Oakdale becomes craft beer central as new brewery-taproom opens in old movie theater
Oakdale prides itself on being the “Cowboy Capital of the World,” but it might consider a rebrand to the craft brew capital of the Central Valley.
The small Stanislaus County city welcomed its third artisan beer making business this month, Grains of Virtue Brewing Company. The locally run brewery-taproom was started by two friends who began as home brewers. Now their company has taken over the old Oakdale movie theater in the Cost Less shopping center.
After nearly a year of work, the former two-screen cinema space reopened earlier this month as an airy and arty brewery with plenty of indoor and outdoor space.
Friends Kris Panelle, 34, and Matt McCracken, 28, met while working at the Red Bull Distribution Company in Livermore about eight years ago. Two years into their friendship they began home brewing beer together. Their love for brewing grew until one day Panelle called McCracken up and McCracken said his friend offered him a proposition: “Hey, bro, I just bought a brewhouse and spent $25 grand. I’m opening a brewery. Are you in or out?”
McCracken was decidedly in, and the men began perfecting what Panelle likes to call “art in a glass.” Granted, it took two years of the brewhouse sitting in his garage for that dream to become a reality.
First they had to find a space. The Oakdale Cinema off of North Yosemite Avenue has been closed for almost eight years. The theater first opened in 1979 and entertained Oakdale residents for two decades until it closed in 1999. It had two reopenings since, a short-lived one in the mid-2000s and then another in 2007 that lasted until its final closure in 2013.
Last December, Panelle and McCracken took over the building and began working on the more than 5,000-square-foot space. They also brought in head brewer Cory Onken, 27, though all three men handle brewing in their seven-barrel system. That gives them the same brewing capacity as Modesto’s Contentment Brewing, Ceres’ Blaker Brewing and Oakdale neighbor Dying Breed Brewing.
Along with Dying Breed, which opened in late May, Oakdale is home to Last Call Brewing which first debuted in the summer of 2015. But the Grains of Virtue business partners said having so many breweries in one town shouldn’t be an issue, since they all offer different kinds of beer and different styles of brewpubs.
And while the city doesn’t have as many craft breweries as Modesto — which is home to five, though two are nano breweries — Oakdale is 10 times smaller than its much larger neighbor. So the battle for beer supremacy in the county is still alive.
Beers brewed heavy on the hops and flavors
As self-professed hop-heads, Grains of Virtue’s beer is very hop heavy. But if you think that means their beers are all bitter all the time, you’d be wrong. Instead, they use a variety of techniques to tease different flavors from the hops and other ingredients. The current menu of 10 brews includes an India Pale Lager (think a very light summer IPA), the SAA Bro (a popular unfiltered hazy IPA with citrus and coconut notes), The Big Lebudski (a double IPA with their highest ABC so far at 8.66%).
Also not to be missed is their hard seltzer called PootieTang, named after the 2001 blaxploitation comedy and the drink astronauts famously brought to space. It uses Tang, the powdered orange drink, as its flavoring resulting in a light brew that tastes a bit like a lager mimosa. For the teetotalers or the young ‘uns, they also make their own craft root beer served on tap.
Pints, which range from 13 to 17 oz, run $7 each. A tasting flight of six is offered for $18. And you can take home their in-house canned 32-oz growlers for $15 to $16.
“Our brewing style is pretty clean palate when you think about the grain. We let the yeast and the hops shine through the beer,” Onken said. “We don’t want to over-complicate the flavors ... but get as much tropical, juicy citrus flavors into a glass as possible.”
But the beer is only part of the experience at Grains of Virtue. In keeping with their funky, fun beer-as-art brewing philosophy, they’ve transformed the former theater into a cool, colorful zone. They commissioned five local graffiti artists to create beer-themed murals. The wall-sized paintings include everything from a skull tap motif and an astronaut grabbing a pint and much more. Their walk-in freezer which cools the kegs for draft is a converted shipping container painted lime green.
“Everything we make is craft and art, so we wanted to replicate that in our space and just bring something a little different and fun,” Panelle said.
More brews, more games to come to Oakdale spot
As with all breweries, bars and wineries, they must serve food to be open with COVID-19 safety restrictions in place. So they offer food from various food trucks and catering companies each day they’re open. They’ve had local taco trucks, pizza makers and more stop by so far.
With Stanislaus County in the red tier, they’re allowed to have 25% capacity inside; their full indoor capacity is about 170. But fear not there is plenty of outdoor space as well. They have temporary tents in front of the brewery, a side patio and a large and charming back patio with lights and sunshades. The brewery also offer entirely touchless ordering for these coronavirus times. Scan a QR placed on each table and you can pick your drinks online and have them delivered to you.
Once precautions are loosened more, they plan to open the back game room which has shuffleboard, skee ball, darts and more than half a dozen vintage stand-up video arcade games that customers will be able to play for free.
The men also plan to eventually have about 18 brews on tap, which will rotate frequently and seasonally. So, if you come back a month later, expect the menu board to look different and your options to be wide open.
As for the city’s motto, word on the street is cowboys also like to drink beer. So bottoms up, Oakdale.
Grains of Virtue, at 832 N Yosemite Ave. in Oakdale, is open from 4 to 10 p.m. Thursday and Friday, noon to 10 p.m. Saturday and noon to 8 p.m. Sunday. For more information call 209-247-4446 or visit www.instagram.com/grainsofvirtue.
