When Patrick Raymond and Glenn Jansen were preparing to open Discovery Bay Brewing in 2018, they headed over to Levi Liberty’s home-brew supply shop in Port Angeles.

“They came in looking for some contacts to buy some equipment,” Liberty said, “and I connected them with the gentleman that sold them their first brew system.”

After six years and countless beers, the aging pair, ready to retire, decided to step out from behind the bar and hand their taps over to a new brewer. Earlier this month, 38-year-old Liberty, who boasts nearly 20 years of homebrewing experience, reopened the doors at 948 N. Park Ave. under a new name: Social Fabric Brewing.

“We felt he was a good fit for carrying on the brewery,” said Raymond, who has already stopped in a couple of times to see (and taste) what’s been brewing, both in the space itself and in Liberty’s seven-barrel system. “It’s a good atmosphere. Hopefully all our old customers will go there and feel comfortable.”

Liberty doesn’t plan to host live music nearly as often as Discovery Bay did, but he does hope to foster a similar sense of community, using good beer to grease the wheels of social connection.

“Let’s all drink some social lubricant at the same table, put our phones down and have a conversation,” Liberty said.

“Bars and breweries were kind of the original social media, where you could overhear conversations and share the news of the day. I want this to be a place where we can get back to that.”

That sentiment certainly resonated with Derek Jonsson, one of three people Liberty hired to tend bar at the brewery. Jonsson, who lives nearby, didn’t have to apply. Instead, he ran into Liberty organically as he was walking his dog past the brewery one day when Liberty was adding gravel to the brewery’s outdoor beer garden.

“I just struck up a conversation with him and here we are,” said Jonsson, who was also drawn to Liberty’s long-held passion for brewing beer.

In fact, Liberty brewed his first beer as a child, under the tutelage of his uncle.

“He’d be making beer and I’d have a batch of root beer going at the same time,” Liberty said.

At 19, Liberty’s mom got him a kettle along with “The Complete Joy of Homebrewing” by Charlie Papazian.

“I read the book in like two days and started brewing immediately,” he said. “I kind of got obsessed.”

His first brew? A clone of Sierra Nevada Brewing’s American pale ale.

“I’d heard it was good,” he said with a sarcastic grin, admitting that, unlike most of his underage peers, his favorite beers at the time were not the likes of Bud Light and Natural Ice.

In his 20s, Liberty joined the North Olympic Brewers Guild, which was born out of the same home-brew supply shop — Angeles Brewing Supplies — that he would later purchase. He still owns that shop in Port Angeles, where he lives with his wife and two kids.

Since purchasing the fully intact brewery earlier this summer, Liberty has been taking full advantage of shiny new tanks and other brewing equipment that Raymond and Jansen installed shortly before selling the business.

Right now, customers will find four IPAs, a Czech pilsner and a fruited sour on tap when they belly up to the bar, as well as several offerings from other local breweries, including a blond and a stout left over from Discovery Bay Brewing, plus a cider from FinnRiver Farm & Cidery and a saison from Propolis.

Those IPAs include a hazy and a West Coast style, as well as a version of each featuring an addition of hop oil from a farm in New Zealand.

“It just elevates the aromatics of the beer, gives it a nice nose and maybe a little bit more perceived bitterness,” Liberty said.

Hop oil “is kind of a newer thing,” he said, recalling how he first came across it in April while having a beer at Superflux Beer Company in Victoria, B.C.

“I was like, ‘What the heck is this stuff?’ It smells amazing,” said Liberty, who reached out directly to the farmer who produces the oil and ordered some for his own beers.

He also has several new beers brewing in the back, including a lagered Kolsch ale, another sour ale and another West Coast IPA, a brown ale with lactose and coffee additions, a German pilsner, an oatmeal stout and an imperial stout, various versions of which will feature coconut, vanilla and coffee from Rainshadow Coffee Roasting in Sequim.

With fall on the way, he also plans to brew a Czech dark lager and a traditional festbier, among others.

On top of that, Liberty has 100 pounds each of newly harvested Simcoe and Mosaic hops on order to make some seasonal fresh-hop beers.

“Once I get more inventory, I plan to get some of these beers into other places around town,” said Liberty, noting that the only place outside of his brewery serving his beer currently is Yodelin in Port Angeles, which is pouring his Czech pilsner. “And I also want to collaborate on special beers with other businesses and nonprofits in the area.”

As for live music, Social Fabric is planning to host Port Angeles-based alt-rock cover band Three Two Many at 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 31. Beyond occasional music, Liberty plans to host a regular trivia night and, when October comes around, an Oktoberfest in the beer garden.

“I’m really open to anything and everything,” Liberty said, “and I’m super excited to grow with this community.”