Local brewery known for its pride-themed beer returns after fire

A beer specially brewed to celebrate Pride Month is rising from the ashes – literally.

San Francisco's Local Brewing Company released its “Gay Crush” beer last week, a little more than a year after its business burned to the ground.

On December 2, 2022, a fire broke out in their historic building on Bluxome Street in SOMA.

“There was a fire on the top floor of the building, unrelated to the brewery, in the middle of the night,” recalls Regan Long, co-owner and brewmaster of Local Brewing. “Luckily no one was injured, but the fire was so intense that the roof collapsed and we were forced to close our business.”

It's a business, like many others, that was forced to pivot and survive after the Covid-19 pandemic, but the fire added another challenge.

“We could have given up, but my co-founder (Sarah Fenson) and I thought it wasn't right that it ended in a fire,” Long said.

Local Brewing was founded in 2014 and moved into its physical location in SOMA where it quickly broke barriers.

“We were the first woman-owned and operated brewery in San Francisco, which was pretty remarkable for us at the time,” Long said.

And Regan and Sarah, who were already outsiders in a male-dominated craft brewery scene, made an intentional decision to create a business model of inclusion and acceptance. This culture was on full display in 2017 when they were asked to create a Pride-themed beer.

“I think we were one of the first breweries in the Bay Area to make a Pride beer,” Long said. “The first one was called 'Gay Beach,' which if you know the terminology of the Castro and Dolores Park area, is known as Gay Beach.”

But after the fire destroyed their brewery, production of all their beers stopped and they were forced to change course again, rebuilding and renaming their business.

Today, Regan Long travels to Richmond twice a week where she contracts with East Brothers Brewing to make her beer.

“East Brothers has been a lifeline for us,” Long said. “Thanks to them, we were up and running and brewing beer eight months after the fire.”

In addition to four flagship beers, Local Brewing has also started brewing a beer that it is proud to produce.

“We’re bringing back ‘Gay Crush’ for the first time since the fire,” Long said. “We're really trying to make it lighter, easy to drink and really crushable at Dolores Park.”

Pride beer “Gay Crush” was released on June 1 in limited quantities – including 15 kegs and 30 cases of beer.

“Even in a small batch, putting it back on the market is very meaningful to us,” Long said.

As for the future, the goal is to one day restart its own brewery and restaurant, but as small businesses, especially craft breweries, have not fully recovered from the pandemic, Local Brewing Company plans to take its time to make this decision.

“We'll see how far it can go from here and I hope you know, it will make sense for us to restart a brick and mortar and see the place filled with our customers again,” Long said .