Photography by Ryan Jurnecka
In 1920, Anaheim Brewery was celebrating its 50th anniversary, when Prohibition crashed the party. The famous “Anaheim Beer” stopped flowing from the taps and would remain dormant; the name fading into oblivion.
Ninety years later, a husband and wife brew team brought Anaheim Brewery back from the dead.
For Greg Gerovac, this wasn’t the first time beer had been closely tied to his family. His grandfather worked at the original Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee for 44 years, during which he spent time under head brewmaster, Karl Strauss (of the now famous San Diego-based brewery and brewpub chain). “In my grandfather’s 50th wedding anniversary album, it includes a congratulations telegram from Karl," Gerovac adds. Thus the family connection had begun.
During their 24-year service in the United States Army, Greg, and his wife Barbara, lived in Germany in the early 90s. It was one Christmas when Barbara bought Greg a homebrewing kit that would alter the course of their future – although the beer making didn’t get off to a smooth start. “They were wretched," Greg remembers. "They were just absolutely disgusting, and so I threw the thing in the closet and never drug it back out. And I was thinking ‘We’ve got a brewery down the street about a mile. Every small town has its own. Why are we messing with this?’” It took the notoriously long winters in upstate New York for the kit to be reexamined. He met the owner of a local homebrew supply shop, and from there met a local brewer who began to show Greg the ropes. After some new found success in brewing and when it came time for a career change, he took on a job as a brewer’s apprentice.
It wasn't long before Barbara followed suit, and both Gerovacs worked brewing occupations on the east coast in the early 2000’s, ranging from a large brewery to a small microbrewery. However, Greg and California-native Barbara always knew they’d end up on the west coast, and when the brewery Barbara worked for was out of a lease on their building, their opportunity came.
After working various brewing jobs in Southern California (Greg at Huntington Beach Brewery, Barbara at Red Car Brewery in Torrance and Union Cattle Company in Hermosa Beach), they began to plan for something they hadn’t planned to do before. They never really wanted to own their own place, but in 2008, an opportunity came up they couldn’t refuse.
You could say the Gerovacs are history buffs, and they wouldn’t deny it. They live in a historic house just down the road from the brewery on Broadway, they were on the board of the Anaheim Historical Society, and according to Greg, generally “know the city’s history really well.” The Gerovacs began to seriously entertain opening their own place, given their years of experience together, and thought, “how cool it would be to do it in our own neighborhood, for our own neighborhood.” They knew the old Packard dealership building from the 1920s that they would often drive by was owned by the city and was in the process of being redeveloped. To work with the city on renovating the old building whilst simultaneously starting their own local brewery was something the Gerovacs did not want to pass up. Then came the quandary of what to call it.
"There's some really clever names out there but if all you hear is the name, you have to do your own research to figure out where they’re about,” Gary explains. “And so when it came time to build our business plan and think about what we should call our brewery, we wanted to make it something that was really clearly identifiable as being downtown, as being in Anaheim. And we thought, ‘what better name then Anaheim Brewery?’ ” After a small amount of research, the brewery’s history began to surface.
They then consulted the city historian and the more they investigated, the more they found out about not just the brewery itself, but about the families that ran it from 1870 to about 1920 and knew embracing the history would be perfect. They then found some old artifacts as well, including some of the old bottles from the original Anaheim Brewery circa 1900 and a book that was printed in 1904 on the 100th
anniversary of the Master Brewer’s Association in which Anaheim Brewery is mentioned (all currently on display now in the tasting room). On Memorial Day weekend in 2011, three years after beginning the project, the Gerovacs began brewing and the Anaheim Beer was flowing once more. In July of 2011, the brewery opened to the public.
Almost three years and over 1,500 barrels of beer later, the brewery is going strong. The Gerovacs with the help from a part time employee do all the brewing and bottling themselves at the facility. Brewing is done one day a week in a "more than manageable" 11-hour shift. From there the fermentation and maturation of their beer takes several weeks, where it's then filtered or transferred to their finishing tanks. Their 600 gallon supply of hefeweizen, thier most popular beer, is estimated to be consumed by thirsty patrons in twenty days, amounting to a staggering average of thirty gallons per day. Serving those patrons are a team of twelve taste servers whom Greg proudly boasts "come from the background that any high end nightclub would be happy to get their hands on" in regards to their excellent service - something that is stressed at the brewery.
