Three years in the making, Brewery X is finally open. Well, it’s technically a soft open until Labor Day, but the beers that are flowing aren’t your typical first-time brews. Rather, they seem as if they were made by a well-established brewer out of a system that’s dialed into its 1,000th batch.
That may be because the brewer is Trevor Walls, who has spent time at the Bruery and Pizza Port San Clemente, as well as earned a master brewer degree through the Siebel Institute in Chicago and the Doemens Academy in Munich. His team—composed of Steven Hicks (from Karl Strauss), Jon “Jon” Siemens (Noble, Monkish and Le Cordon Bleu) and Kyle Giannuzzi (head cellarman at the Bruery)—are like the Apollo 11 crew, ready for lift-off.
“The team we put together here is pretty special,” notes Walls as he pulls a Kolsch-style ale made with American hops for evaluation. “These guys don’t need to be asked to do anything; they pretty much show up with great ideas and run the brewhouse how I would.”
The tasting room is currently in phase one: The back-right side of the building leads into a smaller taproom, and the outdoor seating area overlooks a man-made waterway. Phase two, planned for next year, includes a full restaurant and a complete overhaul of the building’s exterior.
The beers on tap include a nicely balanced West Coast IPA, a solid crispy boi pilsner and an even-keeled red, with a handful coming online every week. The group is even putting together hard seltzers with mango, huckleberry and more for the gluten-free fam.
Brewery X, 3191 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim, (657) 999-1500; brewery-x.com.
Greg Nagel has been writing about beer since 2011, is an avid homebrewer of wine, cider, and beer, is a certified Cicerone Beer Server, level 1 WSET in Wine, a podcaster with the Four Brewers Show, and runs a yearly beer festival called Firkfest happening on June 29th in Anaheim!
The back patio is awesome! The beer is on point and the staff is super welcoming.