Where the beer flows: How four very different breweries built a success story in Auburn

Shaun and Jessika Rutledge sat down around noon at Auburn Alehouse for some lunch on a recent Tuesday. The old Placer County courthouse, perched on the hill just above the historic Auburn downtown, is visible from the front door of the brewery.

But it’s a different kind of history Shaun Rutledge wants to point out to a visitor.

See those holes in the tin ceiling of the alehouse? They’re bullet holes. Things got out of hand back in the days when the brewery was a saloon. With exposed brick and a colorful past, the Auburn Alehouse offers more than a glimpse at history.

Since the brewery opened in 2007, the city of Auburn has become the hub of the Sacramento beer industry. Auburn is home to some of the area’s largest breweries: Knee Deep, Crooked Lane, Moonraker and Auburn Alehouse. They are some of the most diverse, oldest and top-rated hop shops in the Sacramento area.

Ask the brewers about what makes the Auburn area such a mecca and you’ll get a variety of answers. It might be the town’s water or a welcoming city government. Shaun and Jessika Rutledge aren’t terribly interested in all that. They come to Auburn Alehouse once every couple of weeks because they like it.

“I’ve always loved the vibe here, the environment,” Jessika Rutledge said. “Everyone’s super friendly all the time. And of course the beer is amazing. And the food’s always great. I think they have a really good variety of food and always good beer. So I think it’s just the whole package.”

Auburn becomes a beer community

Auburn Alehouse owners Brian and Lisa Ford quickly developed a devoted group of followers after opening in 2007. Auburn has always been a popular spot for Sacramento-area outdoors activities, with hiking and mountain biking in the state recreation area just outside of downtown.

Plus, if you’re on your way to Lake Tahoe, you might want to pull off Interstate 80 in Auburn for a meal. The brewery is just a couple hundred yards off the interstate, making it too convenient to pass up.

“I would say we have a stronger than usual percentage of travelers than maybe some of the other breweries that aren’t as close,” Brain Ford said. “It’s a stopping point for travelers from the Bay Area, get off the freeway, stretch your legs, maybe grab a beer in the old town, do a little shopping. It’s a natural stopping point.”

Proximity to Interstate 80 surely plays some role in success for all four Auburn breweries. Knee Deep has a billboard that invites travelers to jump off the highway; Auburn Alehouse does, too. All the brewers say they can be wildly busy from Thursday afternoon through Sunday night.

Part of the brewers’ success has to do with the Auburn community. Auburn had a population of 13,776 people in the 2020 Census. That’s not nearly enough drinkers to support the city’s four breweries, which cumulatively produced more than half a million gallons of beer in 2021.

But there’s definitely a sense of community support that helps brewers stay afloat.

“People in Auburn are willing to support the locals,” Lisa Ford said. “ … It speaks to their sense of adventure, trying new types of beer, new types of wine. During the pandemic, I feel like the community really rallied behind the breweries. It was a very difficult time but they really came out to support the family-owned restaurants and breweries.”

And it’s worth noting: These aren’t just any local breweries. They each fill a sought-after niche in the Sacramento beer scene.

From IPAs to stouts: Variety is key

Moonraker burst onto the beer scene in 2016. Fueled by drinkers’ thirst for Moonraker’s hazy IPAs, the brewery quickly grew to one of the largest in the Sacramento area.

Not bad for a brewery that basically started in the backyard of Knee Deep, a noted hop house that focuses on West Coast IPAs. While that might sound like a battle royale for drinkers’ dollars, the two breweries have very different styles.

Knee Deep prides itself on making traditional, piney West Coast IPAs; Moonraker’s hazies are a newer style, considered fruitier and less bitter than a West Coast IPA. So while the breweries are within stumbling distance of each other out by the Auburn municipal airport, they’re not competing so much as attracting different palates.

“Since we opened across from Knee Deep, we didn’t want to copy anything they were doing,” Moonraker co-owner Karen Powell said. “You can’t be successful off somebody else’s success. We’re going to create a great product and be true to ourselves and who we are.”

That recipe includes motor oil-thick stouts that rate among the best in the area. Moonraker also makes fruited sours that fare well with critics. Moonraker is one of the highest rated among the 90-plus breweries in the Sacramento area on Untappd, the beer rating site popular among drinkers.

And to get to Knee Deep and Moonraker, drivers usually pass within a quarter mile of Crooked Lane and Auburn Alehouse. Why go to two when you could stop at four?

Certified beer judge Melissa McCann has made that drive a few times. As the director of the Women’s International Beer Summit, an online event April 23 and 24, it’s McCann’s job to be plugged into the brewing industry. The Auburn breweries are successful because they are all doing very different things, McCann said.

“I think it’s better if it’s a different experience wherever you go, because that makes it convenient and nice for people out there,” she said. “The diversity is huge. That’s really appealing to people. They get a lot of beer styles in one area.”