Anaheim Brewery currently offer six beers; two that rotate and four regulars. One of the beers even directly acknowledges the brewery’s history. Their beer named 1888 is a “steam” beer (one that is brewed without refrigeration) and pays homage to a style originally brewed by Anaheim Brewery. “We don’t have any recipes from back in the day, but we know they made a steam beer, and we think that 1888 is fairly indicative of what that beer might have been like in the late 1800s in terms of color, and strength, and the hops that we used. It’s not an Anchor clone (Anchor Brewing company who has successfully made their steam beer since 1896)” says Greg. “They’ve evolved over time just like every other beer, so we really tried to reach back to the original without knowing exactly what the recipe was. It was kind of fun, and the style has done really well for us.” So well it’s won a medal in both the California State Fair and the LA County Fair. Their IPA joined the two medals with a gold at the LA County Fair. Recently, they’ve brewed a Kolsch to enter in the World Beer Cup this year. However you won’t find this award winning beer everywhere. Not even everywhere in Southern California.
“We’re definitely trying to stay focused on our own backyard.” The furthest you can purchase their beer, be it on draft or in six-packs is a single place in Los Angeles, otherwise the locations spread mostly among Orange and San Bernardino County. In total there's around 65 of these outlets, ranging from big (Anaheim Convention Center) to small (nearby liquor store). Having a small radius of accounts allows the Gerovacs to maintain self distribution. Every delivery they make is done so in person by the brewers themselves, allowing for the face-to-face trust to develop with their accounts so should that there be any issues, their buyers know who to call. "It’s about making it personal. We take the opportunity to meet the people who are buying our beer," said Gerovac.
According to occraftbeer.com, there are over 20 breweries currently active in Orange County, and that number is growing. This growth in breweries, and the growth of the culture itself, can be a double edged sword — with increase in breweries comes competition, but with growing culture the demand increases as well. In the end, Greg is not too concerned, "I don’t think that you can have too many breweries , I think we’re all good for each other. It’s just like saying “can you have too many restaurants in a downtown?” I don’t know, I don’t think so. As long as we’re all collectively making quality beer, we’re in good shape."
If there's one concern he does have, it's that one brewery may take up the resources, specifically the ingredients required to make the beer, and produce a substandard product that will turn off someone who may be trying craft beer for the first time. Thankfully, this doomsday scenario has not surfaced in Orange County according to Greg, which he acknowledges as a very great thing. And to the consumers, the existence of these OC breweries like Anaheim Brewery is a very great thing as well.
Ninety years later, a husband and wife brew team brought Anaheim Brewery back from the dead.
For Greg Gerovac, this wasn’t the first time beer had been closely tied to his family. His grandfather worked at the original Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee for 44 years, during which he spent time under head brewmaster, Karl Strauss (of the now famous San Diego-based brewery and brewpub chain). “In my grandfather’s 50th wedding anniversary album, it includes a congratulations telegram from Karl," Gerovac adds. Thus the family connection had begun.
During their 24-year service in the United States Army, Greg, and his wife Barbara, lived in Germany in the early 90s. It was one Christmas when Barbara bought Greg a homebrewing kit that would alter the course of their future – although the beer making didn’t get off to a smooth start. “They were wretched," Greg remembers. "They were just absolutely disgusting, and so I threw the thing in the closet and never drug it back out. And I was thinking ‘We’ve got a brewery down the street about a mile. Every small town has its own. Why are we messing with this?’” It took the notoriously long winters in upstate New York for the kit to be reexamined. He met the owner of a local homebrew supply shop, and from there met a local brewer who began to show Greg the ropes. After some new found success in brewing and when it came time for a career change, he took on a job as a brewer’s apprentice.
It wasn't long before Barbara followed suit, and both Gerovacs worked brewing occupations on the east coast in the early 2000’s, ranging from a large brewery to a small microbrewery. However, Greg and California-native Barbara always knew they’d end up on the west coast, and when the brewery Barbara worked for was out of a lease on their building, their opportunity came.
After working various brewing jobs in Southern California (Greg at Huntington Beach Brewery, Barbara at Red Car Brewery in Torrance and Union Cattle Company in Hermosa Beach), they began to plan for something they hadn’t planned to do before. They never really wanted to own their own place, but in 2008, an opportunity came up they couldn’t refuse.
