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FILE:\u00a0Trumer Pils is one of the most critically acclaimed lagers made in America.<\/p>\n
Image via Getty<\/p>\n
Trumer Pils is one of the greatest beer success stories in the Bay Area<\/a>. It\u2019s the rare example of a finely balanced craft lager, and it\u2019s been made in Berkeley for the past 22 years, giving locals unprecedented access to fresh pilsner.<\/p>\n But a new twist has been added to Trumer\u2019s success story. The brewery\u2019s Texas-headquartered owner\u00a0Gambrinus Company announced last week that it sold the brand to Firestone Walker and will shutter the Berkeley brewery. The Paso Robles company plans to move production to its Central Coast facility.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Trumer\u2019s sale comes during a rough time for the entire beer industry, including in the Bay Area. Anheuser Busch closed its Fairfield brewery<\/a> this winter. San Francisco\u2019s 21st Amendment Brewery shut down last year<\/a>, and Anchor Steam closed in 2024<\/a> with no word when it will reopen. And a wave of smaller breweries<\/a> have also shuttered.<\/p>\n FILE: Trumer\u2019s Berkeley taproom is covered in awards for its namesake lager beer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lester Black\/SFGATE<\/p>\n Trumer\u2019s new owners are adamant that quality won\u2019t diminish. Firestone Walker CEO Nick Firestone told SFGATE Monday that he spent years as a Trumer Pils drinker while going to school in Berkeley and would fight hard to maintain quality and freshness.<\/p>\n \u201cFundamentally, I\u2019m a Trumer drinker,\u201d Firestone said. \u201cIf this brewery had sold to somebody else, I would be the guy in the comments saying, \u2018You better not change the recipe, you better keep it the same!\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n FILE:\u00a0Trumer Berkeley\u2019s production facility will no longer produce the critically acclaimed lager.<\/p>\n Lester Black\/SFGATE<\/p>\n Firestone said the company is already working closely with Trumer brewmaster Lars Larson to adapt the recipe to its facility and plans to start production batches this summer. He said customers won\u2019t notice a disruption in supply \u2014 and promised they wouldn\u2019t notice a change in flavor. John Brozovich, president and CEO of Gambrinus, said brewing operations are already winding down at Trumer, but they don\u2019t have a closing date for the taproom.<\/p>\n Make SFGATE a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe are in the process of planning next steps for the taproom and do not currently have a confirmed closing date. Our immediate priority is ensuring a smooth transition for our team,\u201d Brozovich said in an email to SFGATE.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Trumer has always been a unique creation in the craft beer world. The original brewery started over 400 years ago in Austria and was just an obscure local brewery for its first four centuries. But the crisp and balanced Trumer Pils caught the eye of Australian brewer Phil Sexton and Texas businessman Carlos Alvarez, who was looking for a new European beer to import to the United States. Sexton and Alvarez decided that instead of shipping the Austrian beer, they should just brew it entirely stateside, so they struck an agreement with the Austrians and opened the Berkeley brewery in 2003.<\/p>\n FILE: Trumer Berkeley brewmaster Lars Larson pictured in 2025. He moved to Berkeley to launch the classic pilsner in California.<\/p>\n Lester Black\/SFGATE<\/p>\n Berkeley\u2019s Trumer Pils has gone on to win dozens of awards \u2014 claiming the self-described title of most-awarded pilsner in the world \u2014 and its glowing green bottles have become a fixture at Bay Area bars and grocery stores.<\/p>\n Buyouts have killed or damaged some of craft beer\u2019s most beloved beers<\/a>, but as far as brewery closures go, Trumer\u2019s buyout has a decidedly more optimistic tone to it. Craft beer blog Beer Crunchers said Trumer Pils was landing in \u201cgood hands<\/a>\u201d with the sale to Firestone Walker, which was founded in 1996 by brothers-in-law Adam Firestone and David Walker.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Paso Robles company merged with Belgian beer company Duvel in 2015. Nick Firestone said that Duvel is still owned by a single family. For craft beer die-hards, keeping Trumer in a family-owned company, and not part of a stock market-traded conglomerate, is important. Firestone said the family ownership was also a consideration for Gambrinus, which he said approached Firestone directly for the acquisition.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe see eye to eye on a lot of things, but most importantly, we see eye to eye on Trumer Pils,\u201d Firestone said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Firestone is also already an established name in the lager game. Beyond its blockbuster 805 Blonde Ale and critically acclaimed barrel-aged stout Parabola, Firestone has gained attention for its hoppy lager Pivo Pils, including winning three gold medals for pilsner in a row at the Great American Beer Festival between 2013 and 2015.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Trumer Pils has roots that stretch back 400 years to Austria.<\/p>\n Kathleen Nyberg<\/p>\n Walker said that he wasn\u2019t sure if any of Trumer\u2019s seasonal beers or its new lager Doppelganger will still be produced, and he didn\u2019t know if they would start selling Trumer to more states now that it has a bigger distribution footprint. He said their primary focus is on maintaining the beer\u2019s freshness and quality for its current drinkers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen other breweries close and the brand dies, and I just absolutely love this beer. I would never want to see that happen,\u201d Firestone said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to do everything in our power to keep the history and the legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE:\u00a0Trumer Pils is one of the most critically acclaimed lagers made in America. Image via Getty Trumer Pils…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144,4991,1692],"class_list":["post-244088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-sfgfood","tag-sfgnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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