2025 Homebrew Summer participants
This year’s pro-am collaboration program will include 20 commercial brewing companies and scores of San Diego County homebrewers
In 2021, San Diego Beer News launched an initiative designed to further strengthen the historic link between the county’s professional and recreational brewers. Dubbed Homebrew Summer, the program allowed commercial breweries to share homebrew-scaled recipes for some of their most popular beers, while also providing a vehicle for pro brewers to team up with amateurs to produce their homespun recipes at local breweries. Behind the generosity of San Diego’s craft-beer community, Homebrew Summer was a hit, and it has taken place each year since.
In the past four years, 41 breweries have worked with homebrewers to brew 68 pro-am beers in association with Homebrew Summer. Additionally, 27 brewing companies have shared recipes for their commercial beers.
This year’s call for participants turned up a total of 20 breweries and brewpubs, eight of which are first-time participants. On the amateur side, just under 40 beer recipes were submitted for those businesses’ consideration. The following are the brewing companies and homebrewers who are taking part in the 2025 edition of Homebrew Summer (not including BLAH Brewing, which is still in the planning stages).
- Backyard Brewery / Anthony Flores: Saison
- Ballast Point Brewing / Jacob Gottlieb: Biere de Garde
- Breakwater Brewing * / Matt Allen: Porter
- Citizen Brewers * / Eli Palma: Horchata Mild & Horchata Wee Heavy
- Fox Point Brewing * / Tom Rankin: Honey Pale Ale
- Gravity Heights / Chris van Hamersveld: Irish-style Red Ale
- Home Brew Mart / Kevin Stamer: Pale Ale
- Ketch Brewing * / Ocean Beach Brewers Guild: Belgian-style Golden Strong Ale
- Lightning Brewery / Luis Bojorquez & Roxy Garcia: Kölsch
- Nickel Beer Co. / Brandon Hernández: West Coast IPA
- Night Parade Brewing * / John Bell: Pale Ale
- Pizza Port * / Louie Ilievski: Rye IPA
- The Roadies Brewing * / Ryan Reschan: Dark Czech-style Lager
- San Diego Brewing Co. * / Jeff Battles: Hefeweizen
- Stone Brewing / Jared Rowley: Rye Extra Pale Ale
Additionally, the following brewing companies have signed on to contribute homebrew-scaled recipes for beers out of their commercial portfolios…
* indicates first-time participant
This year’s pro-am beers will be brewed and released to the public throughout the summer (now through Monday, September 22), often including special tapping events with the homebrewer on-hand to enjoy their moment in the spotlight. We will share the release information and recipes for those beers, as well as the homebrew-scaled commercial-beer recipes, via our website, across San Diego Beer News’ social-media channels and in our weekly email newsletter.
As has been the case since Homebrew Summer’s inception, the staff at Home Brew Mart will lend a hand by transcribing all of the recipes we will share. And for the second year in a row, we are happy to have SoCal Brewing Supply as Homebrew Summer’s banner sponsor. This year, that Vista homebrew-supply store will have kits for each Homebrew Summer beer for sale to help locals tackle these recipes on the home-front.
Big thanks go out to both of these businesses for helping to keep this program thriving for San Diego County brewers of all ilks. Cheers and happy homebrewing!