate: their regular happy hour offers a flight of three 2-ounce tastings for $9, allowing drinkers to escape the Yellowtail ghetto without incurring much expense. Need an even faster introduction? On Fridays, they up the ante by offering five 1-ounce tastings for a mere $5, with around 20 wines to choose from. And if you're not an oenophile, there's also $2 off bottled beer. (Wednesdays-Fridays 4-7 pm, Saturday and Sunday 1-7 pm, at The Vin Club, 515 Broadway, North Beach.)
4. Let's Be Frank Beers: Hot-dog lovers are already familiar with SF's own Let's Be Frank, the ultra-sustainable purveyor of fine sausages that makes Ball Park look like junior T-ball. Naturally, nothing goes better with a steaming dog than a cold beer, and Let's Be Frank is now offering those as well: buy a hot dog after 4 pm on Monday, and your brew is $2. God bless America. (Mondays, 4 pm-closing, at Let's Be Frank, 3318 Steiner St., Marina.)
5. Fifth Floor's Wine Special: On the other end of the spectrum from hot dogs, fancy-pants Fifth Floor is making a Herculean effort to recover from the recent loss of chef Laurent Manrique. Through September 7th, every bottle of wine on its extensive list is half-off, including half-bottles. While the restaurant is promoting this deal as an opportunity to save on that $1100 cabernet some captain of industry has been wanting to try, the second-cheapest bottle on the menu (a $36 sauvignon blanc, by our calculations) is getting the same exact treatment. Salut. (Daily through September 7th, at Fifth Floor, 12 Fourth St., SOMA.)
