Our local shantey sing relocated to a downtown tap room named Pour, and since we want to support our host, I went off the no-grain portion of my diet for the evening. Pour is fun, with about 70 taps, all self serve.

In exchange for a credit card you get a wrist band and a glass. Let the Pouring Begin! You choose a beer, choose a size, scan your wrist band, and pour. The three size choices are 2, 4, and 10 ounces. The machine dispenses the amount you selected. I didn’t try the one below, but I liked the picture. No idea who voted.

I tried Tastes of a few different sours, then Flights of a few other types I’m more confident about. There was a decent selection of local beers, and lots of beers from all over, including Weihenstephaner, which is going to be the oldest brewery in the world forever because it is available absolutely everywhere.

Beer purists will have complaints. As you can see on the screen, you don’t have much info about the beer, though I did not seek written info. You are reusing the same glass for every beer type you try. You can’t get a proper pint at one go. A few taps were wasted on wine, cider, and even water.

The bill was a bit of a surprise, too, because it is super easy to go overboard here. Most of the Taster choices were closer to one dollar than two, and it totally seemed worth it for a  taste. But fun! It was definitely fun! So much fun we had trouble keeping our attention on the singing.

In fact, as a folk singing purist, I prefer the no-drinking shantey sing we often attend in San Francisco. The singing at this one diverged wildly from shanteys, and when, in the final half-hour, they started a naughty song in the style of B I NGO, I fled, lest they devolve to Five Constipated Men (in the Bible), a song I have actually heard adults sing in this state. Even while drinking, Massachusetts folk singers sing in harmony, sing in rounds, sing in Latin, sing tricky rhythms and lyrics and melodies.

Shantey singers in California can do some of those things, sans Pours.