Modern Times Beer to open Oakland taproom with 34 taps near Lake Merritt this summer

Modern Times is planning to open an Oakland taproom this August. Pictured is the brewery's Flavordome location in San Diego, which the brewery has stated the new Oakland taproom will resemble. Modern Times is planning to open an Oakland taproom this August. Pictured is the brewery's Flavordome location in San Diego, which the brewery has stated the new Oakland taproom will resemble. Photo: Yelp / Shaina J. Photo: Yelp / Shaina J. Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Modern Times Beer to open Oakland taproom with 34 taps near Lake Merritt this summer 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

One of San Diego's largest craft breweries is officially northern-bound.

Modern Times Beer, an employee-owned craft brewery that opened in 2013 and expanded across Southern California (and Portland, Ore.), is finally working out the details on its forthcoming Oakland taproom. In an email to SFGate, Nic Peláez, the brewery's director of hospitality, says, "We're not quite ready to unveil the name."

Back in October, as Eater reported, Modern Times filed for a beer manufacturing permit in Oakland. At the time, the brewery wasn't keen on revealing much, only stating that "something" was headed to a space at 2410 Valdez St.

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In December, just before Christmas, the Oakland City Planning Commission approved Modern Times' plans for a 4,200-square-foot bar space that would sell beer, cider and prepackaged chips and snacks. Also included in the plans was a retail area for sales of Modern Times merchandise, including clothing, glassware, and bags of coffee beans — not unlike the brewery's flagship Lomaland Fermentorium in San Diego.

The new space, however, will more closely resemble Modern Times' North Park Flavordome in San Diego, as the brewery's Chief Operations Officer Chris Sarette wrote on Wefunder late last month.

Peláez is tight-lipped on what, exactly, the space will look like, but says, "What we can say is that we've got our formidable team of art ninjas fully-engaged in creating a space full of joy-inspiring, mind-bending installation art."

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The new taproom will pour from 34 taps, which will offer "an amalgam of year-rounds, seasonals, special releases, ciders, and super-limited pilot batches," Peláez says.

"A tasting room only without a food or coffee component, our Oakland project sits at the bottom of blocks of new development in the Lake Merritt neighborhood and just one block from the highest grossing Whole Foods in Northern California," Sarette writes. "Oakland is our second biggest market in the state, so to finally have a physical presence here will be a boon to our loyal retailers, dozens of future bottle club members, and online sale participants as well."

Progress on the new taproom is "coming along swimmingly," and the brewery hopes to open it to the public in mid-August.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