Brewers create distinctive offerings

Nobody has more distinctive offerings than Crooked Lane. Even the brewery itself is very different. Far from the warehouses out by the airport or the bullet hole-riddled ceiling downtown, Crooked Lane is in an old car dealership building next to Highway 49.

The building has huge ceilings and a tasting room filled with wood tabletops and a giant wooden sign with the brewery’s name on it.

It’s also the home to one of the few women-led brew teams in the state. Co-owner Theresa Psuty was the only female brewmaster in the area three years ago; Psuty has stepped out of that role, hiring Ellen Sherrill to run the brewing operation.

It’s more than quirk for the sake of being different. It’s a statement of who the brewery is. That’s a common theme in their beers, too. On a recent visit to the taproom, Crooked Lane had a dunkelweisen, a smoked amber lager and a kellerbier on tap.

“When we started the brewery, we really wanted to hang our hat on variety and authentic beer styles, your German lagers and ales, English beers, those kind of things,” Psuty said. “I’m really happy we haven’t gotten pushed into any super-trendy beer so we can help educate people on these beer styles and do the kind of thing we set out to do.”

Variety is the key, Psuty said, to explaining both Crooked Lane’s success and the viability of Auburn’s three other breweries. But she’s quick to cite another, less-obvious ingredient.

“We have four great breweries and I’ve often wondered why that is,” Psuty said. “I think it has something to do with the water, it has something to do with people up here are just really into beer and that helps us to be successful so we can make better beer. … But also we are really fortunate that we have great water.”

Water is not just wet. Mineral content is a secret hero, or enemy, in beer production. Budweiser obsesses over mineral contents in its water at breweries around the world because the goliath brewer wants a Bud Light from Sacramento to taste the same as a Bud Light from Boston.

What makes Auburn’s water unique, Psuty said, is it is a blank slate, mostly free from minerals and ions. And it’s a lot easier to add them back into a brew than taking them out.

Big brewers in Sacramento area

Nobody in the Auburn area has used more water to make beer than Knee Deep. As recently as 2019, the last year the state of California provided data for each brewery, Knee Deep was the largest brewery in the Sacramento area.

That status might have changed because of the coronavirus pandemic, but Knee Deep is still a force in the industry. It has giant fermenters, capable of pumping out thousands of gallons of beer a day.

And it’s still deeply connected to the community. Rare is the Sacramento bar that doesn’t have at least Breaking Bud, Knee Deep’s flagship IPA.

On a recent Tuesday, Todd Cleek and Bart Krolik brought tacos to a wooden picnic table in Knee Deep’s tasting room. The two have been friends for 35 years. Sure, they could stop at one of the other breweries, but Knee Deep’s hoppy offerings fit their palate.

“It’s just kind of our thing,” Cleek said. “I mean, it’s not like we don’t like the other places.”

Knee Deep’s West Coast IPAs have plenty of fans. Almost all of the brewery’s top-rated beers on Untappd are IPAs.

The Auburn location opened in 2013, when owner Jerry Moore opted to lease a huge space within eyesight of the runway at the Auburn airport. A lot has changed since then.

“Back in the old days when we started 12 years ago, every craft brewer was helping every craft brewer because it was a new industry and everybody was friendly and helping each other out,” Moore said. “Back then, I predicted this is not going to last forever because it will get cutthroat. It’s changed a little in general. But it’s friendly terms up here, getting products from one to another if somebody is in need. There’s friendly competition but it’s certainly not cutthroat. … That can’t be said around the state.”

Though the brewery owners say they are generally on good terms with the other breweries, they also don’t work together very often. All four breweries put out a collaboration brew a few years ago. They started with the same basic recipe but each brewery put in its own twist, resulting in wildly different interpretations.

That’s how they want things. Crooked Lane wants to make traditional German-style beers. Moonraker and Knee Deep have their IPA interpretations and fruited sours. Brian Ford, the Auburn Alehouse owner, is more worried about pairing beer with food than selling four-packs of whatever the latest fad is.

“There’s always competition,” he said. “Any time there’s more than one brewery, or more than one guy running down the street, you’re going to have competition. It’s good competition. It makes us all want to make better beer, more consistent beer. It’s been good having all of us in town. … I honestly don’t believe you’re going to come to Auburn just to go to the Auburn Alehouse or Knee Deep. You’re going to come to try all of them.”

That seems to be the case, especially on weekends, when a steady stream of visitors flow from brewery to brewery. It’s a far cry from 15 years ago – when Auburn was called “pretty sleepy” by both Psuty, the Crooked Lane owner, and McCann, the beer judge.

Apologies for the beer pun: Auburn is hopping.

“There’s a lot of quality up there,” McCann said. “There’s a lot of quality, a lot of dedicated people, a lot of history, a lot of diversity and a lot of different styles. It’s a cool place to go and a good place to visit.”

This story was originally published April 15, 2022 at 5:00 AM.