For 41 years, from 1900 to 1941, the Mulberry Station Brewing Company site was one of the last stops on the Sacramento Northern Railway electric railroad that connected Chico to Oakland via Sacramento. In 1962, a 20-lane bowling alley was built on the site, and a few years later, the 6,000-square-foot building underwent its first transformation when it was converted into an auto parts store.
In 2019, Roland Allen and Allen Gross “stumbled” upon the old building, just six blocks from Allen’s home on Mulberry Street. The building provided the perfect location and inspiration for a name for the brewery the two men wanted to open.
“We didn’t have a name yet, but we had talked about the site perhaps requiring it, and it did,” Allen said. “We’re paying tribute to the site’s railroad history by putting up photos and paintings of old electric streetcars and railroad nails as taps.”
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But before Allen and Gross hung the artwork and installed the taps, they spent about nine months doing “serious work,” which included gutting parts of the building, pouring new concrete, installing new water and sewer systems, and building bathrooms, among other construction and remodeling work. They also built the bar, the dining area, a full kitchen with an Italian wood-fired pizza oven, and, of course, the brewery itself, with its “brewing system and all of its accessories.”
Allen said: “We were ready and planning our opening. It turned out that our opening in March 2020 coincided with the first COVID lockdown. We had a beautiful 172-seat space, but they could only look at it.”
Determined to offer customers more than just a nice space to look at, Allen and Gross donned face masks, took orders and delivered pizza and 32-ounce crowler cans filled straight from the tap to customers in the brewery’s parking lot.
The following 18 months of business were a wild ride for business owners as COVID rules kept changing from limited seating capacity to completely closing restaurants and back to limited seating capacity again.
“The first year and the first year and a half were just crazy,” Allen said. “Yes, it was hard, but we believed in our project. There was never a moment where we said ‘forget it.’ We knew we had great beer and great pizza, a nice venue and parking. We knew we had something and we would get through COVID.”
The partners persevered and business has grown steadily since we began welcoming customers to the dining room and bar for craft beers and pizza, trivia competitions and live music.
Good pairing
Allen, who plays piano, began homebrewing in 1983 when he moved to Chico to handle “the musical component of a comedy act.” In 1986, he began working as assistant brewmaster at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, where he stayed until 1995 before opening his own brewery, Butte Creek Brewing Company. There he created Roland’s Red, an ale that is still a Mulberry trademark.
In 2007, Allen closed Butte Creek and “retired from the industry for a few years.” He retired in 2010 when Feather Falls Casino offered him the position of brewmaster to start Feather Falls Brewing Company.
While at Feather Falls, Allen was introduced to Gross by a mutual friend. The two men quickly discovered they shared a passion – good hand-crafted beer – and a dream to open their own brewery. A former Marine and businessman, Gross had no experience brewing but enjoyed craft beers, and a partnership was born.
These days, Gross, who lives in Oklahoma, is the “silent partner,” visiting the company about every six weeks and handling accounting and other behind-the-scenes work — and, of course, enjoying craft beer, pizza and fun at Mulberry Station Brewing.
Allen can be found at Mulberry most days when it’s open, hosting quiz, open mic and live music nights. He also spends a lot of time at the brewery doing what he loves – brewing his own beers, including Electric Rail Pale Ale, Light Rail Wheat Ale, Golden Spike Session IPA, Roland’s Redder Ale and Dopple Dare You Lager, an 8.8% ABV beer that “people can’t believe it’s a lager because it’s so smooth.”
“My brewing philosophy is that there should be a balance of malt and hops for any beer,” Allen said. “Many are hoppy, and you can taste it. I like more malt character in many styles. I’m not a fan of ‘bitter beer face,’ but I like hops as much as the next guy, so there’s room for hops and malt as long as there’s some balance.”
While great care goes into brewing, just as much commitment to top quality goes into Mulberry’s 12 different wood-fired pizzas.
From the Margherita Pizza (with fresh mozzarella and organic basil) to the Diavola (with salami and roasted red peppers) to the Salty Dog (“an anchovy delight”) to the Stache (with white garlic sauce, pistachios, red onion and fresh rosemary), all pizzas are hand-made to order. All ingredients are fresh and locally sourced as much as possible, including the Sausage Classic’s sausage, which comes from Chico Meat Locker, and products from S&S Organic Produce and Natural Foods.
“We take a lot of pride in our pizzas. We’ve worked long and hard on the pizza recipes and developed our own dough and sauces,” Allen said. “We work to brew the best beer possible and we do the same with the pizzas. That’s who we are.”
For more information about Mulberry Station Brewing’s beer and pizza menu, as well as events such as live music and trivia nights, visit mulberrystationbrewery.com.
Reach Kyra Gottesman at [email protected].
