Most entrepreneurs might be understandably leery about opening a brewery right now. The industry looks about as saturated as a bar towel after a keg spill.
Between 2012 and 2016, the number of craft beer makers nationally more than doubled to 5,234 from 2,420, according to craftbeer.com. San Diego County alone has more than 140 of them. Even Orange County, which came late to the party, is now home to almost 40 craft breweries, thanks to a flurry of openings in the last couple of years.
But Brett Lawrence isn’t like most entrepreneurs. When Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait draws the inaugural draft Friday, Sept. 22 at Towne Park Brewery & Taproom in west Anaheim, it will instantly become one of Orange County’s largest.
“I’m not worried about it,” Lawrence said of the crowded state of the industry as he led a tour of his 20,000-square-foot facility, which includes a banquet room and a brewing system that can produce 20,000 barrels a year. “I think the drinkability of our beer is going to make us stand out.”
With a 30-barrel brewhouse, a couple of 60-barrel fermenters and a 2,000-square-foot cold box (the space near the tasting room where draft beer is kept), Towne Park has been built to make and serve a lot of beer. Size is important since Lawrence recently completed a handshake deal with Southern Wine & Spirits that makes Towne Park one of only three Southern California craft breweries in the massive distributor’s portfolio.
A beer kit started it all
Lawrence, 35, is new to the beer business, but he’s no neophyte in the world of hospitality. He’s the son of Jeannie Lawrence, who with her late husband Rick bought Rancho Las Lomas, an upscale event center in Silverado Canyon, about 40 years ago. “I was born into the business,” Lawrence said.
After a stint owning and running nightclubs and restaurants in Los Angeles, he returned to Rancho Las Lomas after his father passed away in 2005 to help his mother run the facility.
Lawrence’s first experience with beer happened much more recently. “My staff got me a little beer kit in 2013 for Christmas. I brewed my first batch in 2014 – a blonde ale. In 2015 we started contract brewing. I finally decided to control my own destiny and build my own brewery.”
Anaheim is an increasingly popular spot for aspiring craft brewers. Tait, an avid beer fan, has streamlined the permitting process for small breweries in an effort to turn his city into a magnet for the industry. “Looking around the country, I see that cities like Denver and Portland, Oregon and San Diego have really benefited from being centers for beer making. I want [Anaheim] to be the brewery center of the Southland.” Tait estimates there will soon be 20 craft breweries in his city. “We’re well on the way.”
Movies, yoga and more
From the beginning, Lawrence envisioned something more ambitious than a storefront with a bare-bones tasting room. “For the last two years we’ve been conceptualizing this, and so we knew exactly what we wanted when we started construction six months ago.”
His team found an ideal place on Lincoln Avenue just west of the I-5 freeway – a former tire store with plenty of space for storage and other uses. “We wanted room for canning, bottling and kegging lines. We can do 12-ounce cans, 16-ounce cans, 12-ounce bottles and 22-ounce bottles on the premises.”
Thanks to the distribution agreement with Southern, Towne Park beer will be available in many popular O.C. restaurants, including North Italia in Irvine, Bandera in Newport Beach, and Sea Legs and its sister restaurant, Sea Salt, in Huntington Beach. Some beer fans are already familiar with Towne Park’s brews. “We’ve been selling kegs at Hi-Time (a popular wine, beer and spirits store in Costa Mesa) for about two years now,” Lawrence said.
Though Towne Park opens to the public on Saturday, brewmaster Jeremy Mayo and his team have been making beer at the facility since the beginning of August. “We’ve already produced about 1,200 barrels,” Lawrence said. “We wanted to build inventory for Southern.” The first shipments through the distributor start this week. The beers will be available for purchase at most stores starting Oct. 2.
The tasting room is set up for 16 different drafts (five additional taps pour coffee, kombucha, craft soda and tea). Towne Park is offering 10 beers to start, including a sour and a double IPA. A blonde ale, a white ale, a lager, an IPA, a pale ale, and an amber ale are available by bottle or can. All six-packs are $9.99 except the IPA, which is $10.99.
Lawrence plans to maintain a festive atmosphere where beer is part of a larger experience.
A dedicated food truck space on the patio can accommodate more than one vehicle. A banquet room with a built-in sound system next to the tasting room can seat almost 100, and Lawrence envisions movie nights and even yoga classes there. (It doubles as a barrel-aging room.) Each weekday will be themed: Monday will be industry night, Tuesday is for taco lovers, Wednesday is trivia night, Thursday will be reserved for cask beer on tap.
Lawrence even wants to make light of the trains that occasionally pass noisily nearby. “We’ll ring this whenever it happens,” he said, pointing to a large bell behind the bar, “and maybe do $1 beers for 10 minutes – something crazy and fun like that.”
Towne Park Brewery & Taproom
1566 W Lincoln Ave, Anaheim, 714-844-2492, towneparkbrew.com
Hours:
Monday-Thursday 4 p.m.-10 p.m.
Friday 4 p.m.-midnight
Saturday 11 a.m.-midnight
Sunday 11 a.m.-10 p.m.