Local couple plans year-end opening of 'Bird Street' beer tasting room and brewery

And come December, or sometime around the end of the year, the two Lemoore High School grads are scheduled to open Lemoore’s first brewery, complete with a downtown tasting room.

They’ve been brewing beer for a while now. The “Bird Street” beer has been selling well in local markets like Best Buy and Save Mart. It’s sold well in Hanford, Visalia, and Fresno.

“It’s moving well,” said Wren, 29, relaxing with his partner in the storefront they’re currently renovating, on a pleasant Wednesday evening as a cool darkness enveloped the site of their new tasting room and brewery, located at 242 Heinlen Street, the former home of Ramblin' Rose Florist. “We pack it and deliver it.”

The tasting room is in a current state of renovation – old or broken tiles are being replaced, a bar is under construction, and the old downtown building is showing new signs of life, thanks to the nightly efforts of Wong and Wren. The renovation will probably be complete and the business open by the end of the year, and that’s when they’ll start serving five different kinds of Bird Street beer.

“We’re shooting for the end of the year,” said Wren, the man behind the beer. “I’ve been doing home brew beer since 2010. I started making my homebrew and people started liking it. We decided to go into business.”

When not brewing beer, Wren works as an Information Technology specialist while partner Wong (30) is a certified CPA.

Their stable of beers includes a Pale Ale, three versions of IPA (India Pale Ale), a brown ale, and three different seasonal beers.

As they briefly pondered the future location of their brewery and tasting room, the answer quickly became apparent. While the partners may have briefly considered Hanford or Fresno, they ultimately, and quickly, decided that Lemoore is their home and this was where they were going to start a business.

“We wanted to do something different for Lemoore,” said Wong, who grew up in the restaurant business. Her family has owned and operated the nearby Ocean City Café for decades. “And it was really about reviving the downtown. We felt like we were betraying Lemoore if we went somewhere else.”

“It’s (tasting room) going to have a different kind of vibe,” said Wren. “They can come here and try five or six different beers.” And while the hours aren’t officially set, expect the tasting room to open at least four nights a week, probably from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

“I think what’s really unique about our beer, especially in the Valley, is that … we’re small, and by the time that we’re done selling our first batch, our second batch is ready and primed to go,” said Wren. “It’s an ultra-freshness that we control from start to finish. We don’t deal with a distributor. We don’t have to pump out 20 cases to a distributor ... and they end up just sitting in the grocery store and getting old. We’re making sure that the beer that you drink out of the bottle is as fresh as it is intended to be.”

Wong says it’s all about local freshness. “For me, it’s about putting in as many local ingredients into the beer as we can,” she said. “We have a strawberry beer, and we use fresh strawberries from Hanford. We use as many local ingredients as we can, and we want to give back to our vendors and our customers to show that we support local (businesses). For them to support us locally, we want to support them locally.”