San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Brewers break out on their own with Brix Factory
An eagerly anticipated brewery is finally pouring its crisp lagers and ales at its long-inthe-works West Oakland taproom.
Brix Factory Brewing at 2400 Mandela Parkway offers 12 taps of beer from refreshing ales to hoppy West Coast-style IPAs. Brewmaster and owner John Gillooly says the brewery isn’t looking to follow trends or be a stickler about classic styles. “We’re just playing around with things,” he said.
A veteran brewer approaching 30 years in the business, Gillooly was formerly the head brewer at major Bay Area brewery Drake’s in San Leandro. He’s finally breaking out on his own, joined by partner Mike Boals, another former brewer at Drake’s.
The 7,500-square-foot facility, a former print shop and electric vehicle warehouse, is equipped with a 15-barrel brew system. Some offerings it produced for its early March opening included a zesty pilsner called the Eye of Tasman, brewed with a single aromatic hop whose odd name and packaging caught the brewer’s attention.
“I thought, seriously? There’s a hop called Superdelic, like psychedelic? And they come in a pink box? We’re making a beer with that!” Gillooly said.
The Soft Shoulder American-style amber ale is brewed with corn and six-row malt for a flavor that goes from toasty to crispy. It’s a beer Gillooly calls a
“museum piece” since it resembles a brew from the 19th century. Other beers include a hybrid between a blond ale and fruit seltzer and a citrus-forward, low-ABV blond ale.
The brewery has a 500square-foot patio space where customers can sit and sip as the days begin to warm up. The location is dog friendly, with the Dogs of Brix Instagram page already collecting photos of fourlegged companions.
Named after the measure of total dissolved sugars in beverages such as beer, Brix Factory was about two years in the making; Gillooly first announced plans to open in December 2022. In the days following the announcement, the brewer told the Chronicle that he had negotiated for the property for around nine months, and that building permits would not take much longer to arrive. In fact, they didn’t come
Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle through until September 2023.
The brewery finally had a chance to get a few of its beers — an amber lager and a hazy rye pale ale — to locals during SF Beer Week in February, which helped build up excitement for the taproom’s early March opening. In the run-up to the opening, the Brix Factory team collaborated on special brews with Santa Rosa’s Henhouse Brewery and Sacramento’s Mindscape Fermentations.
Brix Factory arrives in a Bay Area craft beer market marked by consolidation and closures. Gillooly’s former company Drake’s, for instance, acquired Sonoma’s Bear Republic, and San Francisco’s Cellarmaker made an expansion into the East Bay after acquiring Berkeley sour beer specialist the Rare Barrel. Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing recently closed its San Francisco brew pub, while Ale Industries in Oakland closed in November. The trend is national: In 2023, the American Brewers Association reported the craft beer market’s growth had leveled out after years on an upward trajectory.
But citing new housing developments in the area, Gillooly, a West Oakland resident since 2009, hopes Brix will serve a growing neighborhood in need of more entertainment and activities. There’s already Ghost Town Brewing nearby, and popular Latino coffee roaster Proyecto Diaz opened a new location next door to a modern rock-climbing gym last year. Rogue pizza operation June’s Pizza has plans to open next door to Brix Factory, and fried rice pop-up Woo Can Cook is looking to open in the neighborhood as well. The upstart Oakland Ballers pro baseball team is also gearing up to play at nearby Raimondi Field.
“It’s about time,” Gillooly said.