Berryessa Brewing anchors Winters as its first production brewery

At 27260 State Highway 128, about a mile outside downtown Winters, Berryessa Brewing Co. pours the city’s only production beer. The 20-barrel brewery, founded in 2011, has become more than a stop for a pint, it is one of the clearest markers of what Winters is becoming: a small agricultural town with a brewery that locals claim as their own and beer travelers seek out on purpose.

Chris Miller built that identity from a long apprenticeship in the Northwest. He got his start at Pacific Rim Brewing in Seattle washing kegs, then became head brewer at Snipes Mountain Brewing Company in Washington’s Yakima Valley before moving to California with his wife, Lori, to open Berryessa. That path still shows up in the beer. Miller has long favored balance and nuance over bitterness for its own sake, an approach that has won Berryessa a loyal following in Sacramento and San Francisco while keeping the brewery’s core identity firmly tied to Winters.

The taproom gives the business its public face. Local tourism materials describe it as family-friendly, with indoor seating, scenic outdoor seating, food trucks and live music, all set in a rural landscape of orchards and mountains about 40 minutes from Sacramento. On weekends, that mix pulls in drinkers from Davis, Sacramento and beyond, turning a place just west of town into a destination that still feels unmistakably local. In 2014, Comstock’s magazine captured that role neatly, calling Berryessa “as much a community center as it is a taproom.”

That community function has been part of the business model from the start. Comstock’s also reported that the Millers self-distributed their beer, hauling kegs to buyers throughout California to keep control of product quality. That kind of hands-on approach helps explain why Berryessa has stayed relevant in a crowded craft market for more than a decade. It is not just the beer on tap; it is the way the brewery has stayed connected to the people who drink it, whether they are neighbors in Winters or regulars driving in from the Capitol region.

The outside recognition has followed the local loyalty. Berryessa Brewing Co. was named Brewery of the Year in the 2024 Brewers Cup of California, a useful reminder that its reputation reaches well beyond Yolo County. For Winters, though, the bigger story is simpler: one brewery, one town, and a taproom that has become part of daily life, regional identity and the beer map all at once.