Santa Cruz brewery in space of Oakland’s beloved Trappist
A Santa Cruz brewery with a frenzied fan base will take over one of Oakland’s most beloved beer bars. In April, Sante Adairius Rustic Ales, which has gained national acclaim for its wild-fermented saisons, will open its third taproom in the space that has been home to the Trappist for the past 14 years.
Sante Adairius will call its new outpost the Oakland Arbor, and will make minor updates to the Trappist’s existing infrastructure, including changing the branding. It will also serve mainly Sante Adairius beers on the bar’s 29 tap handles, such as its signature Saison Bernice, a citrusy, lightly funky farmhouse ale. But some of the Belgian beers that were the Trappist’s specialty may also appear as guest beers from other producers, and the Oakland Arbor will largely retain the space’s current look.
The Trappist’s final evening was New Year’s Eve.
“It will be a change, but we don’t want it to feel like it’s a total 180 for the folks who have really loved the Trappist,” said Adair Paterno, who co-owns Sante Adairius with Tim Clifford. They’re still working on a food menu.
The bar is located at 460 Eighth St. in the Old Oakland neighborhood, which is quickly becoming a food-and-beer hotspot. Directly next door will be Matty’s Old Fashioned, a much anticipated burger spot from barbecue maestro Matt Horn. Popular Detroit pizza restaurant Square Pie Guys has a location on the same block. San Francisco’s Cellarmaker Brewing Co. has plans to open a taproom nearby next summer.
The deal between the Trappist’s owners and Sante Adairius grew out of a longtime friendship, they said. Paterno and Clifford lived in Oakland for years — they brewed the first Sante Adairius beers in their apartment
— and became friends with Trappist owners Aaron Porter and Adriana Porter Dominguez during that time. “I remember when they were building the Trappist, and I would go running by it in the mornings, hoping it would open,” Paterno said.
Now, however, Porter said he and his wife have other projects that have made it difficult to focus on the Trappist. They moved to the South Bay, adding a burdensome commute. Then the pandemic hit.
“It was getting increasingly challenging for us to run the business,” Porter said. “We weren’t sure that Tim and Adair wanted to take on another project, but then we realized that what we’ve done and what they have done all fit together in a really beautiful way.”
Both businesses have cultivated a following for their “reverence for tradition,” as Porter put it. The Trappist has become an important player in reviving interest in traditional Belgian ales. When it opened in 2007, few beer bars in the Bay Area were focusing on these classic imported styles. (Another important player, the Monk’s Kettle, opened in San Francisco the same year.)
In 2013, Porter expanded with a sequel in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood, called the Trappist Provisions. It went through several iterations: For a while, it rebranded as an outpost of the international Mikkeller beer franchise, then reverted to its original name.
San Francisco’s Fort Point Beer Co. subsequently took over the Trappist Provisions space from Porter, with plans to convert it into a hot dog themed taproom. That was originally slated to debut in the spring of 2020, but has still not opened.
Sante Adairius, meanwhile, launched in Capitola (Santa Cruz County) in 2011 as a scrappy outgrowth of a homebrewing operation. Unlike many of the other California craft breweries that were focusing on ultra-hoppy beers like IPAs, Sante Adairius became known for reviving more obscure European beer styles like saison and grisette, fermenting them in oak casks and large vessels called foudres using proprietary yeast strains.
Within a few years, Sante Adairius bottles were generating wait lists and even resales on the secondary market. At one point, three bottles that the brewery had sold for $20 got flipped online for $550.
While the brewery initially served beers only from its small Capitola brewhouse, it eventually opened a larger taproom, called the Sante Adairius Santa Cruz Portal, in 2017. That allowed the brewery to expand production and meet more demand for its ales.
Porter and Porter Dominguez aren’t getting out of the industry. They’re working on opening an all-day cafe in downtown Los Altos called Tal Palo, where they’ll serve Mexican brunch and sell handmade clothing and ceramics imported from Mexico. And, yes, Porter said, there will be a killer beer list. That’s slated to open in May.
Additionally, this won’t be the end of the Trappist, Porter added. He and Porter Dominguez foresee a new Trappist location at some point in the future, likely on the Peninsula or in the South Bay.
“I’m not done with beer, I’m just in a different place in my life” than in 2007, Porter said. “The spirit of the Trappist will live on.”
To commemorate the transition of ownership, the Trappist hosted a special party Thursday. Porter and Porter Dominguez were to be there, as were Sante Adairius’ Clifford and Paterno. Together, they served up Sante Adairius beers and answered questions from their regulars about what the bar will feel like going forward.