A new menu and a big vision for a beloved Davis brewery
Ryan Fry & Trent Yackzan outside The Dock taproom. Photo by Ashley Muir Bruhn.
Trenton Yackzan and Ryan Fry have big plans for Sudwerk, and their excitement is—rightfully—contagious. The Davis brewery wins awards for its craft beer, like its Pilsner & Mӓrzen, and is known the world over for its affiliation with the UC Davis Master Brewers Certificate Program—on site since 1995. For those of us who live in town, it might be the place to go to relax after work, catch live music, or take the kids on a Saturday afternoon. “People tell us stories about how they met their wife here in college,” says Yackzan. “We love being a part of so many locals’ history.”
Yackzan’s grandfather, Dean Unger, and Unger’s partner Ron Broward, opened the building on 2nd street over 30 years ago as hobbyist brewers with the idea that others would fall in love with the taste of true German lagers if only they could get them fresh—rather than after import. They were right. The pioneering microbrewery quickly became the number-one brewpub in North America, based on its over-the-counter sales. It remains the most-awarded brewery in the Sacramento region.
But while the beer has never stopped flowing, an onsite restaurant under different ownership came and went. Yackzan and Fry took over in 2013, soon after opening The Dock. Since then, the taproom, with its brightly painted roll-up door, and adjacent hop yard, has been an experimental space serving limited small-batch releases (50 last year) alongside the brewery’s core line-up. Food trucks rolled in while the kitchen stayed closed.
That is, until recently.
Yackzan and Fry brought on Chef Irie Gengler—who experience ranges from Wolfgang Puck’s Spago Chicago to the Out of Bounds Craft Kitchen & Biergarten Folsom—as director of restaurant operations last year. Gengler has been working on the menu and kitchen upgrade for months, helping to craft a long-term vision.“It’s a multi-year project. We want to give people a brewpub experience that will make Sudwerk a destination for Davis as well as the region,” says Yackzan. The first step was to open up the kitchen and create a small menu to be served at The Dock and a catering option for the Beer Hall—a reservable indoor event space. It all came together just in time for last month’s Super Bowl watch party.
The most popular item so far is the giant Beer Garden Pretzel, Yackzan tells me, with sides of People’s Pilsner beer cheese and Märzen mustard. “Sometimes you want to keep it simple! Pilsner and pretzels.” The Mӓrzen bratwurst is Fry’s current favorite: “The UC Davis Farms butchering program marinates their sausages in our lager.” The brioche buns are sourced from local Village Bakery.
Other items on the new menu include pulled pork sliders, cheese and charcuterie, and fried Shishito peppers. This month’s Taco Tuesdays feature beef raised on their spent brewing grain. There are also “Kidwerk” items, like a “Hop Dog,” and mini carrots and edamame—reflecting the family-family culture of Sudwerk.
The menu will grow when the kitchen expands, focusing on seasonal California cuisine with German roots. “We want to be inspired by tradition but not bound by it.” And walking around the cleared-out back patio and restaurant space, Yackzan and Fry are ready to talk next phase—the renderings are coming in for re-designed brewpub.
“Sudwerk is a slang German word for “community brewery. … We’re here for the community,” says Yackzan. “Hopefully the community will keep showing up, and discover something new every time.”
Check the calendar for events at Sudwerk Brewing Co. this month. Stay tuned for April’s Cherry Blossom Festival and June’s Davis Music Fest. And maybe a restaurant opening party will be next!
