Tri-Valley beer scene: Get to know the local breweries serving their craft from Livermore to Danville

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The Tri-Valley has earned recognition for its winemaking prowess. Local brewers are now expanding the area’s beverage profile by making thirst-quenching, award-winning beers. 

Two new Tri-Valley breweries opened in 2025, and at least one can be found in most communities.

As a growing hub for beer lovers, citywide beer crawls have sprung up. The Visit Tri-Valley digital Beer Trail launched several years ago. This weekend, the Livermore Valley Craft Beer Foundation will host its 10th annual Beer Festival at Las Positas College with 30 craft beer companies participating including seven of the 10 breweries in the Tri-Valley. 

Before Budweiser’s parent, Anheuser-Busch, adopted pasteurization and refrigerated railcars to broaden their beer distribution, breweries sold their products primarily in their local communities.

Overall large-scale beer production prospered while many small breweries closed. Since the 1980s, craft brewing has experienced a revival. Today there are over 9,500 independently owned American craft breweries that explore brewing innovations.

Current economic conditions and the decline in alcohol consumption have contributed to a recent dip in overall beer production in the U.S. Yet the Brewers Association reported that craft beer production in 2025 experienced a slight gain in market share over commercial, mass production breweries. 

Christine O’Connell, director of beer and hard beverages at Total Wine & More, the largest U.S. independent retailer of beer, wine and spirits, reflected on the evolving craft beer situation and Tri-Valley breweries. 

“When local breweries focus on quality, consistency and clear style differentiation, they continue to earn loyal followings and maintain relevance on our shelves,” O’Connell told the Pleasanton Weekly. “Our Tri-Valley assortment has remained fairly stable over the past few years, and we stock selections of these beers at various locations in California.”

The owner of the Tri-Valley’s largest brewery, Steve Sartori of Altamont Beer Works, does not see a major downturn at most Tri-Valley breweries. 

“People may drink more at home, but folks from 21 to 80 still come to our taproom for a beer and social connection,” he said. 

Many craft breweries weather the industry headwinds by opening taprooms or brewpubs. Both models pour beer made onsite or nearby — the difference lies in food services. Brewpubs have kitchens and food menus; taprooms sell packaged snacks and host food trucks. 

Kevin Hamilton, owner of Canyon Club Brewery in Danville, credits his Michelin-experienced chef as a strong contributor to the brewpub’s success.

“Providing a gathering place for friends and family and a variety of food and beverages at brewpubs is important to appeal to a wider array of guests. Serving good beer is no longer enough. You need great food options, good wine list, and non-alcoholic options,” Hamilton said.

From hip, downtown brewpubs like Danville Brewing Co. to Homegrown Hops and Beer’s taproom in a rural corner of Livermore and major player Altamont Beer Works’ taproom in Livermore, the Tri-Valley breweries offer community support and diverse tasting experiences.

The Tri-Valley is home to five brewpubs, four taprooms and one nanobrewery with no tasting space. Except for Altamont and Del Cielo, most breweries self-distribute all their beer to local restaurants and stores. Fieldwork at City Center Bishop Ranch in San Ramon does not have a brewing facility and serves Fieldwork Brewing beer made in Berkeley.

Livermore brews

Altamont Beer Works

Sayre Piotrkowski, executive director of the Bay Area Brewers Guild, remembers watching Sartori deliver beer in his pickup truck. “Altamont is the foundational beer operation in Livermore and is now classified as a regional craft brewery,” added Piotrkowski. 

One of only 275 regional craft breweries in the U.S., Altamont produces 116,000 cans a month of Maui Waui (pronounced mowee wowee). Distributors sell Altamont beer in Idaho and 85% of California. Sartori also collaborates with California craft breweries such as Firestone Walker.

Launched soon after his taproom opened in 2014, Sartori’s Maui Waui has ridden the wave of popularity for West Coast IPA (India Pale Ale). The beer attracted drinkers seeking an IPA with more fruit-forward flavor and softer bitterness. 

Among the 30 taps, Hella Hoppy Double IPA, Beach Snack Rice Lager and Waui Water, low-alcohol hard seltzers with fruit flavors, are regular calls. For non-beer drinkers, Sartori recently released alcohol-free Maui Waui N/A. During San Francisco Beer Week, an annual festival featuring over 300 beer activities in the Bay Area, Sartori releases an annual, limited production Scarcity Triple IPA.

