The Greek God of Walks walks into a bar.

He owns this brewpub, so Kevin Youkilis says a brief hello to what’s left of his staff on this early Thursday afternoon. He nods toward the head of brewing operations over at the fermenting tanks before disappearing behind the counter to pour himself a cold one. Youkilis returns with a Diet Coke. Hey, even a pandemic has working hours.

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Youkilis settles into a quiet table in the back. They are all quiet tables now. Loma Brewing Company, limited to takeout and delivery these days, reports an 80 percent drop in total sales in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. And Youkilis feels fortunate because he knows other downtown businesses have it even worse.

“It’s kinda scary to think that, right?” he said in his empty restaurant.

Though he grew up in Cincinnati and found fame in Boston, the three-time All-Star lives in the Bay Area. He does so in large part because he once lost a bidding war to Gisele Bündchen at a charity auction. As his consolation that night, Youkilis wound up chatting with Julie Brady, whose brother, Tom, was apparently also an athlete in the Boston area.

Kevin and Julie got married in 2012, and they moved back to the Bay Area, closer to where the Bradys grew up.

“This is heaven on earth,’’ Youkilis said of Los Gatos. “But I joke around and tell her: ‘You took me out of a state where I was paying a lot of taxes to another state where I’m paying even more taxes.’’’

Now, even as his business struggles, the former Gold Glove infielder relishes a second career in which he gets nothing but good hops. Youkilis, 41, is basically a glorified vendor now. Get your beer, here! Ice cold beer!

“One of the cool things about owning a craft beer brewery is the fact that you can have a well-diversified portfolio of beers,’’ he said. “You kinda see which ones hit, which ones don’t and you kind of understand your crowd.

“I’m a hoppy guy. I like pale ales. I like IPAs, mainly West Coast, more on the fruity notes. There’s some great stuff coming out of New Zealand with hops. That’s the cool part about beer. It’s worldly. The history is worldly. You go around the world and now craft beer is taking off.”

Even during these tough times, Loma Brewing Company might be the cleverest place on earth. Youkilis jokes that he never made a dime off the nickname bestowed upon him by A’s executive Billy Beane, who dubbed him Euclis: The Greek God of Walks in Michael Lewis’ bestselling book, “Moneyball.”

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Youkilis seems intent on punning his way to revenge, with beer offerings that include Greek God of Hops (a floral IPA), Pour Impulse (orange zest, papaya and mixed berry) and Brogan Hearted (an oak-aged imperial stout named in honor of former Loma brewer Brogan Hunter, one of the few female head brewers in the business).

Youkilis, famously, is not Greek. His Jewish great-great-great-grandfather was a native of Romania. But he does practice martial arts, which is why there’s also a beer here called Jew-Jitsu (a hazy IPA).

“I’ve been loving doing jiu-jitsu and it’s been awesome after my playing career,’’ Youkilis said. “I’ve heard some people here were like, ‘I don’t know. That might be offensive.’ I said I don’t think you understand Jewish people. They’ll think that’s funny. They’ll like it.”

In a way, Kevin and his brother, Scott, rekindled the Youkilis family business when they bought what had been known as the Los Gatos Brewing Company in 2015. Their great-uncle, Morris Youkilis, was their first relative to make it to the United States, and he did so by running booze across the Canadian border about a century ago.

Morris was a bootlegger for Samuel Bronfman, the founder of the Seagram Company, before opening his own bar in Cincinnati.

“He came over, he got into running numbers and all that,’’ Youkilis said. “So they would run liquor from Canada down to Cincinnati. His bar was called The Brown Derby and he had horses. In fact, he died at the horse track. He was just a guy you could just picture back in the day.”

The place is far more than wordplay and anecdotes. Youkilis, a two-time World Series winner, added to his trophy case in 2017 when Loma Brewing captured two gold medals and a silver at the California Commercial Brewery of the Year competition.

It helps that Youkilis had been doing unofficial research for years. During his Red Sox career, he did charity events at Harpoon Brewery in Boston, where it finally dawned on him that well-made ale was a heck of a lot better than the Natural Lights he chugged in college. On Red Sox road trips, Youkilis began carving out time for field trips to “study” the craft beer of other regions.

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While in the Bay Area for A’s games, that meant stops at San Francisco institutions such as Anchor Steam, Magnolia Brewing, Four Point Beer Company, 21st Amendment, as well as Faction Brewing in Alameda.

