Production of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) was carried out in Erlenmeyer flasks by Lactobacillus brevis NCL912. Traditional methods were first adopted to select the key factors that impact the GABA production to preliminarily determine the suitable concentration ranges of the key factors. It was found that glucose, soya peptone, Tween-80 and MnSO(4).4H(2)O were the key factors affecting GABA production. Then, response surface methodology was applied to analyze the optimum contents of the four key factors in the medium, and the production of GABA was predicted as 349.69 mM under the optimized conditions with this model. Afterward, the experiment was performed under the optimized conditions, and the yield of GABA reached 345.83 mM, which was 130% higher than the initial medium. The results showed that experimental yield and predicted values of GABA yield were in good agreement.