Trailblazing brewpub Buffalo Bill's closes
Iconic, innovative establishment had been popular hangout since 1983
HAYWARD >> After nearly four decades in business on B Street, iconic Hayward establishment Buffalo Bill's Brewery — one of the first brewpubs in the country and an early contributor to craft beer innovation — has closed its doors for good, the owner announced this week.
Geoff Harries, who has brewed beer at Bill's since the late 1980s and owned the business since 1994, posted the news of the closure to the brewery's social media channels Wednesday afternoon.
“Sadly, Buffalo Bill's Brewery is officially closed until the next passing of the mash paddle of this historic and special place. Thank you all so much for the support over the years. It has been an incredible and wonderful journey. Over the past 33 years Buffalo Bill's has been my home, my family and my dream,” Harries wrote.
“It's a tragedy, and we're losing a symbol of Hayward. It's hard to imagine how it will be replaced,” said Kim Huggett, president and CEO of the Hayward Chamber of Commerce.
“It is history passing. Buffalo Bill's for the longest time has been the anchor of our downtown, the signature business for downtown Hayward. The place where deals were done. The place where students hang out, the place to go to watch a ballgame,” Huggett said.
Opened in 1983 by photographer and homebrewing enthusiast Bill Owens, the brewpub's reputation grew locally as a place to grab a fresh beer, and it was later credited with making the country's first commercially brewed pumpkin beer, dubbed simply “America's Original Pumpkin Ale.”
Omar Morales, a comic book writer who was raised in Hayward, attended California State East Bay in Hayward and now lives in Pleasanton, said he has seen Bill's grow and change through the years.
“I spent a lot of time at Buffalo Bill's. It's the kind of place where you could always run into old friends,” Morales, 41, said Thursday. “Now, as an adult and a family man, it's more a place we go to celebrate
birthdays, Valentine's Day a couple times, date nights with my wife.
“The greatest thing I'll miss is, in October, when it's my birthday, we would go there to celebrate, and I would bring home a case of Pumpkin Ale, and I would hoard it,” Morales said.
“Just savoring them here and there, trying to make them last until the next batch would come in. Boy, I certainly hope somebody
finds a way to keep that Pumpkin Ale in circulation even after the doors have closed.”
Hundreds of fans of the brewery have been flooding Harries' posts with comments sharing their sadness at the news and recalling times they enjoyed beer with friends and family inside the brewery's warm space or on its sun-drenched patio.
“Great memories of grabbing a Tasmanian Devil beer and jalapeño
and cheese breadsticks while going to college at Cal State Hayward,” Bill Jostmeyer wrote.
“I will miss the place!” he wrote. “Thanks to Geoff and all the hard workers that made my college years easier. Cheers !!!! ”
Serving beer directly to consumers on-site at a brewery was not allowed under California's “tied-house” laws before a shift in the landscape of state brewing laws in the early 1980s, which Owens said he “took advantage of” and supported.
After then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 3610 into law in 1982, California became home to three of the first five brewpubs in the nation, including Bill's, according to Assembly records.
Owens had previously published a guidebook called “How to Build a Small Brewery,” which was later updated and republished with Harries. Owens also published multiple beer brewing magazines.
Though there might be debate about which brewpub was actually the very first to exist in the nation, “clearly he was an inspiration, being one of the earliest,” beer writer Jay R. Brooks said of Owens.
“I think it inspired quite a few people and it helped put the Bay Area on the map,” Brooks said of Owens' brewpub model and guidebook.
Owens' work helped found the greater Bay Area's beer culture, which is now “arguably one of the best beer scenes in the country,” Brooks said in an interview Thursday.
There's also a “clear legacy” of the pumpkin ale tracing back to Owens, Brooks said. Owens, in prior interviews, said he created the beer with a big portion of grocery-store pumpkin pie spices and homegrown pumpkin flesh.
“Pumpkin beer was made in colonial times. But in modern times, it was Buffalo Bill's that made pumpkin beer what it is today,” Brooks said.
Owens, now 83, founded the American Distilling Institute and Distiller Magazine. He's not as wistful as some about the loss of Bill's.
“In my letters, I say `onwards.' There are new worlds to conquer,” he said.
Harries, who read Owens' guidebook, asked for a job there in 1987 but was offered only a chance to clean out brewing tanks for free in the late 1980s. Owens eventually hired Harries and soon promoted him to brewer, according to the business' website.
Under Harries, the business expanded significantly to dozens of employees and hundreds of daily customers at its peak, along with major distribution of its beers. He noted in his post that he “came close to bankruptcy several times,” but always found a way back.
It wasn't clear Thursday why the brewpub is closing, and Harries didn't respond to a request for comment.
In social media posts and comments from last week, the brewery was advertising new can designs, and mentioned that it was seeking a return to its full regular hours, which had been reduced in the wake of the pandemic.
“You're losing a piece of Americana,” Morales said. “It's just unfathomable to me that all that is going away. There's a lot of flavor in those brick walls.”
“It's going to leave a huge hole right in the center of downtown Hayward,” said.
“Buffalo Bill's was always about people,” Harries wrote in his post about the closure.
“You shared your first dates, your last dates, your birthdays, anniversaries and celebrations of life with us,” he said.
“I will always treasure those memories and will always be grateful that you shared them with us.”