Hermitage Brewing Company

Dropped by during Covid summer to pick up bottles, but didn’t give a review. Now in late October, they finally have the taproom open, but only full pours, no tasters. A little pricey, $10, for sour rating, but the beers are very good. Other beers are $7-8/a pint. No food truck today. Good place to visit.

Beer here is very good. Around 20 taps when I was there, all their own stuff. They're known for sours and it's a well-earned reputation as the sours are excellent. Non-sours were also quite good but sours are where it's at for these guys. Place itself is behind a giant weed store and a little tough to find. Worth a stop but budget some extra time to find the place.

Bought a bomber of their Hermitage Ryetopia. It was a horrible, infected mess. Reached out to the brewery, who stated that it being a few years old had made it infected, but they'd comp me a sour porter, if I were ever in California. Terrible.

Visited in the end of May, 2016. Big industrial space, which I had trouble finding initially, but that may be more a google map display thing than anything else. Coming from 7th it’s much easier to spot I guess. Large open feel with the big garage door open, and a nice breeze on a hot day in the 90s on the last Saturday in May. Taco truck parked outside, and some outside seating as well. 16 beers on tap plus a cask, and work being done in the brewery itself, so this is definitely a place looking to move a big volume of liquid. Seating still available, around high tops or barrels, but there was a good crowd going, to the point that there was often a few people on line for pours or fills even with three bartenders. Flights available which is nice with so many beers on. 10.88 with tax for 4, which is higher than some, but I’ve certainly paid more so I’m not going to complain about that. Barrels hanging out on the side, quite a few, probably in the 130+ range off a quick count. Didn’t realize until reading while here, that a ton of stuff is contracted here, including Almanac and some other prominent ones. Interesting. According to one of the bartenders about 80% of the beer made in house is contracted for other breweries. If you can find it, it’s worth a visit.

Price update on a late August 2017 visit. Flights are still $10 for 4, but now (or maybe always?) barrel aged or sour things add $3 each to the flight. So a flight of 4 sours runs $22, which seems crazy. However, their regular pour price is $13 for a 13 ounce, so I guess it’s kind of in line. But it’s still ridiculously high. Still worth a visit, but I dinged it a touch on pricing.

Must visit place for beer lovers.

Well, this is quite the location. You have to keep an eye out from the road as you will need to go through a chain link fence gate and navigate through the heavy truck traffic all the way to the rear of the complex to where the brewery is. Also, but aware of the biggest fucken speed bumps I’ve ever seen. If you drive a car that is low to the ground, you may do some damage.

Brewery/tasting room are a pretty typical warehouse space. But it definitely feels more industrial than usual. They have a lot of beers on, at least a dozen. I think everything on tap was Hermitage branded stuff, but these guys are one of the biggest players in the contract brewing game, so maybe other stuff shows up here? They had some random cases of heavily discounted bottles available, too.

I ordered two flights and I was pretty let down by most of the beers. The IPAs were particularly poor. The Boysenberry sour was surprisingly good, though. The flights are normally cheap, but if you include the "specialty beers", then add on another $4-5 a pop, it seems.

Kind of a neat place and lots of stuff to try. Unfortunately the house beers are just not worth drinking for the most part.

Visited October 11, 2014.

This is a large building in the back of an industrial complex, and I do mean industrial complex. It’s a bit confusing since the front of the building has signs all over it that say no parking and that you’ll be towed. Then there is this little sandwich board that mentions a brewery tasting room. Drive through to the back and find a place to park among the semis. They have a very large barrel warehouse next door to the tasting room.

During my visit they had 8 beers on tap; 4 seasonals and 4 hoppy beers. They are still doing their single hop IPA series and they had 3 on tap at the time along with the regular IPA that you can get at Bevmo. The tasters are rather large, maybe 6 oz. The Citra IPA was probably my favorite of the bunch. I didn’t care for the imperial pumpkin ale personally.

Fun fact: Hermitage was started by Tied House. I assumed that Tied House just stopped brewing and started letting Hermitage make it but as it turns out the people at Tied House wanted to expand so they build Hermitage. Now Hermitage contracts a LOT of beers. Apparently they also contract the Coastal Fog beer, which is only found at Bevmo.

Super awesome. Tasting room is part and parcel with the brewery, which is always a cool feel. They contract brew for a ton of Bay Area breweries, and for their line of beers they specialize in single hop beers and kick it. Go!

Not so easy to find, but worth a stop. 8 taps running, most devoted to Hermitage, but one or two will be Tied House beers. Taster flights of everything were like six bucks. Growler fills cool, outside growlers cool. Small fridge with maybe 8 bottles for off sale. Fairly spartan accommodations - basically a few tables and barrels with chairs around them. A couple set up outside as well. Small bar. Interesting artwork on the walls. Easy viewing of the barrel room, which is full of stuff from places like Almanac and Cali Craft, who contract brew here. Staff very friendly and reasonably knowledgeable about the product. Basically a great place, if only the beers were better than mediocre.