With San Francisco still reeling from the news earlier this summer that Anchor Brewing Company was shutting off its taps, local beer drinkers may take comfort in the resurrection of a local brew that’s been defunct since Prohibition.
Veteran beermakers Cameron McDonald and Jesse Hayter are opening Enterprise Brewing Co. at 1150 Howard St. in the space formerly occupied by Cellarmaker Brewery’s taphouse.
McDonald’s credentials include stints at Bay Area brew houses Seven Stills and Standard Deviant, while Hayter worked at the Presidio-based Fort Point Beer Company, where the pair met.
The new brewery’s Saturday opening will be followed by weekly parties on every Saturday in August.
The original Enterprise Brewing Co. opened in 1873 in a Mission alleyway about eight blocks away from its current location. It survived the devastating 1906 earthquake before the 18th Amendment forbidding the consumption and sale of alcohol shut it down in 1920.
McDonald, a Palo Alto native whose father and grandfather were born in San Francisco, hopes to help revive San Francisco’s identity as a beer-making city and honor SoMa’s industrial heritage by opening a friendly neighborhood watering hole with “approachable beers” that functions as an antidote to the recent narrative that San Francisco is dying.
“We’re just trying to make something in the city to make it a little brighter,” he said.
The 10 barrel-brewery with 16 draft lines and 1,500 square feet of serving space has the capacity to produce 2,000 barrels a year. McDonald said Enterprise will offer a mix of pilsners, lagers, pale ales and India pale ales and collaborate with other Bay Area brew makers.
The grand opening party Saturday will showcase a new hazy pale ale called Hapa’s on Howard, a collaboration with San Jose’s Hapa’s Brewing Company, and Mexican eats by pop-up Guajillo Kitchen, with DJ Dukes spinning beats. Outta Sight Pizza stops by on Aug. 12 and Aug. 19, with tunes by Katy and Her Can’t Hardly Playboy and DJs Raggapants & Guiro, respectively.
The brewery is also planning to debut a new beer called Solidarity Ale on Aug. 26. Some of the proceeds will support efforts by Anchor Brewing Co. workers to buy the historic facility from Japanese beer giant Sapporo and turn it into an employee-run company.
Within a year, McDonald hopes Enterprise will become a SoMa staple, and its beers will be served at bars throughout San Francisco. His top priority is staying local.
“We’re trying to take care of the city first.”
Enterprise Brewing Co. Grand Opening Parties
🗓️ Saturdays, Aug. 5-26 | 1-5 p.m.
📍 1150 Howard St., SoMa
🔗 enterprisebeer.com