USA, CA: Temescal Brewing preparing to open in Oakland next month

A new 15-barrel brewhouse, arts space, and beer garden at 4115 Telegraph Ave. — aptly dubbed Temescal Brewing — is preparing to open in the Oakland neighborhood of the same name next month, SFGate reported on April 8.

Created in theory over a year ago by Sam Gilbert, who in 2011 founded the homebrewers' collective BrewLab in San Francisco, the brewhouse turned into a community project.

After partnering with Wade Benker-Ritchey, a brewer with a career boasting stints at Cellarmaker and Triple Rock brewing companies, Gilbert buckled down on the new brewery's construction, licensing, and working with contractors, and eventually launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund some of the brewery's more ambitious projects.

It worked. After just a few weeks, Temescal was able to raise over $50,000 to fund the construction of a German-style biergarten and the commissioning of local artists to paint murals across the entire side wall of the brewery's exterior.

"Everyone's doing a Kickstarter, so we thought it might be an extra bit of help for everything, but specifically the beer garden, which is really the focus of the physical business," Benker-Ritchey said. There will be "mixed seating, more intimate Adirondack chairs, picnic tables, probably classic beer garden games: bean bag toss, darts. Hopefully, weather permitting, it will be a sunny place to hang out."

And then, of course, there's the beer.

To start, the brewery will offer 4 to 5 classic styles — a Pale Ale, an IPA, and a stout to start, probably — but soon, they'll explore more adventurous offerings, including some ales aged in bourbon barrels. "As soon as we are brewing those secondary batches, we'll be brewing some low ABV saisons and pilsners," Benker-Ritchey adds. "Generally we will [also] have some kind of Belgian beer."

Aiming to produce around 1,200 barrels annually, the brewery will first focus on selling beer at the Temescal location, and then look to spread to tap rooms after about a year, as well as get into bottling "sooner rather than later."

13 April, 2016