Evans Brewing Co. Inc. in Santa Ana calls itself “Orange County’s oldest craft brewery,” and now it wants to add to its retail recipe food based on the beer it makes, plus restaurants.
For craft beer, Evans has been around a while, starting out in 1994, and the moves are a way for the regional beer maker and distributor to now do battle with bigger beer guys—from Anheuser-Bush InBev to some better-known local boys like Bruery in Placentia and Cismontane Brewing Co. in Rancho Santa Margarita.
“Two years ago, we were planning a big brewery” in order to expand production, said Chief Executive Mike Rapport.
Then larger brewers started buying smaller craft makers to capitalize on the trend of small-batch beer.
“They were losing market share,” said Chief Operating Officer Evan Rapport, who is Mike’s son. “They had to compete.”
Full Pour
That meant a strategy shift, because while Evans sells in seven states, expansion would be hindered by bigger companies’ marketing muscle.
“We can’t just walk in there and get placement,” Mike Rapport said.
Evans decided to grow its regional reach on what it already sold while also adding the new concepts.
“We’ll always be craft brewers,” Mike said, “but this is a more holistic approach to building the brand.”
Evans sells 20 types of beer, mostly in kegs to restaurants. Four varieties are bottled for retailers, and three more are on the way.
Its retail reach includes Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Total Wine & More, Sprouts, Ralphs and Albertsons.
Meal Plan
Local craft brewers have tasting rooms, often in small industrial spaces, but the Rapports plan three full restaurants under The Public House banner. The first debuted last year in Fullerton; a second opens in August at Bella Terra in Huntington Beach.
As Evans seeks the third spot, it’s putting a Public House food truck on the road in the next few weeks.
Restaurants, the Rapports said, seem to fit the customers they want better than a small-batch tasting room.
They described a bell curve of beer drinkers where one of the low ends of the graph cares little about craft brews, the other end seeks them out, and the wide middle wants the craft feel but not necessarily the full-on flavor focus of the aficionado.
“Craft-centric people talk up your brand,” Mike said, but the moderately interested “core beer drinker” is the company’s main target.
Edible Beer
It’s an integration of the general public and the purist, similar to what big brewers wanted in swallowing craft beer makers—and Evans will amp that up with beer-based food.
It plans cheese, “brew-b-q” sauces, sausages, and ice cream, all made with Evans beer.
“We want to cook with what we’re brewing,” Mike said.
The food in development will sell in stores and restaurants. The cheese will go on burgers and pizzas, and there will be beer milkshakes, a California thing made notable by John Steinbeck’s “Cannery Row.”
Evan Rapport is professionally certified in some aspects of brewing and oversees recipe work with Director of Brewing Kevin Hammons, plus designs labels, a crucial marketing element for retail craft beer sold in stores.
Their designs often “focus on the hero image,” Evan said, and include allusions to the American West, such as Paul Bunyan or gold and silver mining, or micro-market trends, such as the steampunk look.
Publicly Traded House
The Rapports gained control of the former Bayhawk Ales Inc. in 2015 and 2016, and Evans now trades under the ticker symbol ALES at a $9 million market cap. It debuted at No. 92 on last week’s Business Journal list of OC-based public companies.
The Rapport family also owns Frontier Aluminum Corp. and Aluminati Skateboards, both in Corona.
Mike Rapport got a few minutes of fame in September when the Wall Street Journal published aerial photos he commissioned of a $2 billion stockpile of aluminum—ironically enough for 77 billion beer cans—in the Mexican desert.
The Journal traced the stash to a China-based company possibly trying to “game the system” on U.S. imports. The Business Journal reported in October that some of the aluminum appeared to be stored in a 260,000-square-foot warehouse in Irvine—not far from Evans’ current brewing facility at McCormick & Schmick’s.