“That’s the hard part about playing baseball, too — you can’t really drink too much because you’ve got a job,’’ he said, smiling wide. “San Francisco was really cool because you could go to different bars and try Pliny the Elder or different cool beers from the Russian River or various places in the Bay Area. San Francisco always had good craft beer.”

Youkilis spent 10 years in the majors and played on Boston’s curse-breaking 2004 team as well as the 2007 World Series champs. In 2008, he won the Hank Aaron Award as the best hitter in the AL after batting .312/.390/.569 with 29 homers and 115 RBIs.

But you wouldn’t know any of that based on the décor here, even if you were allowed inside. There are no Red Sox jerseys, no photographs, no bats, no gloves. There are masks, but those are on the customers lining up 6 feet apart while waiting for a four-pack or growler to go.

This brewpub, like this summer, offers zero trace of baseball.

“Every baseball fan is like, ‘Well, where is it?!’” Youkilis said. “And people think I’m crazy, but … that was my last profession.”

Youkilis retired in 2014, after plantar fasciitis ended his season in Japan, having never played for the A’s, much to Beane’s chagrin. But the Greek God of Walks remains immortal in “Moneyball” lore.

He was tearing things up for the Double-A Sea Dogs in Portland, Maine in 2003 when he got a call from his agent. Joe Bick told his client to go pick up a copy of the new Michael Lewis book about the small-market team in Oakland that unearthed the hidden value of on-base percentage.

Youkilis read, amazed, as Beane spoke rapturously of the “fat third baseman who couldn’t run, throw or field” but could get on-base at an astonishing rate. Beane, who was the A’s GM then, tried multiple times to trade for his Greek God. But his prayers went unanswered.

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“I got the book and I was like, ‘Whoa! This is wild,’’’ Youkilis said. “It was very positive, but it was also crazy, too, because fans would yell stuff like, ‘Come on! Get a walk!’ while I’m out there on-deck. And I’m thinking, ‘They want a walk? I want to hit the ball, you know?’

“Later, I had teammates in the major league who were like, ‘You’re the first player to walk to the major leagues.’ It was just a running joke.”

Remarkably, Youkilis and Beane have never chatted much about their connection. Their conversations have consisted of a few quick words when Beane crossed paths with him in the weight room at the Oakland Coliseum. (That image conjures up the line from Terry Francona, who once quipped, “I’ve seen Youkilis in the shower and he’s not the Greek God of anything.”)

Someday, Youkilis would love to have a real conversation with Beane

“I’ve been waiting for his call, I mean I live out here now,’’ he said, smiling wide. “I thought he’d hire me, you know?”

Maybe Youkilis can have him on as a guest. Earlier this month, he launched the “Greek God of Hops” podcast that focuses on beer and baseball and anything else that comes to mind. His first guest was his friend Sean Casey, the three-time All-Star first baseman, and Adam Sandler is on the docket in the next few weeks.

Youkilis does his broadcasting from the back room of the restaurant. Without any customers around the acoustics, alas, are perfect.

Youkilis has had to furlough staff, cut down on his hours of operation and soothe a customer base on edge about the restrictions surrounding the novel coronavirus. He remains grateful for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan, which he said “has been a huge success for us because it just saves us time to pay rent for two months.”

This interview took place social-distance style — sitting 6 feet apart, with a tape recorder placed strategically in the middle.

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“Everyone is so emotional,’’ Youkilis said. “Listen, I get it. People are scared. We’re trying our best. We do all the protocols. We have sanitizer. We do all the little things.”

He also keeps his eye on another struggling business. Major League Baseball and the MLBPA have gained some traction on a deal for the 2020 season, according to numerous reports Wednesday, but negotiations to date have been defined by animosity and delays.

Youkilis spent a year as a Red Sox player rep, so he has experience in exasperation. In the wake of an impasse earlier this week, he tweeted: “This is what happens when you allow people to be placed in powerful positions that don’t love the game of baseball. This is a slap in the face to the people that have dedicated their lives to make baseball special. Never been so disappointed in @MLB.”

Youkilis’ biggest beef, as a player and now, is that the owners cry poor without opening their books. He also thinks social media complicates negotiations that were going to be difficult no matter what.

