The Wonder Begins
“Beer only starts the conversation.”
Issue No. 1 March 2026, San Rafael, CA
The future home of Excelsior, San Rafael.
Friends,
After thirty years in beer, I’ve come to believe that the places we build matter as much as the things we serve in them.
Beer may be the star but the real work, the most rewarding work, is building something that belongs to a place and to the people who gather there. It’s creating community around the beer, providing the setting and opportunity for beer to work its magic. This newsletter will chronicle that journey, revealing hidden splendors along the way, not least of which is the road to opening Excelsior, Hidden Splendor’s flagship pub and restaurant in downtown San Rafael.
A newsletter needs a name. We’re calling it The Wonder.
Why The Wonder?
The answer starts with the arrival of Jacob and Annie Albert, immigrants from Eastern Europe who settled in Marin County in the early 1890s. Jacob started his new California life in Tocaloma in West Marin, selling household goods out of a backpack to local dairy farmers. He moved on to San Rafael, where he sold his wares from a horse-drawn cart. By 1895, Jacob Albert had established his business in a proper storefront in downtown San Rafael. It was called The Wonder, a dry-goods store on Fourth Street near the corner of B Street.
The Wonder dry goods store, San Rafael, 1895. Courtesy Marin History Museum.
Jacob and Annie lived above the shop, and The Wonder quickly became a trusted destination, offering affordable necessities while reflecting the Alberts’ personal investment in their customers and neighborhood. It became known around town as “The People’s Store” and Jacob Albert became known as “The Merchant Prince”.
San Rafael was growing, and so was Jacob’s enterprise. In 1917, Jacob Albert moved his business, now proudly known as Albert’s Department Store, into the brand new Herzog–Rake Building, a four-story commercial building at the corner of Fourth and A Streets.
The relocation was front-page news and a civic event in its own right, celebrated as proof that San Rafael had “arrived” as a modern shopping destination. Albert’s became a cornerstone of downtown commerce, a place where families shopped not only for goods but also for the experience of being part of a vibrant city center.
Albert’s Department Store was a success and in 1930, at the corner of Fourth and B, directly across from where Jacob’s first store had begun, the Albert Building rose. With its three floors of offices above ground-floor retail, the Albert Building was Jacob Albert’s own ambitious contribution to downtown San Rafael’s transformation and growth.
Jacob Albert felt his advantages in life came from his community and he felt strongly about giving back. In 1937, Jacob and Annie deeded nine acres of land to the City of San Rafael, land that would become Albert Park and Field, a gathering place that continues to serve generations of families. He also donated the El Camino Theater as a gift to the people of San Rafael and funded the building of a boys club for the city’s youth. These acts of civic generosity cemented the Alberts’ reputation as benefactors who gave back to the city that had given them a home.
Nearly 100 years after it was built, Hidden Splendor enters this story through the doors of 1132 Fourth Street, located on the ground floor of Jacob Albert’s namesake building. His story is an inspirational one and lessons gleaned from his decades of serving and nurturing his community are every bit as relevant to a good, neighborhood pub as they are a dry goods business. And it all started across the street at The Wonder.
Excelsior!
Excelsior means “ever upward” which gives us something to strive for. And with all things Hidden Splendor, Excelsior included, we subscribe enthusiastically to the saying that how you do anything is how you do everything. Meaning, every detail matters every bit as much as the beer. Of course we’ll brew the best beer we possibly can and serve it fresh. But you should also expect delicious, thoughtfully sourced food, excellent cocktails, good wine, a space that feels like home, and most importantly, warm and genuine hospitality. Love is in the details.
These are wild and trying times. Sometimes, at least for an hour or two, the antidote to world weariness can be found in a pint and a good meal, maybe something cooked in the wood burning oven. We all need the kind of pleasure, comfort, and connection a good pub can offer. We could all use a little hedonistic nourishment from time to time. And I hope Excelsior provides that for you on a regular basis.
If we aren’t making memories in addition to beer, we’re doing something wrong. Mickey Hart once said about the Grateful Dead, “We’re not in the music business. We’re in the transportation business. We transport minds.”
