[Press Release:]

Trail Debuts at the East Bay Brewer’s Festival in Oakland

(Oakland, CA) — Visit Oakland, the city’s destination marketing organization, along with the support of Oakland’s craft beer industry, is excited to announce the debut of the official Oakland Ale Trail. The trail launches at the East Bay Brewer’s Festival on Saturday, February 18, Noon – 4PM at Drake’s Dealership. The event is part of the ongoing SF Beer Week celebration happening throughout the Bay Area.

The city’s first craft beer trail is complimented with a new passport program to encourage beer drinkers to visit the nine tasting rooms currently in the city.

Ale Industries
Temescal Brewing
Diving Dog Brewhouse
Woods Beer Company
Drake’s Dealership
Ghost Town Brewing (Taproom Coming Soon)
Federation Brewing
Roses Taproom (Taproom Coming Soon)
Independent Brewing Company
Oakland United Beerworks (Taproom Coming Soon)
Novel Brewing Company
Old Kan Beer (Taproom Coming Soon)
Pacific Coast Brewing Company
Line 51 Brewing Company (Distribution Only)
Lucky Devil Brewing Company (Distribution Only)

Visitors can collect a stamp from each of the nine tasting rooms to redeem a free, branded Oakland Ale Trail growler at the Oakland Visitor Center in Jack London Square.

“We’re excited to launch the Oakland Ale Trail to highlight the city’s independent craft beer makers to visitors,” says Mark Everton, President & CEO of Visit Oakland. “Oakland is an emerging beer destination and branding the collective breweries under the Oakland Ale Trail allows visitors to navigate the breweries and the city to support the makers’ creative spirit.”

To celebrate the occasion, several East Bay brewers got creative and created a limited-­‐release collaboration beer to pour specifically at the launch. The collaboration reflects the diversity of the East Bay beer community with each participating brewer’s style and approach integrated.

“Oakland is all about flavor and beer is just part of the flavor seen here in The Town,” says Morgon Cox, Co-­‐ Founder and Brewmaster of Ale Industries. “Oakland is quickly becoming known as the spot in the Bay Area for innovation, quality, variety, all while remaining unpretentious. We are hopeful that the Oakland Ale Trail will allow visitors to enjoy new neighborhoods, challenge their perceptions about beer, and discover just how broad Oakland’s palate really is.”

The trail’s logo was designed to pay homage to the city’s icons and the craft beer industry’s rugged history. The urban-­‐centric design centers on bottle cap and badge-­‐style imagery and incorporates Oakland’s iconic Tribune Tower. Simple and strong font styles with minimalistic design modernizes the vintage influences.

The Oakland Ale Trail comes on the heels of the very successful Oakland Urban Wine Trail launched in Fall 2015. Visit Oakland promoted the already existing tasting rooms in the city by marketing the nine wineries into an easily recognizable name and logo for visitors. Strategic logo design and wayfinding measures were put in place to market the city’s truly authentic “urban” wine trail. Wineries have seen a 19% increase in customers since the Oakland Urban Wine Trail began.

This coverage is made possible in part thanks to the generous support of Visit California, which flew us out to Northern California to tour one dozen breweries across San Francisco, Sacramento, Berkeley, Oakland and Sonoma. For more information on California’s craft beer boom, visit here.