Sartori awaits final approval and the testing phase for a new, 42,000-square-foot production facility in Livermore and has no short-term plans for another taproom or a brewpub.

Del Cielo Brewing

The newest Livermore brewery, Del Cielo Brewing, has followed the hospitality model to grow their business. 

Co-owners Luis Castro and Cielomar Cuevas opened a brewpub in Martinez in 2018. As demand for their beer grew, they took over the former Shadow Puppet Brewing taproom space, hired their brewer, installed a kitchen, and opened the brewpub in Livermore last October.

Former Shadow Puppet fans appreciate the food options at Del Cielo. Signature dishes include empanadas, traditional criollo bowls and tacos. Events range from Tuesday Trivia to Saturday Night Music and Love on Tap speed dating.

“Instead of chasing  trends, we lean into highly drinkable, flavor-forward beers, especially Mexican-style lagers and brews with Latin-inspired flavors, which are tied to culture, food, and community,” Castro said. 

Unlike Altamont and other breweries, Del Cielo participates in competitions. In April, Del Cielo received a silver medal at the Best of Craft Beer competition in Oregon for NÓrale alcohol-free beer. The beer reflects the “no alcohol” version of their popular Órale (wow) Mexican Lager. Hoptinez West Coast IPA and Guava Dreams Kettle Sour are also top beers.

Castro is most proud of the annual release of Patria, a national beer collaboration with Hispanic owned breweries in several states during Hispanic Heritage Month. Brewers produce a Patria (homeland) Hazy IPA with a portion of the proceeds donated to a local nonprofit supporting Latino communities.

Homegrown Hops and Beer

Livermore native Joel Dahlheim owns Homegrown Hops and Beer. Aware that Pleasanton was a major West Coast hops producer from the 1880s until the early 1900s, Dahlheim bought a 3-acre property and built a hop farm where he and his fiancée Mary Holguin live. 

Hops are a key ingredient for most beers. Dahlheim harvests five varieties of hops and buys a few others.

“We like the idea of bringing California hops back to the area. It’s good to promote agriculture in Livermore while providing a place for people to enjoy the outdoors and the area’s beauty and to sip beer,” Holguin said.

Cowboy music plays in the background as guests belly up to the outdoor bar, relax at picnic benches or play corn hole on the wide lawn near some recently replanted hops.

Inside the barn-like building is a small taproom that opened in 2022. Blonde Bronco, Six Shooter IPA and Hopalong Hazy IPA are top sellers. Homegrown Hops makes sour beers that use different yeasts and methods that create sour flavors. The Country Pie Sour is made with fermented raspberries. 

Private party space at the back features a Homegrown Hops reimagined trolley for their beer tastings.

Headyworks

Headyworks Brewing is the handiwork of Justin Stevens. After honing his beermaking skills at a Fremont brewery and Homegrown Hops, Stevens founded Headyworks in 2024. A year later, the taproom opened with the beer produced at a Tri-Valley brewery. 

Headyworks has a cadre of regulars that keep the good times hopping at the bar and on the patio with rotating food trucks, DJs and live music.

Stevens is known for his creative beer labels and innovative hazy IPAs and sours. Unicorn Milk is an uncharacteristic hazy IPA due to its light color and creamy flavor. Most hazy beers have flaked oats added to the base ingredients to impart a creamier mouthfeel; Stevens doubles the amount of oats.

Another unique beer is Staycation with dry hops added to the fermenting beer in stages, which results in a “journey of flavors”, as one patron described it. Stevens adds several juices to his Jungle Juice’d sour. During SF Beer week, he held a tasting with two diverse IPA styles.

Rivers End Brewing

Owner and Livermore native Brandon Jefferis named his brewery Rivers End after a Delta marina that he knows well. The taproom is located at the end of a narrow lane next to the South Vasco Road wine corridor and Almost Famous Wine Lounge. 

Jefferis learned brewing at an early age. According to beertender Morgan Dillard, Jefferis’ favorite beer is one of the first he produced, Old River Amber Ale, which is also a guest favorite along with Rivers Light Pilsner and Recovery Juice Blackberry Sour. 

Patio tables line the entrance area. Behind the rolled up garage door, the small taproom lists six beers. 

Derick Cash of Livermore regularly stops by after work to see his friends, saying, “I relax in the ‘Cheers’ atmosphere and order the refreshing Remote Islander American IPA.”

