Side Gate Brewery Wants To Pour Good Company Into Concord

CONCORD, CA — Five years after opening during one of the most challenging times in recent years, Side Gate Brewery & Beer Garden has carved out a place in Concord's craft beer scene — and now the owners want something more.

Making a business plan come true is never easy, but owners Kevin Wilson and Paul Culbertson opened Side Gate in September 2021.

Both home brewers with a business plan, Wilson said they envisioned more than a brewery. They wanted a place where neighbors would feel comfortable enough to "come through the side gate," a phrase that became both the brewery's name and its guiding philosophy.

"Our business motto is 'Friends Don't Knock,'" Wilson said during a recent interview with Patch. "We want to be a place for everybody to come out. We want you to feel like you're part of the community when you're here."

The motto and the name of the brewery both trace back to Wilson's childhood in Moraga.

Wilson said his father was a home brewer when the hobby was still uncommon. Friends and neighbors eager to watch the brewing process were told not to knock on the front door, but to come through the side gate instead.

Wilson said he and tried to use the same approach at the brewery, to make it more than a place that sells beer.

The Grant Street brewery hosts weddings, first dates, private parties, Chamber of Commerce events, nonprofit fundraisers, government meetings, trivia nights, and family gatherings. The business welcomes children, dogs, and customers looking for alcohol-free beverages alongside its rotating selection of craft beer.

"We've hosted weddings here before," Wilson said. "People have been on first dates here and gotten married after. We want to be the place where people feel comfortable."

Investing in community

The brewery also hopes to fill a role Wilson said he believes Concord needs.

With more than 100,000 residents, Concord lacks the kind of concentrated commercial districts found in neighboring cities such as Walnut Creek.

Outside Todos Santos Plaza and shopping centers like The Veranda, the city has relatively few places that naturally draw people together.

On the flip side, the brewery can produce all of its beer on-site under Concord's permitting system, which allows manufacturing and retail operations at the same location.

Manufacturing and retail together is something that would not have been possible in Walnut Creek or Lamorinda, Wilson said.

But, he said, many locally owned businesses closed in Concord during and after the pandemic, while larger national chains were better positioned to weather losses and take their place.

Businesses like Side Gate have become increasingly rare because they are built and operated by local entrepreneurs who continue investing in their community despite the challenges of owning a small business.

"We're hoping to be an anchor business to create more of that hub and bring these more unique small businesses back into Concord," Wilson said.

And the beer...

Side Gate welcomes children and pets and non-beer drinkers.

As for the beer, the menu changes seasonally. Mexican lagers and pilsners dominate the warmer months, while the brewery's "Dad's Christmas Ale," a porter brewed with cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and orange peel, becomes a seasonal favorite in winter.

Despite offering a broad range of styles, India pale ales remain the brewery's biggest seller, accounting for more than half of all beer sales, Wilson said.

Side Gate accompanies the beer with a rotating lineup of food trucks. Regular partners include 2 Los Tacos on Tuesdays and La Kura during trivia nights, alongside rotating vendors serving everything from pupusas to Philly cheesesteaks.

While brewing remains a water- and energy-intensive industry, Side Gate is trying to reduce waste by reusing cooling water and repurposing spent grain as livestock feed.

Wilson said thousands of pounds of spent grain produced during brewing are collected each week by a Martinez farmer, who uses the grain as livestock feed instead of sending it to a landfill.

The brewery also captures and reuses water from its cooling process. Producing a typical 350-gallon batch of beer requires roughly 1,000 gallons of water, according to Wilson. Instead of discharging the cooling water into the wastewater system, Side Gate pumps it into a holding tank for reuse in the next batch.

For Wilson, however, the biggest surprise over the past five years has not been the technical side of brewing.

"I would say it would be how rewarding it is to make something that makes people happy," he said. "It's a different feeling when you're making something people are purchasing, coming back for, and getting excited about."

Next on the calendar is Side Gate's 5-year anniversary celebration at the brewery, 1822 Grant St. in Concord.