You could say the Gerovacs are history buffs, and they wouldn’t deny it. They live in a historic house just down the road from the brewery on Broadway, they were on the board of the Anaheim Historical Society, and according to Greg, generally “know the city’s history really well.” The Gerovacs began to seriously entertain opening their own place, given their years of experience together, and thought, “how cool it would be to do it in our own neighborhood, for our own neighborhood.” They knew the old Packard dealership building from the 1920s that they would often drive by was owned by the city and was in the process of being redeveloped. To work with the city on renovating the old building whilst simultaneously starting their own local brewery was something the Gerovacs did not want to pass up. Then came the quandary of what to call it.
"There's some really clever names out there but if all you hear is the name, you have to do your own research to figure out where they’re about,” Gary explains. “And so when it came time to build our business plan and think about what we should call our brewery, we wanted to make it something that was really clearly identifiable as being downtown, as being in Anaheim. And we thought, ‘what better name then Anaheim Brewery?’ ” After a small amount of research, the brewery’s history began to surface.
They then consulted the city historian and the more they investigated, the more they found out about not just the brewery itself, but about the families that ran it from 1870 to about 1920 and knew embracing the history would be perfect. They then found some old artifacts as well, including some of the old bottles from the original Anaheim Brewery circa 1900 and a book that was printed in 1904 on the 100th
anniversary of the Master Brewer’s Association in which Anaheim Brewery is mentioned (all currently on display now in the tasting room). On Memorial Day weekend in 2011, three years after beginning the project, the Gerovacs began brewing and the Anaheim Beer was flowing once more. In July of 2011, the brewery opened to the public.
Almost three years and over 1,500 barrels of beer later, the brewery is going strong. The Gerovacs with the help from a part time employee do all the brewing and bottling themselves at the facility. Brewing is done one day a week in a "more than manageable" 11-hour shift. From there the fermentation and maturation of their beer takes several weeks, where it's then filtered or transferred to their finishing tanks. Their 600 gallon supply of hefeweizen, thier most popular beer, is estimated to be consumed by thirsty patrons in twenty days, amounting to a staggering average of thirty gallons per day. Serving those patrons are a team of twelve taste servers whom Greg proudly boasts "come from the background that any high end nightclub would be happy to get their hands on" in regards to their excellent service - something that is stressed at the brewery.
Anaheim Brewery currently offer six beers; two that rotate and four regulars. One of the beers even directly acknowledges the brewery’s history. Their beer named 1888 is a “steam” beer (one that is brewed without refrigeration) and pays homage to a style originally brewed by Anaheim Brewery. “We don’t have any recipes from back in the day, but we know they made a steam beer, and we think that 1888 is fairly indicative of what that beer might have been like in the late 1800s in terms of color, and strength, and the hops that we used. It’s not an Anchor clone (Anchor Brewing company who has successfully made their steam beer since 1896)” says Greg. “They’ve evolved over time just like every other beer, so we really tried to reach back to the original without knowing exactly what the recipe was. It was kind of fun, and the style has done really well for us.” So well it’s won a medal in both the California State Fair and the LA County Fair. Their IPA joined the two medals with a gold at the LA County Fair. Recently, they’ve brewed a Kolsch to enter in the World Beer Cup this year. However you won’t find this award winning beer everywhere. Not even everywhere in Southern California.
“We’re definitely trying to stay focused on our own backyard.” The furthest you can purchase their beer, be it on draft or in six-packs is a single place in Los Angeles, otherwise the locations spread mostly among Orange and San Bernardino County. In total there's around 65 of these outlets, ranging from big (Anaheim Convention Center) to small (nearby liquor store). Having a small radius of accounts allows the Gerovacs to maintain self distribution. Every delivery they make is done so in person by the brewers themselves, allowing for the face-to-face trust to develop with their accounts so should that there be any issues, their buyers know who to call. "It’s about making it personal. We take the opportunity to meet the people who are buying our beer," said Gerovac.
According to occraftbeer.com, there are over 20 breweries currently active in Orange County, and that number is growing. This growth in breweries, and the growth of the culture itself, can be a double edged sword — with increase in breweries comes competition, but with growing culture the demand increases as well. In the end, Greg is not too concerned, "I don’t think that you can have too many breweries , I think we’re all good for each other. It’s just like saying “can you have too many restaurants in a downtown?” I don’t know, I don’t think so. As long as we’re all collectively making quality beer, we’re in good shape."
If there's one concern he does have, it's that one brewery may take up the resources, specifically the ingredients required to make the beer, and produce a substandard product that will turn off someone who may be trying craft beer for the first time. Thankfully, this doomsday scenario has not surfaced in Orange County according to Greg, which he acknowledges as a very great thing. And to the consumers, the existence of these OC breweries like Anaheim Brewery is a very great thing as well.