Clovis has quietly become one of the most interesting brewery towns in the Central Valley — garage-door taprooms, patios built for 95-degree afternoons, and a real brewing community that actually shows up for each other. This is a guide from the inside. We’re Crow & Wolf Brewing Co., and our taproom sits at 526 Spruce Ave, down near the Dry Creek Trail and the Herndon/Clovis Ave corridor off Hwy 168. We’ll tell you about our neighbors the way we’d tell a friend visiting for the weekend: fairly, specifically, no rankings, no drama. Save this for the next time someone asks where to go.

How to plan a brewery day in Clovis

The honest answer is that most taprooms in town open mid-afternoon on weekdays and midday on weekends, so a good day usually starts around 2 or 3 pm and ends somewhere after dinner. If you’re building a loop, think about parking up front. Old Town Clovis is walkable once you’re there but limited on spots during events and on Friday Nights in Old Town season. The Herndon/Clovis Ave corridor — where we are — is easier to park and better for rideshare drop-offs.

Food strategy is worth thinking about before you start. Most Clovis breweries don’t run full kitchens; we rotate food trucks instead. Ours updates weekly — we post the current food truck and events schedule every Monday on Instagram @cawbrewingco. If you want to know who’s parked outside a given brewery before you get in the car, check their Monday post.

Getting around: Clovis is walkable in pockets — Old Town especially — and bikeable if you plan it well. Our taproom is right off the Dry Creek Trail / Fresno–Clovis Rail-Trail, which means on a good weather day plenty of people roll up on two wheels or on foot. Rideshare works fine citywide, and it’s the right call if you’re trying to hit more than one or two stops.

The Clovis brewery list

One entry per brewery, in no particular order. Addresses and hours move; double-check before you head out.

House of Pendragon Brewing

Arthurian-themed branding and a taproom that locals tend to call the highest-rated on Yelp. Their Lancelot IPA is a frequent fan pick along with Dog-friendly, and they’ve historically run a weekly “yappy hour” — worth checking their calendar for. Good stop if you want a big-flavor IPA and a lively patio.

MachineHead Brewing

A Clovis beer garden with a full weekly event cadence — trivia, live music, community nights. If you’re building a social afternoon around a brewery, this is an easy choice. Customers often rave about their hazy IPA Ferris Brewer’s Day Off

Mad Duck Craft Brewing

Food-forward across multiple locations. Mad Duck reads more like a full brewpub than a pure taproom — if you’d rather plan your brewery day around a sit-down meal with good beer, this is the stop. Customers rave about their Honey Pot Blonde and classic Pub Ale

Crow & Wolf Brewing Co.

That’s us. Family- and dog-friendly (it’s one of our core values), climate-controlled taproom with outdoor seating right off the Dry Creek Trail. We’re award-winning across categories, and we’ll tell you specifically what has earned what, because we think “best of” claims should have receipts behind them:

• Lobo, our Mexican-style lager, took a US Open Beer Championship Gold Medal in 2023 in the Mexican-Style Lager category.
• Odyssey, our coffee stout with vanilla and milk sugar, has four golds and a silver.
• Dark Wolf (boysenberry and vanilla sorbet) and Lady Marmalade (dragonfruit, yuzu, lemon) anchor a medal-heavy seltzer program — two gold and four silver for Dark Wolf; three gold and a bronze for Lady Marmalade.

We also make mead (Rapture — raspberries, mulberries, wildflower honey) and house wines (Ovatum, a rosé of red wine; and Rhone Wolf, a Grenache/Syrah/Mourvèdre red). None of the other named Clovis breweries have a wine program under the same roof.

Others

The Clovis scene moves — new taprooms open, places change hands, hours shift. Before you plan a full brewery day, cross-check hours on the day you’re going and confirm whatever’s opened since this post went up.

Rule we held ourselves to while writing this: name something specific and positive for every brewery in the guide. No negative comparisons, no rankings.

What to order if you’ve never had craft beer

Short and practical. If lager is your usual — the kind of beer that shows up at cookouts and after softball — start with a Mexican-style lager or an American lager. At our place, that’s Lobo (5.0%, the Gold-medal Mexican lager) or Pollasky (4.5% American lager). Both are clean, crisp, and not trying to be a showpiece.

If beer genuinely isn’t your thing, you still have a good afternoon in front of you. Try Hello Sunshine (watermelon and lime seltzer, 5.0%) or a pour of Ovatum, our rosé. Both travel well on a patio.

If you want to taste around, most taprooms in Clovis pour flights. Tell the bartender what you usually drink at home and what you’re not in the mood for — that’s better intel than a flavor chart.

Tips for visitors

Kids and dogs. Rules vary by brewery. Call ahead or check Instagram before you roll in with either. Ours are both welcome — it’s a core value of ours that “family focused” includes the four-legged kind.

Hours. Most Clovis taprooms open mid-afternoon on weekdays and stay open until around 10 pm. Our hours are Mon–Thu 3–10 pm, Fri 12–10 pm, Sat 11–10 pm, Sun 11–8 pm. If you’re driving in from Fresno or further afield on a weekday, don’t plan to start before 3.

Old Town events. If you’re making a day of it, check what Old Town Clovis has going on. Friday Night Farmers Market (in season), Big Hat Days, and Glorious Junk Days all turn a brewery stop into a full day. Come hungry and get some food from food trucks that change daily.

Heat. If you’re visiting between June and September, assume 100°F-plus by mid-afternoon. Climate-controlled indoor seating matters. So does water — our bar keeps it stocked, and every other one in this guide does too.

Planning your visit to Crow & Wolf

Our taproom is at 526 Spruce Ave, Clovis, CA 93611, near the intersection of Herndon Ave and Clovis Ave and a short walk off the Dry Creek Trail / Fresno–Clovis Rail-Trail. The brewery side of the operation is at 527 Park Creek Dr — the two parcels are connected, so if your GPS sends you to Park Creek you haven’t gone wrong, but Spruce is the customer door.

When the weather is good, our garage doors are open and the backyard patio feels more like a neighbor’s cookout than a bar. Food trucks rotate every week; the schedule goes up on Instagram @cawbrewingco on Mondays.

If you want to take something home: we sell kegs at retail in 1/6 bbl (5.16 gallons) or 1/2 bbl (15.5 gallons) formats, plus a $100 refundable deposit on the keg itself. We also ship beer and seltzer within California, and our merch ships anywhere in the US. We don’t host private events at the taproom — if that’s what you’re after, we’ll happily point you to a neighbor.

Beyond that, the best way to plan a visit is just to show up. Tell our bartenders what you usually drink and roughly what mood you’re in — they’ll pour you something worth your time.

Come see us

Clovis is a better brewery town than it gets credit for, and the way it stays that way is by treating it like a scene — not a bracket. If this guide helped, save it. If we missed a taproom that should be on it, tell us and we’ll update. And if you’ve got a free Saturday afternoon and no plan: walk under the garage doors on Spruce Ave. The first round is on us if it’s the first time we’ve met you — just tell the bartender you came in from the guide.

Written by the team at Crow & Wolf Brewing Co. Sources cited for medal credentials: US Open Beer Championship 2023 winners list (Mexican-Style Lager). Competitor menu claims verified at time of publication — if something reads out of date, please let us know.