Brewery Day Trip: Dog-friendly taprooms in Brentwood, Concord and Lafayette

I’ve been circling the bay these last months, sampling beer at breweries from Santa Cruz to Sunnyvale and Martinez. This week took me out to Concord, Lafayette and Brentwood, where a reader suggested I’d find some of his favorite dog-friendly breweries.

Four Legs Brewing

As the name suggests, four-legged friends — as well as families — are welcome at this Brentwood brewpub, which offers indoor seating and tables with umbrellas on the patio. Homebrewer Erik Bacher and his wife Michelle, a former accountant, opened the brewery in April 2021, with head brewer Kyle McGarry overseeing the 15-bbl direct fire brewhouse.

Among the dozen or so beers on tap, you’ll find a rice lager, called simply Beer. It’s light and refreshing with a good hint of bitterness. Walking Dog is a tasty West Coast pale ale — and a collaboration with Epidemic Ales, my next stop on this particular brewery day trip. Pacing Pils” and Cuatro Patas, a Mexican lager, are both good warm weather beers. The line-up is rounded out by several hoppy and juicy IPAs and a nutty, chocolatey Imperial Stout called Royal Hound.

Grab a bite from one of the food trucks parked nearby, and be sure to check out the corn hole tournaments, Bingo Thursdays and other regular events on the Four Legs website.

Details: The brewery opens at 4 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 3 p.m. Friday and noon on Saturday-Sunday at 2010 Elkins Way in Brentwood; fourlegsbrewing.com. If you live in Antioch, you’re in luck: Four Legs will be opening a taproom there at 1 I St. this fall.

Epidemic Ales

When Holly Brown, Erin Shally and Brian Wang opened their Concord brewery in 2016, the taproom name was a playful reference to the explosion of craft brewery openings across the region. Today, the comfortable, dog-friendly digs are filled with amusements for Fido owners, from beer taps to pinball and pool. There’s a long bar and tables inside and out, and you could definitely lose yourself for a few hours here.

You’ll find up to 20 beers in a wide range of styles on tap. Their most popular beers are the soft, refreshing Lager at the World’s End and its fruited sister, Limelight, a lager that uses the same base beer but adds lime and salt — a perfect quaff when there’s a taco truck parked there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Zombrew, a West Coast IPA, is also popular; it has a great nose that’s nicely bitter, a solid example of the style that seems to be making a comeback.

Other stand-outs include Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Hazy Pale Ale, whose nose smells exactly like what its name suggests, which is no mean feat, and the latest in the Tartastrophe series, a Tartastrophe Strawberry Kettle Sour that has great berry fruit notes but is only lightly sour.

There’s a slushie machine serving up trendy beer cocktails, to-go beer by the four-pack, crowlers and growlers. Food trucks stop by daily, and special events — trivia night, paint night and classes on everything from tie dye to spent-grain dog treats — abound.

Details: Epidemic’s taproom opens at 3 p.m. weekdays and noon weekends at 150 Mason Circle in Concord. Epidemic beer is also available at seven farmers markets, including Orinda, Livermore and Marin. Find the full list at epidemicales.com.

Headlands Brewing, Lafayette

Founded in 2013 by two Marin homebrewers, the brewery was purchased a few years ago by Austin Sharp, who opened a Headlands Brewing taproom last year on Lafayette’s busy Mt. Diablo Boulevard. The inside may be small, but outside is another matter, with several spacious, dog-friendly areas where you can relax and enjoy a beer, including a front deck, a green-turfed beer garden on the side and a large back garden with umbrellas, Adirondack chairs and bench seating.

On-site there’s a small 3.5-bbl brewery where head brewer Ryan Frank makes
beer exclusively for the brewpub. On tap, you’ll find a nice range of half-a-dozen or so house beers, plus guest beers, ciders and kombucha. Four beers are canned off-site, including three year-round beers and a rotating IPA series known as the Trailblazer.