San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood looked a bit different in 2013, when Cellarmaker Brewing Company opened here, on Howard Street. Tech companies were moving in, and the city’s new young and affluent workers moved into a part of San Francisco plagued by homelessness and drug use.
It might have seemed difficult place to open a brewery, let alone any public-facing business, but Cellarmaker broke out, quickly gaining recognition as one of the city’s best breweries. In their five years in business, they made fast friends out of breweries like the Rare Barrel, Tired Hands, and Green Cheek, and boosted the city’s reputation as a world-class brewing destination.
These days, its small taproom is bustling seemingly every night of the week, attracting IPA fanatics, devotees of their ever-rotating tap list lineup, and those who just appreciate the bartenders’ affinity for music by Dolly Parton and Carly Rae Jepsen. Now, with a barrel program in full force, they’re expanding their menu even wider.
Fans irked by crowds at their taproom had long hoped that Cellarmaker would expand with a second location and in 2018, that wish came true. In the late summer, co-founder Connor Casey finally announced that the brewery had found an additional home in Bernal Heights, complete with an oven ready to pump out fluffy Detroit-style pizzas to complement their beers.
It’s here in that space that I met Casey, co-founding brewer Tim Sciascia and Cellarmaker’s House of Pizza brew system manager Aaron Wittman as they taste tested some new pizza recipes being considered for the brewpub’s new menu. The new spot’s opening is just around the corner, and they clearly couldn’t be more excited.
This is Connor Casey, Tim Sciascia, and Aaron Wittman of Cellarmaker Brewing Company. Listen in.