Under Del Cielo’s leadership, the five Livermore breweries launched a “Taps of the Valley” program where guests get their passes stamped at each brewery for a monthly $25 drawing.

Danville brews

Danville Brewing

Celebrating their 10th anniversary, Danville Brewing Co. is located on Railroad Avenue near many neighboring eateries. The brewpub’s food program is boosted by co-owner Randy Negi, an experienced restaurateur and former managing partner of famed Bridges. 

Guests crave the house made pretzels with a better-than-usual cheese sauce and the new DBC Grilled Cheese Smashburger with secret sauce. The family and dog-friendly brewpub has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sidewalk patio spaces. 

“As a brewery, we separate ourselves by how much we sweat the small stuff. Aspects like water chemistry, fermentation control and ingredient selection is at the core of what we do. We want to make beers that are balanced and worth ordering another pint,” brewer Matt Sagers said.

In April, Sagers won a gold medal at the 30th annual World Beer Cup in Philadelphia for his American-style Strong Pale Ale. The 2026 competition had 8,166 entries from craft breweries in over 50 countries. Sagers’ beer, In Tasty We Trust, honors the legacy of Mike “Tasty” McDole, the highly regarded Concord homebrewer, educator and mentor for many East Bay brewers.

Sagers took a gold medal at the 2024 World Cup for his most popular beer, 925 Blonde Ale.

Another continually brewed beer is Danville IPA. Sagers will soon release Lagerade, a light lager that he calls a “lawnmower beer”. After canceling plans to add another location in Pleasanton, co-owner Marcus Maita confirmed in April that Danville Brewing is not looking to expand at this time.  

Canyon Club Brewery

Opened last year, Canyon Club Brewery is another Tri-Valley newbie. But the brewery was founded in Moraga in 2019 by Kevin Hamilton who has business and hospitality experience. Set among the trees and wood-fronted buildings in the Danville Livery, the second brewpub presents a garden vibe with a wraparound patio and inside, planters hang from the ceiling. 

Though the Moraga brewery produces most of their beers, Danville is home to three barrels (tanks) that Hamilton calls the “test kitchen”. Here his brewer, Christian Kazakoff, creates and tests new and seasonal beers for both locations.

“I look at brewers, and certainly Christian, as artists, so I stay out of the brewing process. He brews like a chef, taking no shortcuts, using the freshest ingredients, and finding inspiration from his brewing experience and travels,” Hamilton said.

Canyon Club produces a broad array of beers including Hamilton’s personal favorites, pilsners and English ales. The brewery’s most widely known beer, Cold is a Flavor, is a light, low-alcohol lager. Other well-regarded beers include Burning Ram Kölsch and Beta Tested Czech Pilsner that won first place in state craft beer competitions. Ciders rotate from apple to guava and plum.

The brewpub also features a well-curated cocktail and wine list. 

Overseen by chef Manlee Siu, the menu features dishes such as fish ‘n’ chips, Wagyu chili and a Brewery Platter with candied bacon, bratwurst, pretzels, and German-style potato pancakes.

San Ramon brews

Canyon Lakes Golf Course and Brewery

Beyond playing golf, guests at Canyon Lakes Golf Course can grab a beer, order from the full bar or the all-day menu. 

Shaunt Keuftedjian of Castro Valley regularly enjoys most options available at Canyon Lakes. After a recent round of golf, he ordered dinner and a Fairway Gold Cream Ale. “The cream ale was smooth and not bitter. It paired well with the Green Jack burger with crispy onions,” said Keuftedjian.

In 2017, Don Naumann, owner of a golf-related business, purchased the Canyon Lakes public golf course that opened 30 years earlier. He hired a chef and experienced brewer David Scott to develop the brewery. (The brewery is not associated with Canyon Club Brewery.)

The beers have golf adjacent names such as Green Jacket West Coast IPA and Players Premium Lager. Scott won an award at the 2025 Great American Craft Beer Festival for O.B. (out of bounds) Brown Ale. During SF Beer Week, Scott released Gunga Galunga Double IPA, riffing off a golf scene in “Caddyshack”.

The brewery possesses an unusual marketing channel — a beverage cart that circles the course selling Canyon Lakes cold beers from a cooler. Self-distributed locally, the beer is available at a few golf courses.

Overlooking the golf course, the patio is a favored spot to order drinks and food such as  zucchini fritters, pretzel sticks, a Fit Par Three healthy platter, or coconut curry. 

