The brewery at Magnolia was custom built by Quality Stainless from Santa Rosa.  It is a 7 barrel system.  These are pictures of the brewhouse from different angles.  The mash tun is on the left and the kettle on the right.  The hoses on the wall between are used for recirculating wort and for sparging.

(3) 7 bbl fermenters.  This allows the brewers to brew only 3 times a week at most, so planning ahead to keep 10 beers on is very important at Magnolia.

The fermenters are actually kept in the cold room.  This saves space in the tight brewhouse area and inhibits bacteria growth.  The fermenting wort is kept plenty warm simply from the heat generated from fermentation.

There are (14) 7 bbl "grundy" serving tanks.  These are old British serving tanks that continue to do their duty.  CO2 (or nitrogen) is pushed in through the valves on the top of the tanks.  The beer lines come out of the bottom of the tanks.  They also have to push a few beers out in kegs in order to keep so many on tap.

They also feature an awesome firkin room.  Firkins are British kegs that hold 10.6 US gallons.  They are used for the cask conditioned beers.  The cask room is kept at cellar temperature to ensure the proper serving temperature when beer is pulled.  Magnolia boasts (5) hand pumps - more than any brewery in the city.  They can also hold 22 firkins in stillage!!

It may be hard to see from this picture, but the firkin is on it's side, slightly angled, with a tap placed in the bottom.  This tap line leads to the hand pump at the bar.  On the top of the keg (not shown) is a bung.  The bung is punctured to allow air into the keg (otherwise it would create a vacuum).

*SFBeer exclusive!*  And if cask beer out of firkins isn't enough, this is the tool they use to puncture a hole in the bungs to let the kegs breath.  It is an exhaust valve from a '72 Triumph (of course it's sanitized).  Nothing that isn't British ever touches Magnolia cask beer.  British beer engines, British firkins, and British motorcycle valves.

Magnolia is very strict about the types of grains used for brewing.  Only the best floor malted Maris Otter (Maris Otter is a variety of barley) grains from Crisp Malting are used as a base malt.  Other floor malted varieties from Crisp and Beeston are used as specialty grains.