I flew out to Orange County last fall to attend a trade show and to call on accounts in the area. I got in a little early, got my rental car, and went to my hotel near the airport. Upon check in, I was told that my room wasn't ready just yet. It was about 2 p.m. and with my stomach still on Central time, I was feeling sort of hungry. I decided to head back out to the car and look up to see if there were any brewpubs in the area that served food. It turned out there were two or three in the immediate vicinity. I picked one - Green Cheek Brewing Company - and put in the address into my GPS. Less than 10 minutes later, I was pulling up to the brewpub.
The Green Cheek Beer Company story is one that is very familiar within the craft brewing community. It all started with a guy who loved to brew his own beers at home, but was horrible in doing so.
Evan Price loved to brew his own beer. But batch after batch was tossed when he determined it just wasn't very good. You'd think a guy with so many failures would just throw in the towel and find some other hobby, but the more batches of home brew that were tossed, the more determined Price became to make a good beer.
In 2006, Price was working as a server at the House of Blues in Anaheim when a dust up with a difficult and unreasonable customer caused Price to lose his job. He eventually got a job at a BJ's Brewhouse location, a burgeoning chain of brewpubs that started in Southern California in the late 70's as a pizza place and had established their first brewpub in Brea, CA in 1996.
While Price started out at BJ's Brewhouse as a server, he got to know the guys working back in the brewery. He was picking their brains about the brewing process and was eventually hired by one of the brewmasters to work in the brewery cleaning kegs. While Price worked in the brewery for two years, BJ's Brewhouse went through a series of corporate restructuring and Price worked under five different brewmasters during that time. While he wasn't fully involved in the brewing process, he learned different brewing techniques and beer style concepts.
In 2008, Price was hired to be a brewmaster at the brand new Hangar 24 brewery in Redlands, CA. (Look for an upcoming Road Tips entry on Hanger 24.) Working with owner/head brewmaster Ben Cook, Price helped develop beers for Hanger 24's first 18 months in business. The initial success and quick growth at Hangar 24 stressed Price out to the point that he had to quit and find something else to do.
Looking for something a little more low key, Price was hired on at TAPS Fish House & Brewery in Brea, CA. While at TAPS, Price worked next to brewmaster Victor Novak who was instrumental in Price's continuing on-the-job education. Novak was more of a beer "chef" than a brewer who used only top-notch ingredients, then would sometimes tweak the content of his beers during the brewing process. During his time at TAPS, Novak won 16 medals at the Great American Brewing Festival for his European-style beers. Price worked with Novak for two-and-a-half years at TAPS and the brewpub was named Southern California Brewpub of the Year two years running.
One day in 2012, the owners of the fledgling Noble Ale Works called Novak looking for recommendations of a brewmaster to take over as their original brewmaster had left unexpectedly. Novak immediately told them they should hire Price. Price jumped at the chance to take over the full operations of his own brewery, but when he got there, he found that Noble Ale Works was nearly broke. The company's Chief Financial Officer Brian Rauso agreed to allow Price to basically change everything the brewery was doing and started the process from scratch.
Pictured right - Evan Price and Brian Rauso. Photo courtesy The Full Pint - Craft Beer News.
Within 4 years, Rauso was the CEO of Noble Ale Works and Price was winning medals at the Great American Beer Festival. In 2016, Noble Ale Works was named the Craft Brewery of the Year at the G.A.B.F. The little brewery in Anaheim suddenly became a destination for beer aficionados across Southern California.
But differences with the investors in Noble Ale Works caused Rauso to bail on the place in late 2016. In 2017, Price saw the handwriting on the wall and decided to leave, as well. It couldn't have come at a more critical time in Price's life as his wife Aubrey had just given birth to twin baby boys. Rauso determined that starting their own brewery was a good career path and it turned out that a small brewery by the name of Valiant Brewing Company in Orange, CA was going out of business. Rauso and Price bid on the brewery and its equipment and their proposal was accepted.
In Southern California, there is a bird called the Green Cheek parrot. They're loud, but very social birds. Rauso and Evans thought the name would be apropos to the concept of their brewpub. After getting a small business loan from a local bank, Rauso and Price took over the brewery in April of 2017 and opened the doors in June of that year.