Dublin brews

INC 82

John and Jenny Samples yearned for a local place to hang out with good beer and food. In 2017, the residents of San Ramon launched their own brewpub, INC 82, in Dublin. The name honors 1982, the year Dublin finally incorporated as a city, 150 years after its founding.

Honoring Dublin’s heritage, the brewpub features prints of historic Dublin landmarks in the dining room. McCarney’s Irish Dry Stout is on tap, and the food menu — featuring poke nachos, the Dublin and INC 82 burgers and more — has a green hat in the background.

The seven INC 82 beers are crafted onsite by Headyworks brewer Stevens. SPF 50 Blonde Ale is their leading beer with runners up Hella Juice Hazy IPA and No Tan Lines West Coast IPA.

The beers are sold only at the brewpub. The recently renovated INC 82 patio is a major draw with a covered pergola and a green turf area for family games.

Pleasanton brews

Mount Diablo Brewing

Dave O’Neill grew up by the Mount Diablo foothills and lives in Pleasanton. After homebrewing for years, he launched the brewery in 2014 with a name that seemed appropriate. Before label approval, he discovered another Mount Diablo Brewery in Clayton that had served beer to thirsty workers from the Black Diamond Mines in the late 1880s.

A nanobrewery like Mount Diablo has a sole proprietor who makes small, periodic batches of beer. O’Neill did not brew in 2025 due to travel demands from his day job. He recently started brewing again in his rented space in Pleasanton. 

Though he does not hold tastings, he will pour Diablo Blonde Ale at the Livermore Valley Beer Festival this Saturday (May 9). By June, O’Neill expects cans of Diablo Blonde and Live Oak West Coast IPA to arrive on shelves at Gene’s Fine Foods and liquor stores soon. He plans to add barrels, make more beer and longer term, open a Pleasanton taproom.

O’Connell of Total Wine & More offered perspective on Tri-Valley beer, saying, “Breweries like Del Cielo and Altamont play an important role in representing Tri Valley’s local beer scene.

Overall, Tri-Valley breweries remain a valued part of our local assortment strategy, and we appreciate the role they play in offering customers a sense of place and community through beer.”

Beer festivals coming up

The Tri-Valley has two upcoming festivals where beer lovers can lift a pint and meet new breweries while non-drinkers can listen to live music and enjoy the food and games.

On Saturday (May 9), the Livermore Valley Craft Beer Foundation will hold its 10th annual Beer Festival at the Las Positas College Athletic Field. 

Over 30 breweries will pour, including seven Tri-Valley Breweries: Altamont, Canyon Lakes Brewery, Danville Brewing, Del Cielo, Headyworks, Homegrown Hops and Beer, and Mount Diablo Brewing. For the first time, four Tri-Valley wineries will participate.

There will be nine food vendors and four live bands. As the nonprofit fundraising arm of Livermore Valley craft breweries, the foundation holds multiple craft beer related events that generate visibility and donations for community organizations. Since 2022, the festival has supported the Las Positas College Fire Service Technology program.

Then on Sept. 12, the second annual Beer City Bishop Ranch will be held in San Ramon. Beer City festivals started in 2022 and rotate among several states. This year’s Bishop Ranch festival features the signature Beer City Half (marathon), 10K, 5K, and 1-mile Beer Stroll. 

During the day, the Beer Trolley stops at three Tri-Valley breweries: Fieldwork Bishop Ranch, Danville Brewing and Canyon Club Brewing. The Post-race Shindig with beer, food, and music is held at Fieldwork. Donations will benefit Love and Second Chances, a dog foster rescue organization in Danville.

Livermore brewers collaborate on Livermoron beer 

In 1875, German-born Wendell Jordan purchased the Livermore Brewery on First Street between J and K. According to an article by Livermore historian Larry Mauch, the brewery was popular with the many downtown saloons. 

In 1901 Jordan fell into a vat of boiling malt and died. Rumors swirled that Jordan committed suicide. The legend of Jordan lives on. 

When the Livermore Valley Craft Beer Foundation decided to collaborate on a beer to release annually as an activity connected with SF Beer Week, they named the beer Livermoron with an image of the historic Livermore brewer on the can. 

Brewed at Altamont, Livermoron was released this year during a beer crawl at three downtown Livermore bars and taprooms and sold out. Donations and a portion of the proceeds benefited Open Heart Kitchen, a nonprofit that provides nutritious meals to the community and seniors along with outreach and shelter for the unhoused.

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