Talk about a quick brew. When Cervecería de MateVeza opens on Saturday at 3801 18th St., it will have been only five months since owners Jim Woods, founder of MateVeza brewery, and Matt Coelho began the permitting process.
“My biggest lesson was reaching out to the community,” Woods said of the new craft beer venue near Church Street.
The two owners met with the principal of Mission High, joined the Upper Market and Castro Merchants Association, and talked to neighbors to explain what their project was: a small restaurant and brewery where people could get together for beers and empanadas.
Although the permit process was relatively smooth, Woods’ road to owning a brewery was a long one that began when he was still in high school in Lafayette. It was then that Woods, now 31, started brewing beer at home.
He loved experimenting with different flavors. Five years ago he took a sip of yerba mate tea, then a sip of beer, and liked the way the two complemented each other.
“Mate really lingers. I like the combination of the bitterness of yerba mate and the sweetness of malt,” he said.
Five years ago he started brewing what he called MateVeza at a brewery in Mendocino, and now sells it at stores across the Bay Area, including BevMo, Rainbow Grocery and Berkeley Bowl.
Once the brand was established, Woods wanted a physical location for his company.
At Cervecería de MateVeza, he plans on brewing two kegs of beer per week. He will use this as a test kitchen where he can experiment with different flavors, he said, including fresh herbs he finds at farmers markets and dulce de leche.
His business partner and friend Coelho, 31, is just as passionate about beer.
A few years ago, the then-structural engineer started bartending at beer bars after his day job because he enjoyed it so much. He’s worked at City Beer, Church Key and the Black Horse.
In 2009, friends of Woods and Coelho asked if they wanted to come brew beer in a resort town in Colombia. Coelho jumped at the opportunity. Although the beer didn’t work out because the Caribbean town of Santa Marta was too warm for brewing, he managed his friends’ bar for several months.
“Then I decided I could either fade away living the beach life or come back and get back to a career,” Coelho said.
The two asked friends and family to help out financially, and used personal savings to finance the brewery.
They also became certified cicerones, or beer sommeliers, to become more knowledgeable about beer. Coelho said he can now tell the difference between a Czech pilsner and a German-style one.
Their backgrounds helped them through the permitting process. As a former structural engineer, Coelho had worked with contractors and planners. Woods’ background in finance comes in handy for the business.
Details in the brewery’s interior reveal that the two friends simply love beer. One door in the back was painted the same shade of purple as a beer label they both love.
“We walked into a paint a store with a bottle of Orval and had them match the color of the label,” Coelho said.
In addition to craft beers, Woods and Coelho will serve Argentinian-style empanadas from El Porteño, a San Francisco company that sells at the Ferry Building. In the future, they would like to add charcuterie to the menu.
With Dolores Park across the street and popular restaurants and Bi-Rite down the block, the owners hope their brewery will help stretch the gourmet corridor onto the Castro side of 18th Street.
“I love the neighborhood; the 18th Street corridor is so happening right now,” Woods said, referring to new restaurants like Izakaya Yuzuki and the soon-to-open Namu Gaji.
Cervecería de MateVeza isn’t the only brewery in the area: in January, Southern Pacific Brewery opened on Treat Avenue.
“I think beer resonates with people and because of this local movement, people want to support their local brewpub and local brewery,” Woods said. “People’s taste buds are waking up.”
“There’s so much creativity going on, it’s like a golden age for new styles and innovation,” he added.
Cervecería de MateVeza is located at 3801 18th St.