This week Geoff Harries, owner of Buffalo Bill’s Brewery in Hayward, CA, announced on social media that Buffalo Bill’s Brewery is permanently closed after 39 years in business.
Opened in 1983 by Bill Owens, an award-winning photographer and author, Buffalo Bill’s was arguably the first brewpub post-Prohibition (though technically the third after the now-shuttered Burt Grant’s in Yakima Valley, WA opened in 1982 and Mendocino Brewing Co. in Ukiah, CA opened in early 1983).
Owens famously created the first craft pumpkin beer, produced the bitterest beer in American, was an early adopter of Australian-grown hops, and co-created the annual Alpha King Challenge (which now has a very spiffy website I had not seen before).
In 1994 Owens sold the brewpub to Harries, Buffalo Bill’s head brewer, but retained the contract brewing rights until a lawsuit was found in Harries favor in 1997. Owens also published The American Brewer (started in 1986) and BeeR: The Magazine (started in 1993) out of his antique shop in Hayward before selling both publications in 2001 to Bill Metzger, the then owner of the Brewing News.
After he exited the brewing scene, Owens visited brewers and distillers across the U.S., taking photographs along the way that led to his current chapter in life as the founder of The American Distilling Institute and publisher of Distiller Magazine and the White Mule Press label (including my own book).
Cheers to Geoff and his team for keeping the legacy of Buffalo Bill’s Brewery alive and supporting the local Bay Area craft beer scene. And thank you to both Bill and Geoff for sharing so much ephemera and your oral histories with Theresa McCulla, the curator for the American Brewing History Initiative at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.. Here’s Theresa’ recent Twitter thread about Buffalo Bill’s Brewery.
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