While well-known for their pay-by-the-ounce beer wall, Green River Brewing and Taproom has a long history of giving back to their hometown, making the family-owned restaurant a well-loved staple in the Winters community.

Located on the bank of Putah Creek, Green River is known for hosting huge cornhole tournaments, concerts and even weddings in addition to working with several nonprofits.

“We let nonprofits use the park for fundraisers and award ceremonies or whatever because that’s kind of what I built it for,” explained owner John Neil previously. “I built it so people could come here and use it.”

The most recent organization being welcomed in by Green River is the Winters Theatre Company, who will be performing their production of “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding.” The production is an audience participation comedy with audience members having the opportunity to join along in the wedding festivities as guests at Tony and Tina’s wedding.

Green River will be catering dinner during the show. The production is set for May 5 to 7. For tickets, go to https://www.winterstheatre.org/.

“It’s going to be really neat,” Neil emphasized. “It’s the first time I’ve ever allowed an outside organization to come in and take over the ticket sales but it’s something I feel strongly about. Me and my daughter were in the theater when we were younger. Green Rivers is the perfect place to do it.”

Perhaps the business’s biggest draw, however, besides the beer wall, which hosts 25 beers on tap that customers can sample and refill at their leisure, is the cornhole tournaments.

“We have a traveling team that I sponsor that has some of the top players in the world on it,” Neil said.

The team travels all around California and even out-of-state, competing in places such as Las Vegas and Arizona. According to Neil, cornhole is a huge part of their business, with the brewery hosting cornhole fundraisers, playing cornhole league on Thursday nights and putting on a cornhole tournament series called the Green River Tour.

“It just seemed to be a really good group of people,” Neil said while speaking to the heavy turnout that cornhole brings to the business. “A really good draw to Green River, the kind of people that we want, you know, that come and hang out all day and bring their kids and just really good people.”

The expansive four-acre property also allows customers to relax by fire puts, play volleyball and enjoy live music. For the kids, Neil recently finished revamping the “kid’s zone,” which is complete with a dunk tank, slip n slide and water slide. The “kid’s zone” will be open all summer.

With all the activities available at Green River, patrons are sure to work up an appetite and Neil was excited to share that he recently brought on a new chef that is currently rewriting their menu and doing some “exciting new stuff.”

With beer-battered fish and chips made with Green River’s own brew War of the Oranges, the addition of a new smoker and the return of the reuben, artisan pizza and other barbeque dishes, the brewery’s menu is full of delectable choices.

According to Neil, War of the Oranges is a favorite among customers with Bike Dog, Racer 5 and Firestone Walker products also being popular. In fact, Green River was the largest single point distributor of Firestone Walker, which is perhaps most well-known for their 805 beer, in California.

Due to the brewery’s ability to have 25 brews on their wall as well as different beers behind the bar, downstairs and on their beer trailer in the park area, Green River boasts several selections for their customers with even more waiting in the beer cooler.

“I have a hundred different kinds of beer in the beer cooler just waiting to be put on tap,” Neil explained. “So we can really select from about a hundred different kinds of beer at any given time.”

For the rest of the year, Neil said they have several more events on the horizon like some exciting musical performances including a Fourth of July concert series and the return of the Haunted Forest, a unique outdoor experience that entails a 30-minute walk through dense forests where customers can encounter spooky scenes, characters and creatures, for the Halloween season.

Even with all the exciting events, Neil emphasized that the most important and best part of his business really is his customers and being part of the Winters community.

“All these people that come here are my friends first. They’re friends and family and acquaintances first before they’re my customers,” Neil said. “So that really matters to me. We like to hire people from our own town but more than that I’ve been in Winters for 37 years. My wife has been in Winters her whole life. We raised our kids here.

“You can really be a part of Winters if you want to be. If you want to make change, you just get in there and make change. We love being a part of our community. We love donating. We love hiring nonprofit organizations to help us out so they can make a little money. It’s been a good run. It’s pretty cool.”

Green River Brewing and Taproom is located at 4513 Putah Creek Rd. and is open Sunday to Thursday from 11 a.m. — 10 p.m., Fridays from 11 — 12 a.m., and Saturdays from 10 — 12 a.m. For more information or a full list of the beers currently available on the wall, visit their website at https://greenrivertaproom.net/.