I’ve always felt something similar about brewing and restaurants. We’re here to make memories.
Hidden Splendor Beer
Beer is our through line, our dot connector, our reason to exist at Hidden Splendor. If you've been drinking Hidden Splendor beer around the Bay Area (and thank you for doing so if you have), you already know some of our favorite beers to brew and drink. I love hoppy beers as much as the next brewer and there will be plenty but Hidden Splendor focuses on the kinds of balanced, nuanced, subtle, easy drinking beers that go best with food, conversation and good times.
It was no accident we kicked things off with Goin’ Home ESB. ESB is a criminally underrepresented style these days but it was also the first beer I brewed at Magnolia almost 30 years ago. I loved the style then and I still love it now. And enough of you seem to agree so we can keep brewing it. What a relief.
Kölsch is another longtime personal favorite, another beer that has more going on that is evident at first sip, but one where the second or third glass also seems like a good idea. Here Comes Sunshine Kölsch checks both of those boxes, even more so when served in the style’s traditional stange glass.
Our current lineup also includes a more modern (but still highly sessionable) XPA, Just a Dream, that straddles the Atlantic with its US/UK combo of hops. At the other end of the spectrum is Docks of the City Porter, also combining US and British hops but in the form of a dry but pitch black beer that’s both comforting and refreshing.
Brand new to the lineup are Rhapsody in Red, a traditional British ruby mild ale, and Pebbles & Marbles, a nice little hoppy number we’re calling a Burton Ale. Next up: a Czech pilsner (hello side-pull faucet and German gravity kegs…we’ll be getting to you soon enough).
And let us not forget the collabs. It’s been an absolute joy to reconnect with so many brewer friends this past year and to brew with them at their breweries while ours is in the works. Thank you to Harmonic (Hands of Time Pale Ale), Olfactory (Dark Star Mild), Headlands (Old is New Best Bitter), Touchstone (Barleywine), Standard Deviant (Keller Pils), and Old Caz (Proper Splendor Best Bitter). Can’t wait for the next one!
Nearly every Hidden Splendor beer (including those collabs) begins with California-grown, floor malted grain from Admiral Maltings because there’s really nothing like freshly kilned malt (that hasn’t traveled thousands of miles). Malt is the soul of beer, after all. And most of these beers are at their absolute best on cask, should you be lucky enough to find a place that serves cask ale these days (which is a good teaser for the story of Excelsior’s five beer engines coming in the next edition of The Wonder).
We’ll tell the deeper stories behind these beers and more in future issues of The Wonder.
What a Beer Week!
Hidden Splendor pouring at SF Beer Week.
Hidden Splendor’s first SF Beer Week rocketed by in a blur but what a great time. From the sellout crowd at the opening festival at Salesforce Park to the last Sunday roast that left the kitchen at The Rake on the final day of Beer Week, the mood was energetic and elevated. This is such a great beer culture here in the Bay Area and Beer Week shows that off like none other. It’s not too early to start thinking about/planning the Beer Week events we’ll host at Excelsior next year. Big thanks to the Bay Area Brewers Guild and all of the Beer Week sponsors and volunteers for making this year such a success!
What to Expect from The Wonder
The Wonder is about community: building it, nurturing it, cultivating it, celebrating it, and serving it. The Hidden Splendor community is full of friends and friends we haven’t met yet. The Wonder is our way of sharing what we’re working on, what excites us, what we can’t wait to share with you, and where the journey goes from here. And we’d love nothing more than for you to join us on this journey.
In the words of the Grateful Dead, who printed this on their 1971 Skull & Roses album jacket, Who are you? Where are you? How are you? That invitation to connect helped create the legendary bond between the Dead and deadheads that still exists to this day. We humans are social creatures and, even in these exhausting times, we can still find some ways to have a little fun together. So follow along, enjoy the ride, and stay in touch. We’re here for you.
If this made you think of a friend who might enjoy these musings, feel free to pass it along. And if there’s a pub somewhere that has stuck with you over the years—the kind of place that just felt perfect—I’d love to hear about it.
I’m glad you’re here at the beginning.
Ever upward.
Dave
Hidden Splendor Fine Beer Co.
