Kansas brewery uses Bay Area brewpubs as weathervane

October 1, 12:03 AMSF Craft Beer ExaminerBrian Yaeger

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Your intrepid SF Beer Examiner is on the road and, unlike Dorothy once she landed in Oz, is, in fact, in Kansas. And again there’s a Bay Area connection. I had a late lunch at Free State Brewing Co. in Lawrence, for the second time. The first time was a few years ago, where Free State founder Chuck Magerl told me, both literally and symbolically:

“We can see our weather coming at us from a long ways away. We’re more cautious. We know things are coming before they get here. Whether that has to do with a storm that’s approaching or a trend that’s occurring, we’re aware of it before it arrives. We’re not caught by surprise.”

It’s true. I had a Stormwatch Ale—a delicious beer that’s part Brown, part IPA, so the chocolatiness and the spiciness intermingle in your mouth simultaneously—for lunch as I stared out the windows to the warm, blue sky and now I’m in a motel room where the walls are shaking from the strength of the thunder as my filthy car is grateful for the drenching rain outside.

The Bay Area connection comes in the form of the pilgrimage Magerl made decades ago before opening Free State 20 years ago as Kansas’s first (legal) brewery.

He had been keeping tabs on the West Coast brew scene and a chance encounter here in Lawrence with an old friend who had been up in Yakima, Washington rekindled Magerl’s interest. The sidewalk conversation revolved around a veteran brewer named Bert Grant who founded the Yakima Brewing & Malting Company in 1982, recognized as the first modern American brewpub. “He suggested I check out the idea of a brewing facility and on-premise pub. It was a pretty neat idea. That was my introduction.”

Chuck took a train to the coast to scope out these early concepts, places such as Buffalo Bill’s in Hayward (opened 1984), the San Francisco Brewing Co. (opened 1985), and Triple Rock  in Berkeley (opened 1986). All three are still in operation.

“That was a mind-blower because, being separated by geography, my only connection was a sense that these businesses were right on the mark,” said Magerl, who envisioned extravagant brewing emporiums of massive stature. “It was weird to walk down the sidewalk and come into these places because they were shoehorned into such small storefronts.”

Folks, the very same brewpubs are still shoehorned into the same storefronts. They aren’t as old as Anchor Brewing which was founded in 1896 but reanimated in 1965, but they are our living, tangible, drinkable history.

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© 2009 by Brian Yaeger