As we work our way through the last, fleeting moments of 2025, rocketing toward a brand-new 365-day span, we’re pausing to look back on the year that was. It’s a San Diego Beer News tradition to reveal the 25 news stories that garnered the most engagement among our readership (not including standard fare about events and beer competitions results or features such as our travel guides, Beer of the Week pieces and brewery-staff spotlights). But there was so much going on in the local brewing community over the past 12 months, that we decided to take things further, presenting the top 50 articles. The following are numbers 1 through 10.
10. Beer Briefs: A rebrand, chef reunion and brewery no-go
September 29, 2025
This roundup included news of a brewery-equipped South Oceanside bar and restaurant that previously birthed three beer operations – Mason Ale Works, Municipal Beer Co. and Heritage Brewing – being rebranded by its new owner as Hill Street Brewing, as well as longtime San Marcos beer hub Churchill’s Pub onboarding Executive Chef Schuyler Schultz. A toque who worked with the pub’s owner for a decade at his other North County restaurant, The Bellows, he is slowly expanding food options with an eye toward worldliness. Closing things out was news that an entrepreneur’s bid to convert the former La Mesa home of Bolt Brewery into a pet-friendly beer-and-coffee concept called Breeds & Brew had fallen apart, and that all brewing and cellar equipment had been moved off the property..
9. Beer Briefs: An opening, closing and name change
May 7, 2025
The inaugural edition of our quick-hit news roundups launched with the announcement that, after years of searching for a suitable satellite spot, Kearny Mesa’s Hopnonymous Brewing was taking over the Normal Heights tasting room previously operated by Little Miss Brewing. Contrastingly, it also shared news that, after nearly two years in North Park, Oceanside-based Black Plague Brewing had made the tough decision to shutter its aptly monikered taproom, Dearly Departed. In other naming news, we shared that the business formerly known as Thorn Street Brewery had changed its handle to Little Bird Brewing, following the sale of its distribution-focused brand, Thorn Brewing, to Latitude Brewing.
8. Jake Cronenworth teams with Harland Brewing
April 16, 2025
Over the years, with Tony Gwynn, Joe Musgrove and even Heath Bell having found success teaming with local breweries to concoct collaboration beers, current San Diego Padres infielder Jake Cronenworth decided it was time to wade into the suds scene. In doing so, he partnered with Scripps Ranch-based Harland Brewing, which worked with the Friars fixture to produce a drinkability-focused American light lager dubbed “Crone Zone”. The beer debuted in April, while the Padres were tearing through the best season start in club history, fueling the fire of the Friar Faithful who overran Harland’s headquarters when Cronenworth dropped in for an August meet-and-greet with fans.
7. Closing the door on Half Door Brewing
February 12, 2025
Before baseball season could get started, the owners of a pre- and post-game locale many Friars fans were familiar with, Half Door Brewing, announced they had sold the business to Anaheim-based Villains Brewing and would be closing after a decade in the East Village. Installed in a historic, two-story house just a block from Petco Park, the brewpub was a passion project of a pro-brewer brother and hospitality-maven sister who grew up working at their family business, venerable downtown Irish pub The Field. Homey and heartfelt, Half Door paid equal homage to the Emerald Isle and the Capital of Craft.
6. Harland Brewing lands new resto and chef
July 2, 2025
As if working with one of the Padres weren’t enough, this year Harland Brewing also took over the 3,400-square-foot space in 4S Ranch’s Del Sur Town Center that previously housed Ponce’s Mexican restaurant. They have since been hard at work converting it into their second eatery under the direction of Culinary Director of Operations Scott Cannon (formerly of brewery-equipped Rancho Bernardo restaurant, The Cork & Craft) who was brought on over the summer to help advance the company’s food offerings at all of its locations, including the recently added kitchen at its Scripps Ranch taproom, The Ocotillo by Harland.
5. GOAL. Brewing exiting Brewery Igniter facility
March 3, 2025
Before it even opened, GOAL. Brewing was one of the most highly anticipated new breweries to hit the county in the past decade. That had everything to do with that involvement of award-winning brewer Derek Gallanosa, a native who brewed for Karl Strauss Brewing and Abnormal Beer Co. before moving to Northern California in 2017 to lead beer-making for startup Moksa Brewing. That business was – and remains – a huge success, but Gallanosa missed home and was happy to return and take an ownership stake in GOAL. Launched within North Park’s lease-to-brew Brewery Igniter facility in 2023, it was a hit early on, but a lack of profitability led founder Jay Pizarro to abruptly pull the plug less than two years in, making for some sad and surprising news.
4. Little Miss Brewing to close at week’s end
March 13, 2025
In 2016, a married couple who owned multiple Arizona bars, moved to San Diego and teamed with a Societe Brewing expat to launch a business called Little Miss Brewing. While its Miramar brewery did not initially include a taproom, public venues were the bread-and-butter of the couple’s business plan. The company expanded randomly, including to neighborhoods that had no other brewery-owned venues, and it wasn’t long before they operated more locations (10) than any other local brewing company. Despite that prolificity, market challenges ultimately proved insurmountable.
3. Black Plague succumbs to tough market
September 29, 2025
Thanks to quality beer, a motif blending the hilarious and the macabre, and having a retired pro-skateboarder as the founding face of the business, Black Plague Brewing was popular among beer fans and the craft intelligentsia alike. Opened in 2017, it spawned a second location called The Purgatory Lounge in Escondido, which gave way to another taproom in North Park, Dearly Departed. Expansion that would have been par-for-the-course five years earlier equated to overextension during times that are far more challenging for craft breweries, forcing ownership to ground the North Park satellite so it could continue to fight the good fight. Despite doing so, Black Plague was unable to overcome an array of obstacles. The business shut down the last weekend of September, but not before leaving behind a proud legacy for its many fans.
2. Look who’s back on the brew deck
October 29, 2025
When GOAL. Brewing closed, Derek Gallanosa was left in search of a job. Rather than call upon his robust list of brewery contacts to see who might have an opening, he announced he had decided to depart the brewing industry altogether. Over the next six months, he visited Southern California breweries, enjoying them as a civilian and finding himself not wanting to bid that world adieu. When he learned of a head-brewer position at Chula Vista Brewery, mere blocks from where he had grown up, he threw his hat in the ring. In September, he was hired and is now in charge of that company’s pair of brewing facilities in downtown Chula Vista and Eastlake, where he is slowly working to refine the eight-year-old concern’s recipes and determine how he can best add to its overall portfolio.
1. Ballast Point exiting Miramar
October 8, 2025
The tale of Ballast Point Brewing being purchased by Constellation Brands for $1 billion dollars is legendary. The long and winding saga that followed – Constellation selling the brand to an investment group for a mere fraction of that amount, followed by a half-decade of multifarious struggles, the shuttering of locations and a switch to contract-brewing following the sale of Ballast Point’s Miramar brewery (the largest in San Diego County) to Athletic Brewing in 2024 – is far less sexy. The latest chapter saw ownership decline to renew the lease on the bar and restaurant on the south end of the aforementioned Miramar facility. The move left Ballast Point with only one San Diego location, its R&D brewery, kitchen and taproom in downtown’s Little Italy neighborhood, but that should only be temporary, as the company (along with new investors and executives) is many months into a countywide search for sites to set up multiple public venues in 2026.
Click here to see which of this year’s news stories ranked 11 through 20