Before Palo Alto was Palo Alto, it was Mayfield -- a rough railroad town with saloons to match. The Mayfield Brewery operated at the corner of what are now California Avenue and Birch Street from 1868 to 1920, producing steam beer in a 40-by-60-foot building and selling it in kegs to local drinking establishments. Steam beer, a California original brewed with lager yeast at ale temperatures because Gold Rush-era brewers lacked refrigeration, was the working man's drink of the late nineteenth century. The Mayfield Brewery churned out approximately a thousand barrels a year -- modest by any standard, but enough to keep the saloons stocked and the residents comfortable.
The brewery was started on Lincoln Street near Third -- now the intersection of California Avenue and Park Boulevard -- but soon moved to the corner of Second and Lincoln, its permanent home. In 1871, Christopher Ducker bought the operation from Kleinclaus, a transaction that marked the beginning of decades of steady production. Mayfield was a stop on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the railway provided both customers and distribution. The town's identity was defined by the railroad and the agriculture it served -- fruit orchards, cattle ranches, and the supporting businesses that small farming communities required, including a brewery.
Prohibition shut the Mayfield Brewery in 1920, ending 52 years of continuous operation. The town itself was already changing. Stanford University, founded in 1891 just up the road, was growing, and Mayfield would eventually be annexed by Palo Alto in 1925. The agricultural economy that had sustained the brewery was giving way to the suburban development that would eventually cover the valley in houses, roads, and eventually technology campuses. The brewery building survived long after the beer stopped flowing. Around 2005, a hair salon moved into the space, and in 2015 the salon split its space with a wine bar -- a fitting if ironic succession.
Today, California Avenue is a thriving commercial strip in Palo Alto, lined with restaurants, cafes, and small shops that serve the lunch crowds from nearby Stanford and the surrounding tech offices. Few passersby have any idea that a brewery operated on this corner for half a century, producing a uniquely Californian style of beer for a town that no longer exists under its original name. The Mayfield Brewery belongs to a layer of Peninsula history that has been almost entirely paved over: the era when this valley produced things you could drink, eat, and grow rather than things you could code, fund, or IPO.
The Mayfield Brewery site is at 37.43°N, 122.14°W at the intersection of California Avenue and Birch Street in Palo Alto. The area is now a commercial district near the Caltrain California Avenue station. Nearby airports: Palo Alto (KPAO), San Jose (KSJC). Best viewed at 2,000-3,000 ft AGL.