Less than a year later Green Cheek Beer Co. took home a silver medal at the 2018 World Beer Cup for a West Coast IPA, and later that year they took home two bronze medals at the Great American Beer Festival. They followed up their two medals from 2018 at the 2019 G.A.B.F. with a gold medal for a pale ale and a silver for the West Coast IPA.
In 2019, Green Cheek had an opportunity to bid at auction on a brewpub in Costa Mesa that had fallen on hard times. Rauso and Price bid on the brewery that came complete with its own kitchen and their winning bid was accepted in December of that year. A week later they took over the former Barley Forge brewpub and opened their second Green Cheek location in January of 2020 just before the pandemic. And in September of 2022, Green Cheek opened their 3rd location in Sunset Beach - a small town between Seal Beach and Huntington Beach - along the Pacific Coast Highway.
It was about a 10 minute drive from the hotel to Green Cheek Brewing Company which is situated in an industrial park just northwest of John Wayne Airport in an triangular area bordered by the 405, 73 and 55 freeways in Costa Mesa. (see map) It's actually situated off the street toward the back of the building at 2957 Randolph Ave. and I was a little confused as the entrance to the brewery is pretty nondescript with a small sign over the front door.
It is definitely an active brewery with the brewing operations in the back of the building. There were a number of workers in the brewery when I took a look in through the window just off to the side of the bar area. At Green Cheek's Costa Mesa location they have seven 30-barrel fermentation tanks and a single 30-barrel wooden foudre vessel for aging.
The main area when you walk in features the main bar with counter service for ordering both beer and food. It was a bright area with exposed rafters and ductwork. There was a sound system that featured music playing in the background by artists such as Black Keys, Blind Pilot, The Strokes, Fleet Foxes and Spoon. The food and beer menus were on the wall or available to download via a QR code. A cooler off to the side offered four and six packs of some of Green Cheek's featured beers for people to take home.
Out back was the beer garden featuring some nice picnic tables place on artificial turf with gold triangular sail canopies covering the beer garden. The fencing was made out of old pallets banded together that were painted a deep royal blue. I thought it was a pretty ingenious way of dealing with old pallets.
I brought my computer in with me to do some catching up on e-mails and orders that I had received while I was traveling to Southern California. I ended up sitting in a room between the main room and the outdoor patio that probably could be used for meetings, reception, parties, etc. The room had windows that looked into the main room was painted in the same light blue pastel color as the main pub room.
Before I sat down, I decided to grab a beer and I tried a couple - the 'Member IPA which was more of a West Coast IPA with Canadian hops, and the Spinning My Wheels New England Hazy IPA that I liked very much. I ended up getting a pint of that.
The food menu is pretty limited at Green Cheek - they have a chicken club sandwich, a double smashed flat-grilled burger, and a Buffalo chicken sandwich. Wings, fries, tots, and fresh-baked pretzels were available, as well. Vegan options such as plant-based burgers and a nacho plate featuring plant-based chorizo were also on the menu.
I ended up getting the double smash burger with a couple of slices of American cheese along with grilled onions on a potato bun. It was nestled in a paper wrapper on a small cookie sheet as a serving plate. Once I found out they had tots available, I signed up for a side order with tots. The condiment counter was near the bar and I loaded up on napkins as this was definitely going to be a multi-napkin burger.
And the burger was excellent. Juicy with great flavor and it had that slight smashed char around the perimeter of the burger patties. The cheese oozed off the burger with nearly every bite and the potato bun held up very well with the messy nature of the burger. The tots were a great compliment to the burger, even though they didn't offer Cholula hot sauce that I like to put on them. But there were way too many of them and I was only able to eat a few after finished up the burger.
For taking a chance on this place, Green Cheek Brewing Company turned out to be a great find. I was able to catch up on my work and enjoy a couple beers with my meal while I was waiting for my room to open back at the hotel. The double smash burger was simply outstanding and the tots that went with the burger were crispy on the outside with a nice feathery texture inside. And I can't say enough about the hazy IPA beer that I had. Even though it's sort of industrial and minimalist in decor, the beer garden was very nice. Green Cheek Brewing Company may be hard to find, but it was well worth the visit.
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