“What I don’t like about what’s become of our society is that we love to leak things out to gain an advantage and make people look bad,’’ he said. “I don’t like that. If it’s the players, if it’s agents, if it’s the owners — I never liked that because it’s not good negotiations.

“You gotta sit down at the table. You gotta negotiate things in-house. And you gotta negotiate with respect. And I think what’s happened now is we’re using people within the media to voice frustrations. And then fans get really into it and they’re not hearing the whole message because it’s third-, fourth-, fifth-hand. So, for me, personally, I think the players — if they speak out — people won’t ever understand.”

I’ve never been more worried about the state of baseball from amateur to MLB than I am today. Covid has brought on new issues but there are greater issues from top to bottom. Everyone that loves this game needs to reflect & make sure this game is better tomorrow than it is today!

— Kevin Youkilis (@GreekGodOfHops) June 14, 2020

While he was at it, Youkilis also took aim at the owner who once ran his hometown team. The late Marge Schott had a history of making slurs and other offensive comments while presiding over the Cincinnati Reds; Major League Baseball banned her from the team’s day-to-day operations in 1993, hastening the end of her reign. Among Schott’s most notorious quotes was the time she said Hitler was “good at the beginning” but then “went too far.”

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Youkilis nearly lost sight of this, though, when his alma mater called trying to arrange an honor for him during his playing days. The University of Cincinnati baseball program told Youkilis that if he hit a specific dollar amount with his next donation, they’d rename their facility “Kevin Youkilis Field at Marge Schott Stadium.”

Financially, it was a tall order, but Youkilis excitedly called his father, also a University of Cincinnati alum, and suggested they work together with other family members to secure a “Youkilis Field” (i.e., without the “Kevin”).

“My dad said, ‘Oh, that’s really cool and that’s a great honor, but, you’re never putting the Youkilis name next to Marge Schott,’’’ Youkilis recalled. “Being a part of the Jewish community and all that, my dad just was so opposed to that and he was a little taken aback why no one had thought it through.”

More recently, Youkilis is supporting UC team captain Nathan Moore and former University of Cincinnati player Jordan Ramey in their effort to change the stadium name. Moore, a senior pitcher, said the campus ballpark “is honoring an individual who was openly racist.”

Youkilis doesn’t want to erase history, but he said that players ought to be proud of where they play. He said complicated chapters of history should be addressed in something like the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., where controversial figures can be presented in fuller context.

“Tell the whole story,’’ Youkilis said. “Show the anger, show the hate because the younger generations need to know history in order to understand and feel it.”

Schott agreed to sell her controlling interest in the Reds in 1999. She died in 2004 at age 75.

“Thank God they didn’t put up a statue,’’ Youkilis said.

Proud of the peaceful protests that have gone through the @TownLG this week. @LomaBrew is proud to be a part of these protests that stand up for justice and a better tomorrow! ✌🏻✌🏼✌🏽✌🏾✌🏿 #LomaBrew #BLM #LoveOverHate pic.twitter.com/rE0JFmxPXs

— Kevin Youkilis (@GreekGodOfHops) June 6, 2020

The latest beer offering from Loma Brewing Company acknowledges these troubled times. It’s the ironically titled Makeout Session, a blonde ale with a hint of mint.

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It’s an ode to that bygone era of human contact, back before COVID-19. The tagline on the can says, “Love in the Time of Corona.” The logo featured two cats looking longingly at each other while wearing masks. (Loma’s mascot is Leo the Cat.)

“And it’s been a hit. I mean, people love it,’’ Youkilis said. “They like the name. They like the beer. It’s a refreshing beer, good hoppy. … I think some people get scared off by the mint or think ‘mint mojito?’ But it’s more just like refreshing, the feel of the beer. You don’t taste the mint. You taste the hops, and it’s just little more refreshing at the end.”

The beers here are mostly the creation of Justin Peck, the head of brewing operations. His barebones crew also includes general manager Dan Reineke, a former University of Cincinnati teammate; and executive chef Aubree Arndt.

Now, they are eager to see some familiar faces again. To borrow from the theme song from “Cheers” — the TV show about a former Red Sox star who owned a bar:

Making your way in the world today

Takes everything you’ve got

Taking a break from all your worries

It sure would help a lot

Wouldn’t you like to get away?

— Reported from Los Gatos

(Photo: Daniel Brown / The Athletic)

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